My Name is Seepeetza

Today my teacher Mr. Oiko taught us how to write journals. You have to put the date and place at the top of the page. Then you write about what happens during the day. I like journals because I love writing whatever I want. Mr. Oiko says a good way to start is to talk about yourself, where you live, your age, grade, what kind of family you have.
My name is Martha Stone. I am twelve years old in grade six at the Kalamak Indian Residential School. It’s next to the Tomas River across from the city of Kalamak, British Columbia. The school is four storeys high. It’s a big red brick building with a
church steeple right in the middle above the chapel. The kitchen and dining room are under the chapel. The boys live on the left and the girls live on the right. Next to the river is the school farm where there are dairy cows and vegetable fields.
There are four hundred of us Indian students here and we come from all over B.C. The principal is Father Sloane, a priest. Six other priests here are
missionaries. They go to different Indian reserves to say Mass on Sunday. Ten nuns are teachers and girls’ supervisors. Sister Theodosia is the
intermediate supervisor. We call her Sister Theo.
We are divided into juniors grades one to four, intermediates grades five to eight, and seniors grades nine to twelve. Each group stays in different dormitories called dorms, and recreation rooms called recs. We’re not allowed to leave our own rec or dorm except for meals.
The nuns and priests have their own dining rooms, but we eat in the main dining room. There’s a wall between the boys’ side and girls’ side.
One of the Sisters watches us eat, but not when we walk back to our recs. That’s when my sisters Dorothy and Missy and I sometimes hold hands as
we walk down the hall. It’s the happiest part of my day.
My best friend is my cousin Cookie. Her mother is Mamie, my mum’s sister. Cookie is only my friend sometimes because she’s in grade five and mostly she plays with her grade five friends. I told Cookie I want to write secret journals for one year. She won’t tell on me. I’ll write a short one
every day for Mr. Oiko. Then in Thursday library time and on weekends when Sister Theo is busy I’ll write this one in a writing tablet titled arithmetic.
I’ll get in trouble if I get caught. Sister Theo checks our letters home. We’re not allowed to say anything about the school. I might get the strap, or worse. Last year some boys ran away from school because one of the priests was doing something bad to them. The boys were caught and whipped. They had their heads shaved and they had to wear dresses and
kneel in the dining room and watch everybody eat. They only had bread and water to eat for a week. Everybody was supposed to laugh at them and
make fun of them but nobody did.
I don’t like school. We have to come here every September and stay until June. My dad doesn’t like it either, but he says it’s the law. All status Indian kids have to go to residential schools.
My dad is Frank Stone. He’s a rancher. My mum is Marie Stone. I have an older brother called Jimmy. He’s eighteen. My sister Dorothy is sixteen.
My brother Frank died when he was a baby. He would have been fourteen.
My little sister Ann Marie is nine. We call her Missy. My little brother Benjamin is five. We call him Benny. He’ll have to come to school here
next year when he’s six. I have lots of aunts and uncles and cousins at home, and one grandmother. We call her Yay-yah. We live on Joyaska Ranch near a little town called Firefly. It’s about a
hundred miles from Kalamak. We get to go home in the summer, at Christmas and sometimes at Easter.
When we’re at home we can ride horses, go swimming at the river, run in the hills, climb trees and laugh out loud and holler yahoo anytime we like
and we won’t get in trouble. At school we get punished for talking, looking at boys in church, even stepping out of line. I wish I could live at home instead of here.