A survivor of the residential school system shared her story of horrific abuse publicly for the first time at the Little Souls Journey Home event held on Monday.
It all started with being ripped away from her siblings and mother when she was only four years old.
"I remember broken glass and the screaming of my broken mother, the bloody hand on the living room window as she tried to smash through to try to stop them from taking us away while child welfare and the police physically blocked every route of rescue," said Raye St. Denys, executive director of Shining Mountains Living Community Services, who read the Métis woman's story to a crowd of more than 100 at the Orange Shirt Day event outside Red Deer Museum & Art Gallery.
To this day, the woman can't stomach the taste of liver or spinach after being forced fed and vomiting from the slimy, boiled meal at a residential school.
"I don't remember how it ended. But I remember my lips were bloody, my dress was ripped on the shoulder."
She faced more abuse in the foster care system where she was locked in a basement with dogs "because that's where animals live" and raped when she was 12 years old.
"Everyone in the system kept it quiet long enough that the only option was to have the baby."
As a recovering addict of 27 years, the woman said that deep inside, she has felt unworthy.
"I wish I could say I was healed and that none of these tragedies affect me any longer. I cannot. I laugh when I'm hurting, scared, sad, nervous because I learned that anything else is a beatable offence."
But earlier this year, with daily practice and the support of elders and others, she could finally say that she loved herself and can now say, "I'm a strong, healing Métis woman."
Mayor Ken Johnston said the start of the school year is usually an exciting time, but for more than 150 years, it only brought dread and fear to Indigenous families.
He said more than 150,000 Indigenous, Inuit and Métis children attended residential schools. There are over 3,200 documented deaths of students, but it's estimated there were as many as 6,000.
The Red Deer Industrial School was open from 1893 to 1919, and students came from as close as the Louis Bull Tribe and as far away as Saddle Lake Cree Nation, and Onion Lake Cree Nation.
"The Red Deer Industrial School, ladies and gentlemen, had the highest mortality rate of any residential or industrial school across Canada with a 20 per cent death rate, a one in five death rate," said Johnston, who declared Sept. 30 the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Red Deer.
He encouraged Red Deerians to find opportunities to learn, experience and understand the history and culture of Indigenous people on Orange Shirt Day and throughout the year.
