Not sure
June 15, 2021
I do not share the opinion Lorne Vanderwoude expressed in his letter to the editor in last week’s Booster. His Just Sayin’ letter alludes to a massive coverup of deaths of Indigenous children at the Kamloops Residential School. He suggests to Booster readers the likelihood of unmarked graves of native children at hundreds of other schools in Canada. He asks why these children’s deaths were not revealed years ago. Why such a massive cover up? He plants the seed of widespread “foul play”.
Much work and money has already been invested in learning more about the benefits and atrocities of residential schools across Canada. Compensation for wrongdoings has been previously paid by government, on behalf of taxpayers.
I have employed a number of Indigenous people in my career, part of which was in Kamloops. I knew many other Indigenous people. Some told me they did not like the residential schools. Many had children attending from faraway places so that the children couldn’t run home. Most, however, were grateful that their kids could get quality education.
Citizens of Kamloops were well aware of the massive unmarked cemetery containing bodies of children from the school. It operated from 1890 to 1960. At its peak in the ’50s, 500 students attended. Media is not currently reporting, with complete accuracy, the entire story of this site. It took some 50 to 70 years of burials in side-by-side graves to reach that 215 number now circulating world-wide. Conspiracy theories of priests and teachers murdering and secretly burying are rampant.
We mustn’t forget that tuberculosis was a major disease in the province, and it didn’t spare children. From the 1890s to the 1950s, it took many lives. The 1914-18 Spanish Flu killed a disproportionate number of Indigenous children. Even ordinary influenza was deadly for the Indigenous. Other diseases that aren’t common today–whooping cough, smallpox, meningitis and measles–took lives. It seems to me that Indigenous people didn’t have the immune system to fight off diseases well. Infected children entered schools and infected others. Many died.
I agree that there are many forgotten cemeteries in Canada. It’s likely that the reality of many diseases without cures of the day are responsible for countless deaths. Between Heisler and Strome, when there was an actual Spring Lake, Father Beillevaire and Father Lacombe are reported to have laid 74 Indigenous people to rest.
The Kamloops discovery is a reflection of history. We have to be more cautious about turning this situation into something it may not actually be.
I do not share the opinion Lorne Vanderwoude expressed in his letter to the editor in last week’s Booster. His Just Sayin’ letter alludes to a massive coverup of deaths of Indigenous children at the Kamloops Residential School. He suggests to Booster readers the likelihood of unmarked graves of native children at hundreds of other schools in Canada. He asks why these children’s deaths were not revealed years ago. Why such a massive cover up? He plants the seed of widespread “foul play”.
Much work and money has already been invested in learning more about the benefits and atrocities of residential schools across Canada. Compensation for wrongdoings has been previously paid by government, on behalf of taxpayers.
I have employed a number of Indigenous people in my career, part of which was in Kamloops. I knew many other Indigenous people. Some told me they did not like the residential schools. Many had children attending from faraway places so that the children couldn’t run home. Most, however, were grateful that their kids could get quality education.
Citizens of Kamloops were well aware of the massive unmarked cemetery containing bodies of children from the school. It operated from 1890 to 1960. At its peak in the ’50s, 500 students attended. Media is not currently reporting, with complete accuracy, the entire story of this site. It took some 50 to 70 years of burials in side-by-side graves to reach that 215 number now circulating world-wide. Conspiracy theories of priests and teachers murdering and secretly burying are rampant.
We mustn’t forget that tuberculosis was a major disease in the province, and it didn’t spare children. From the 1890s to the 1950s, it took many lives. The 1914-18 Spanish Flu killed a disproportionate number of Indigenous children. Even ordinary influenza was deadly for the Indigenous. Other diseases that aren’t common today–whooping cough, smallpox, meningitis and measles–took lives. It seems to me that Indigenous people didn’t have the immune system to fight off diseases well. Infected children entered schools and infected others. Many died.
I agree that there are many forgotten cemeteries in Canada. It’s likely that the reality of many diseases without cures of the day are responsible for countless deaths. Between Heisler and Strome, when there was an actual Spring Lake, Father Beillevaire and Father Lacombe are reported to have laid 74 Indigenous people to rest.
The Kamloops discovery is a reflection of history. We have to be more cautious about turning this situation into something it may not actually be.