Interview by Susana Geliga with Wynema Morris, 7 Oct. 2024

Susana Geliga (00:00:02):
So, for the Genoa, these interviews that we're doing are going to go up on the website, and on the permission form, we are just looking to get your permission to use it. We're not looking to extract it or take it from you. Your story belongs to you. And so we just wanted to go up on the website, and anybody who goes onto the website could, because if you look at those government files, they really don't offer a Native perspective. You know? They're so heavy with government language and all about the government perspective. So we wanted to be able to have the Native perspective, because that's such a big part and the big part. And so, on the website, we just wanna have these recordings for people, you know, to hear the Native perspective of from the families of the students who went to Genoa.
Wynema Morris (00:00:58):
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.
Susana Geliga (00:01:00):
Okay.
Wynema Morris (00:01:00):
Yeah. And, I did see the permission slips and everything, but I'll get that back to you, you know, as soon as possible. So, everything is legal and solid.
Susana Geliga (00:01:10):
Okay, great. So let's get started. And I'll go ahead and just start with the questions. So, what were the names of your family members who attended?
Wynema Morris (00:01:25):
Okay. So my mother's older siblings, Joseph Gilpin. She came from a family of 13, and not all of them went to Genoa, but my Uncle Joseph did, an older sibling of my mother, two of them, Lucille Gilpin. And, let's see, Lucille and Josephine, those three went. And they were, my mother came from a large family, like 13 siblings. So it's like three different sets. And she was of the youngest three siblings. And then the others were like, from the middle part of that family, because she actually went there with her nieces who were, well, her same age, maybe, well, yeah, probably about the same age. So, and this was from one of her oldest sisters. Her oldest sister's children were her contemporaries. So this is, you know, this is that age span.
Wynema Morris (00:02:32):
But, that would be on my mother's side. My father never named anybody that went there, but he himself did not, he went to Pipestone and I think at the same time that he was at Pipestone Indian Boarding School in Pipestone, Minnesota. My mother was taken to Genoa when she was six. And so her stories are things that she recalled hearing from her sisters, as well as just her own narrative with her two nieces that she was there with, plus a smattering of other Omahas that they ran into or came across when they were actually at Genoa.
Susana Geliga (00:03:28):
So Omaha is the family tribal background? Omaha?
Wynema Morris (00:03:34):
Oh, yeah. Mm-Hmm, yeah. Omaha culture and language and the traditions there. But, she told about going, she said she didn't know. She said she had heard her parents talk about the older siblings having to go off to school. And she said, I was too young to really understand what it was they were talking about. And I saw my older siblings, but they were older. She said they would've been teenagers and maybe even a young adult, like 18 or 19. And she said, I didn't really associate, I was too young to really associate with them, she said, but, one day they were all gone and she didn't know, you know, what was happening. And so maybe a few days later, her father said that she was gonna go to school too. And she said, what little belongings I had, they packed, I guess. She said, but they packed those clothes and I never saw them again.
Wynema Morris (00:04:49):
But she said they, they must have packed them. And she said, we got into the wagon. because of course it was 19, what? 1929, 1930? But close to 1934. And, she said, I was probably about six, she said, or maybe I was six, she said, but I remember, that her mother and her father and her baby brother, she said, were packed. And I was in the wagon, and we went up to Decatur, and then we kept going south. And it took us a while. She said, I must have been gonna be put on a train. And I didn't know that, but we went, because we got on the train at Tekamah. Yeah. At Tekamah. And she said, and my parents were talking to me about going to this place and that the older siblings would probably be there and to talk to them. And she said, oh, just different things. She said, I can't remember everything, but they took her, she said, in that wagon, and along the way, she said her father had picked up some food in Decatur, Nebraska. And she said, when I knew that I was going, and the closer that I got to Tekamah, to where the train was gonna pick me up, she said, the sadder I got.
Susana Geliga (00:06:28):
So where were they? Where were they living at again?
Wynema Morris (00:06:31):
They were on their allotment just, south, north of Decatur, kind of halfway in between Decatur and Macy. And so anyway, she said that her mother fixed lunch. She said, but I think we were all too sad we couldn't eat. She said, I know I couldn't. So she said, my mother made a sandwich and said, well, you might wanna eat this later on. And she said, I had no idea where I was going. And even when they said the word school, I had a, I guess a vague idea. She said, what was sticking in my mind and wanting me to cry. She said, my father told her, no, don't cry. You're gonna be all right. We wouldn't do this if it weren't good for you. But the government came and said, we had to, or they will come and get you.
Wynema Morris (00:07:30):
So we thought, at best. She said, I remember that. But she, at the same time, I was focusing on missing my mother and dad, and I wouldn't see them every day like I had been. And she said, my baby brother was just, he was just a baby. And she said, and I helped, she said, in my own way, helped care for him. And, played with him. And she said, and it was the sadness was so bad that nobody could eat. And then she said, we went to the train station. And you, now I look at Tekamah and I can't see where that train station is. I don't know, you know where that is.
Susana Geliga (00:08:16):
Did you say that was 1929?
Wynema Morris (00:08:19):
Had to be 1929.
Susana Geliga (00:08:20):
Okay.
Wynema Morris (00:08:20):
Because, she left when she was six. And she said, I came back when I was 10, when it closed in 1934. So, I said, are you sure it was Tekamah? Because, I don't see where there was a train. Well, she said, that's all I remember. I don't either. I don't know which way it was. But she said, I got on a train. And from there, she said, seemed like forever, but we got to Genoa at night. Oh, she said, I got on the bus, I mean, on the train. And she said, here, there was some other Indian kids on there, but I didn't know them. Were they Omahas? She said, I don't think so. She said, but I was too sad to talk and visit.
Wynema Morris (00:09:06):
And I cried myself to sleep. The next thing I knew she said, they were telling us that they were there at Genoa, and it was dark. And, I said, so what happened? Well, her story is such that when she got there, she didn't know. She never saw her own clothes again. She didn't get to see any of her older siblings, like my Uncle Joe and my Aunt Lucille, Aunt Josephine. She said she thought they might be there. And she took some comfort in that. When she got there, it was nobody, it was just, and the word is matron. It was just a matron that came and got them. And she said, they lined us up, she said, and then there was, like a sty. She said, it was like you had to climb up three little steps on one side of this fence.
Wynema Morris (00:09:55):
And then you went down three more steps, she said. And then you were on the, I think on the south side of Genoa. She said, we walked and we walked. It was dark. And she said, we finally got, I guess to the little girl's dormitory. And then she said, we were told that we had to get undressed and that we had to shower and she said, I didn't know what any of those things were. She said, and I didn't wanna let my clothes go. I didn't want my shoes. She said, I thought, what are they doing to me? And I said, did you speak a little bit of English mom? And she said, a little. She said, I could understand a little, she said, but her parents spoke Omaha all the time. And what little English she knew, she said, came from the older siblings.
Wynema Morris (00:10:42):
'cause her father, she said, didn't really speak Omaha either. And, she said, Omaha was what we spoke. I didn't know any other language really, but my older sibling, she said, they must have been the ones at Genoa. And the other ones, she said that were out having their own families. They knew English. So I learned something from them. But, she said, we got there and they tried to take the clothes, and we all cried. She said, I mean, we just all cried and they were gonna take them away. She said, but they had to stick us into the shower. And she said, I didn't know what that was. She said, I mean, I knew that I took baths, but I didn't know about this shower thing. And she said the soap was rough. And they just, and they had brushes.
Wynema Morris (00:11:32):
Those matrons, she said, they'd soap us up really good. And then they'd scrub us with those brushes, she said, and then stick us back in to take the soap off. She said, it got in my eyes and it burned. She said, but they didn't care. They just told stop crying, I guess. She said, they were saying, stop crying, stop crying. And anyway, she said, we got ready for bed after that. And then, they had to cut their hair. I said, was your hair? It was in braids. She said, I even had braid ties. And of course braid ties, I looked up in the Omaha culture, and they're really pretty. And they're sort of a, I don't know, a later innovation of keeping girls' hair. When they would do the braids, these braid ties would be tied with two braids so that they would move together and you wouldn't have them, you know, fleeing all over.
Wynema Morris (00:12:23):
So she said that was, they cut our hair. She said, and then they rubbed us down with kerosene. I said, kerosene? Yeah, she said. 'cause they said, she said, now I know what they said. She said, but they said they were looking for lice. And she said, at the time, she said they would comb through our hair with this long thing after they put that kerosene on. And I was really curious. I said, kerosene, you know, it's a gas, it lights up for fires. I know, she said, and I knew that. And I screamed and cried because I thought they were gonna put me on fire, because that's how Mama and Papa started their fires to cook. And, she said, what are they gonna? Are they gonna burn my hair off? Or what? She said, but I guess it was to get out that lice.
Wynema Morris (00:13:12):
She said, then they washed our hair again. She said, but to this day, I can smell kerosene from a mile off. And I said, really? Yeah. She said, I can. She said, sometimes, in the past, when we go to feasts, she said, and somebody started their fires with kerosene. She said, I can smell it. I said, well, that's how they started fires, right? She said, yeah, well, she said, if it wasn't kerosene, it was something like kerosene, but it burned. And they combed my hair with it. And then they cut it really short, she said, so I was just right here, right below my ears. And there is a photo of her in the only building that's standing, and it's one of those big huge photos where you look at, you flip this great big huge frame, and there's like maybe 10 frames all at once.
Wynema Morris (00:14:08):
And you just flip 'em. And she found her photo. I had taken her back there once, just to go through it, she and another older lady that had also been there. And they were going down memory lane. But when we were in that spot, 'cause it's kind of like a museum, she found her photo and the other lady found hers. And I took a photo of it and I have it. And my mother, she was just, said she was second grade and she was just so young, and along with all the other little girls. And, she looked at that picture and just looked at it. And I said, that's you? And she said, that's me. And I said, wow. And I said, mom, if I had to pick this out on my own, I'd have never known that was you. I said, you're such a, such a baby.
Wynema Morris (00:15:11):
And she was like, I know. And she just looked at, and then we just, she just left. I had more of a reaction than she did, kinda like now. And she was like, well, that was then, she said, she just walked. We just, I wheeled her away. She was in a wheelchair by then. So anyhow,
Susana Geliga (00:15:30):
What grades did she go there for?
Wynema Morris (00:15:34):
She was in there from what she called, they said it wasn't kindergarten. And I said, was it first grade? She said it wasn't called the first, what do they call beginners? She said, I was in beginners then. I must have went to the second grade. Then I was there for the third. And she said, by the time I was in the fourth grade, she said, then right after that, that's when they closed it.
Wynema Morris (00:16:02):
And so she was up there. She said, I never saw my parents for four years. I never got to go home for the summers. Although she said a good many of the older girls from the big girls dormitory. She said, they went home. And she said, I finally did get to see my two older sisters, and I never saw Joe. And I said, why not? I said, did they keep them apart that much? Well, yes to that, she said, but he kept running away. She said he ran away so much that they just decided they didn't want him back anymore. He was more trouble than he was worth, I guess. She said, but he kept running away. And that's why I never saw him. But her other two older siblings, she said, I did run into them.
Wynema Morris (00:16:51):
She said, but it was just like, oh, uh, how are you? Are you okay? And is everything all right? She said, and then, it was like I wasn't supposed to be talking to them. 'cause they kept saying, well, you better go back. You better go back. And, she said, it was like, you know, I wanna be here with you. And she said, and they kept like, no, no, you can't. You have to go back. You have to go back. Meaning, I guess join the other little girls. And, so, it was like she said, that was about the only time that I saw them. She said, so when they went home for summer, I didn't even know it either. She said they were gone. She said, but in one of those times, some more trains must have come in and brought some more girls.
Wynema Morris (00:17:42):
And she said, my two nieces showed up. And she said, I was so happy to see them. She said, we were all together and we were starting to talk Omaha and everything. And she said, and the matrins, wherever they were, she said they'd tell you. I guess she'd say, they'd say, now girls, now girls, no Indian talk. No Indian talk. She said, I said, did they hit you? Well, she said, not at that time. She said, but they would just always tell us, no Indian talk. Don't be talking Indian. So I said, you know that phrase, "talk Indian." Uh-huh? I said, well, what's the Indian language? And she looked, she said, well, Omaha. I said, well, then you have incorporated into your speech if you were speaking Omaha and you were speaking. Yes, I was speaking Omaha.
Wynema Morris (00:18:34):
She couldn't quite make that connection as old as she was. And I said, do you know that in my classes, I said, just listen to us in social gatherings. You'll hear Omaha say, yeah, I guess they were really talking Indian, or, oh, they started to talk Indian. I said, do you hear when? Yeah, she said, because we're talking Indian. I said, no, you're not talking Indian. You're talking Omaha. And she thought about it. She said, yeah, you're right. She said, but I guess we kept hearing that phrase, don't talk Indian. She said, it wasn't just us, it was those Sioux girls and Winnebago girls. And oh, she said, from wherever they were from, she said that they would get together and they would talk. She said, and that matron would scold us and keep telling us, no, no talking Indian.
Wynema Morris (00:19:23):
And I said, so what'd you do for clothes? So, this is her story. We, I would revisit with her, not all in one sitting, but I'd revisit with her and get, you know, try to understand what she went through as a little girl and how she felt about, you know, the separation from her parents for four long years. And her memories are both fond memories and other memories that are, you know, a little bit sad. But she said, that when she didn't go home, those four long years, and her sisters disappeared, but the arrival of her nieces, she said, madethings a little tolerable. I said, did you make friend?. Yeah, she said, they're like Margaret, which is the other lady that recognized her photo in one of the other big flip out photos or that thing that they have there, I don't know what you call it.
Wynema Morris (00:20:19):
But anyway, she was there. She said she was a little bit older, and she said, but one summer she said, they said that we're gonna camp. And this is an interesting thing because the town of Genoa has a short memory. When I went there with my mother, we asked whereGreek Pond was. 'cause Greek Pond figures largely in her narrative for having to camp outside for a whole summer. And she said, the reason we had to camp out was because they said that they were cleaning and painting the dormitories. And she said, so we have to camp out that summer. And we were outside, we never went inside. And she said, and even our meals, she said, they must have been prepared at the, at the dining hall. 'cause they'd bring the food to us.
Wynema Morris (00:21:27):
And then the older girls, the ones that were still there, said they would be responsible for serving it. She said, but we had a good time. 'cause we, camped by what's called Greek Pond. And said, and they let us go swimming. Yeah, she said, and they had these old heavy suits that you had to wear, she said, and I didn't wanna wear it, but I wanted to swim. So I ended up wearing it anyway. But I guess I said, what did you do? I mean, did you have instruction? Did you, I mean, what was your recreation? She said, you know what? I don't really quite remember except for the swimming. And she said, you've seen movies where there's a tree with a rope and it swings out into the lake?
Wynema Morris (00:22:13):
And I said, yeah. Well, we had one of those. I said, at this place called Greek Pond? And she said, right, yeah. She said, but I wonder where Greek Pond is now. And I said, do you remember? Let's go through the town. So we went through where she thought it might be, but it was in that area, it was private property. So we couldn't go. And she said, but I'm not even sure everything's so different. And there's trees and houses now. And when we were here for that summer month, she said there wasn't any. And I said, and they called it, tell me again what they? She said, it's called Greek Pond. I remember that. And we couldn't find Greek Pond. I don't know. So I said, well, when we go back, let's ask around, let's ask the people, the ladies in the museum, if they know where Greek Pond is.
Wynema Morris (00:23:15):
So we did, and they hadn't heard of it. And they weren't young women either, but they hadn't heard of it. And my mother said, well, you had to have, because this is for all the boarding school kids. Well, I think some of them were not in Genoa. Those women were not full-time, or full-time residents even. But they had no clue about Greek Pond. So, one of the girls almost drowned in Greek Pond, she said, and that caused a lot of excitement. She said, so the swimming, she said, got put off limits. She said, for, oh, I don't know. She said, for a while. Then they said, okay, you can go back and then swim. And I said, so, okay. I said, so now you're at Greek Pond and you know, you've got your summer down. I said, is there anything memorable?
Wynema Morris (00:24:04):
Did you get punished or do anything that would cause great misery to you while you were, you know, camping? And she thought about, she came up with this story, and she just laughed about, and it is fine. And I said, what? Oh, she said, we didn't speak English real well. Remember she said, so she said, one of my nieces, she said, we were in line for breakfast. And, she said, I guess they were serving out oatmeal or something like that. She said, and one of her nieces, Rebecca, asked as they're going through, I guess she said, I wanna make sure I get some of that. And she said, it was like a couple girls down. She said, we're taking our trays. And so she asked the one girl who was serving some other kind of food or maybe handing out the trays, whatever, said what do you call that?
Wynema Morris (00:25:06):
I wanna be sure I get, I want some of that. And she said, and that older girl said, oh, she said in English, she told Becky, oh, you call that trala. Becky said, what? She said, you call it trala. Tell her you want trala please. So Vicky said, oh, when we get down there, if you want that one, you have to call it trala. And I said, like, T-R-A-L-A? Yeah. She said, like, trala. But she said, we got down. And I looked at it, she said, and I thought, oh, mama used to fix this. She would call this in Omaha. She, and I can't remember how she said it, but she would call it that. She said it just sort of means like cereal or gruel or thick cereal or something, she said. So I didn't say anything. I just put my dish up there and she put the oatmeal in it. She said, and Becky, she said she wanted to show off her English. And she told that server girl, oh, can have some trala, please. And she said, oh, and that serving girl said what she, <laughing> said trala.
Wynema Morris (00:26:23):
And everybody laughed because what's trala? She was told wrong. And, you know, and a verbal trick was, you know, played on her. And she found out, everybody laughed. But my mother said, and then we all laughed. 'cause then we told her it's not trala And that girl, that one who was serving trala said, no, it's oatmeal. So all, oh, when she said that, she got all embarrassed and everything. But she said, I remember things like that, just little things she said that were fun. But that one sticks out in my mind. So I said, so when you're back at the, tell me about when you're in school and how are you? Well, she said school. I remember the teacher's name. She said one was Miss Lucy. I said, what was her last name? She said, I don't know, we just called her Miss Lucy.
Wynema Morris (00:27:12):
And then there was, she named a couple of others. And I'd like to get ahold of the BIA's employee list of teachers and dorm matrons and just to see who these women were. But there was a Miss Lucy, again, I don't, she didn't remember her name either. She just knew her as Miss Lucy. And she was teaching us how to speak English. And she said, and I still remember on the bottom of our tongue, she said, do you remember? She said, do you know that there's two big, huge veins? I said, on your tongue? And I said, so how do you know that? Well, she said, Miss Lucy used to get in front of us and make us say the alphabet. And she got to L I guess we didn't know how to say it. And I said, I know why you didn't know how to say it.
Wynema Morris (00:28:00):
And she said, why? I said, because Omaha doesn't have the L in our language. And then she said, oh, okay. She said, well, yeah, I know that. She said, but hey, and she said, but Miss Lucy would get in front of us and put her tongue way up on the roof of her mouth right in front of us and say, El-la. And she, and so for a while she said, we learned it was Ella <laugh>. And she said, no, no it's not. She said, but she was doing it for emphasis. But she said, I could still remember her putting up, curling her tongue on the top of her roof of her mouth and looking at her tongue at the bottom. And it had two veins. She said, but the two big veins that help you say, L, and I said, but you guys were saying Ella.
Wynema Morris (00:28:47):
And she said, well, that's what she was teaching us. That's what we said. And then she told, no, no, but, so things like this stuck out in my mother's mind. And then they had a map. I think it's still there. And, my mother looked at it and there were a few things that were not quite right on that map, according to how she remembered and how the other lady remembered it. And I don't, I think that the ladies listened very politely, but I don't think they moved anything forward to make those changes, to make that the map, or the site, the way they remembered it. And they knew, they said, oh, here was over here, the superintendent's house. Oh, and if you go down here, there was this cherry tree. And they got into trouble with the cherry tree and the apple orchards.
Wynema Morris (00:29:35):
And anyway, so those were other stories that she told. But I said, now our dad has a different story. I mean, he was traumatized and it traumatized me to this day. I said, but did you have any of those? And she said, well, we got into trouble. She said, and the dresses they made us wear. She said, it was just that. She said, you don't see it much anymore, but it's that old mattress ticking material, she said. And they would just cut out like a, she said a hole in the middle and maybe a little slit down the side with something. You could tie it on, get it over your head. But it would be sleeveless. It would be just a sack. And then they'd give you a belt and put that around your waist. And then she said, oh, great big, old, oxfords for your feet.
Wynema Morris (00:30:22):
I said, no sandals? Oh no. She said, nothing like that. I said, nothing to make you feel comfortable? No. Well, maybe she said in bed 'cause we got nightgowns. But, she said that they discovered one of the other Omaha kids and some of the other, Winnebago girls or some tribes, they said, Hey, there's cherries down there. We should go down there and get some cherries. She said, I don't know why, but the food, she said, we could only have food at the dining hall. And they fed you really early. And by lunchtime I was starving. She said, from lunchtime till five o'clock, I was starving again. She said, we get outta school and you had nothing to eat. And I said, but you had chores and stuff? Yeah, she said. I guess there were chores and things that we'd have to do and like change our sheets or change our bedding and things like that.
Wynema Morris (00:31:15):
She said, but, 'cause we were the little ones, she said but I was always hungry. And we would try to sneak out an apple or something. And we would put it in our dresses and we'd put that belt really tight around our waist, pull our dress up, and then put the belt on. And then it would kind of form like bag around our waist. She said we'd put in extra food that we could sneak out. She said, and if we were caught, she said they'd take it away from you and then they'd really punish you. And I said, like, what? Oh, she said, I just remember one girl. She said she, she got caught, she had a biscuit. She wanted to eat it later. And she got caught with it. And she said they took it away from her and punished her.
Wynema Morris (00:32:02):
And they had her go to she said, I guess it was the playroom and she had to sit in the corner and put her forehead in that corner space. And I said, you mean contact corner? Yeah, she said that's what she told us when she got back. 'cause we didn't know. And she said it made her neck feel really, really sore. She said, 'cause she had to sit there in that corner, cross-legged and put her head against in that corner. And I said, oh my gosh. I said, but did she get whipped? No, she said, but there was whippings. And she told about a whipping again, they'd gotten into some kind of trouble. She said, I must have been right there with them too, because I got into trouble. I got whipped. And I said, so, did our Grandma and Grandpa?
Wynema Morris (00:32:51):
I said, did they whip you? No, she said, we didn't know what those whips were. We got into trouble, she said, and by then we understood English, she said, and there was like, she said, four branches that were laying on this chair. And because we were being punished, she said, I don't know what for, but we got punished. We got caught. And she said, I guess maybe it was torture too. I don't know. I mean, my mother just didn't know. And neither did the Omaha girls that she was with. And so, among themselves, they heard this woman, this matron say, okay, girls, pick out your, pick out your whip. Pick it out. Pick out your stick. And she said, we looked at 'em, we looked at each other and kind of didn't know. And, in Omaha, one of them said, well, I think I'll take that little bitty one.
Wynema Morris (00:33:54):
I think they're gonna spank us or hit us, and I'm gonna take that little bitty one 'cause it's little and it won't hurt. And so my mother said, oh, I don't know. She, my mother was also very smart. She said, no, I hear papa's whip when he whips the horses and it's thin and it makes a sound. She said, even snaps, I don't think you should do that. I said, and that woman kept saying, pick it out, come on, pick your switch. Pick your switch, you know, pick your stick. And my mother said, there's that big one. She said, you know what, I think I'll take that big one. <laugh>. She said, so we got the girl who got the tiny switch ended up with her rear end.
Wynema Morris (00:34:43):
She said, 'cause we had to lift up our skirts. And then your panties were there. She said, and that matron just really whipped her. She said she cried. She said, she just felt so horrible. She said, and later on that night, she told my mother and her friends, my seat burns. It really burns, can you look at it? So I said, really? So I said, yeah. And here she said, where that switch had hit her, there was just red welts all over that girl. And she said, oh, and it just feels so hot. It's just burning. She said, this is the one. I said, so you chose the big one? Did everybody? Yeah, she said they all took that. She said, and it hurt. She said, I could feel it. She said, but I knew, I didn't feel it like that one Omaha girl did. She said, but I screamed and cried. Like, it really hurt. And then she quit.
Susana Geliga (00:35:43):
So, I wanted to ask you, so you're telling me that she got hit and they had the whips. You mentioned earlier about, was it your grandfather or the male who kept running away? What happened to him? Did they send him? So how old was he? I mean, did they send him? Because sometimes if they were old enough and troublemakers, they'd send him to jail or they'd send him to reform school. Did he get to go home or?
Wynema Morris (00:36:15):
No, they just let him go. And I think there's some correspondence on him about he keeps running away and so they're just finding, they're not gonna spend the time and resources to go get him. So I think that's what happened with him. 'cause she said, after I found out, she asked years later, she said, 'cause didn't occur to me, but all of a sudden you were gone. Yeah, he said, I ran away and this time I stayed away <laugh>. So, but I think there was some correspondence on him because he kept running away, kept running, away, running away. That they just apparently got tired of going after him. And that was either in a report, or something. 'cause I had done some research on, not specifically him, but just looking at, you know, how they treated these constant runaways. That was my uncle, my mother's older brother.
Susana Geliga (00:37:07):
Okay.
Wynema Morris (00:37:08):
And he just kept running away so much that they just sort of, I guess gave up on him.
Susana Geliga (00:37:15):
So what was his name again?
Wynema Morris (00:37:17):
Joseph Gilpin.
Susana Geliga (00:37:18):
Okay. Okay.
Wynema Morris (00:37:20):
But I think it's mentioned in those superintendent's reports that they had to submit about a runaway or, maybe he named him or whatever, but that the one runaway, they didn't bother trying to go get him again. Which, you know, in my opinion is a blessing. And he just told my mother, he just came home and stayed with papa. And whenever he felt like if he was being looked for, he'd go and hide in the timbers. And his dad would just say, no, he doesn't know where he is. 'cause he's not here if that happened. So, he learned, you know, to, I guess just keep running away and never went back to Genoa. So the boys, I think they probably would've had it much rougher because they had so much, I mean, they were the dairy, you know, they were the, they took care of the dairy.
Wynema Morris (00:38:13):
I mean, they had to do, you know, horseshoeing and all the other heavy lifting, you know, to make it the vocational school that it was. And he just never went back. And hated school so much that he never, even when Genoa closed and the BIA opened up a day school in Macy. So that my mother she went to the fifth grade, I guess it'd be 1935 when the BIA opened up the day School in Macy. And so that's where she went to school. But my uncle, she said, she doesn't recall him ever going back, but the two younger siblings that would be in her closer to her age group, they did go to high school in Macy. So she said, and they graduated. She said, then it was my turn, I graduated. But she said, that's how we got through school.
Wynema Morris (00:39:08):
But you know, I think about that and I'm asking her about, you know, corporal. And she just had so many funny stories that they went cherry picking, loaded their dresses full of the cherries. And when they got back, the matron was waiting for them. And she said, oh, she said, we knew we were caught. And she said, okay, girls, undo your belts. She said, and this sounds funny, but she said, after all our labor and we thought, oh boy, we're gonna be able to, you know, eat 'cause we get hungry. She said, we opened up, we had to undo the belts. She said, all the cherries fell out of the dresses. I said, so what'd she do with them? She said, I don't know. She said, but we couldn't eat them. You know how cruel that is. You know, I mean after school?
Wynema Morris (00:39:58):
My young ones, my grandsons course only have one at home now. 'cause the other one's in college. But he comes home and he's ravenous, you know, starts looking in the refrigerator and starts, you know, making sandwiches and eating and I remember doing that myself. But, they're hungry and, but they can't take food, darn it out of the cafeteria to eat later. So taking an apple, you know, how pitiful is that? If you really think about how pitiful that is. And my mother said, but there were times when we did get away with things. She said once, one of the girls in the little girl's dorm, she said, they sneaked away some salt, she said, and I don't know how she did it. She said, but she had some salt. And she said to us, oh, when we go to the apple orchard, if you can get an apple, bring it back and we'll have apples and salt, we'll have to eat at night.
Wynema Morris (00:41:01):
And so she said, that's what we did. And, we would be munching in the night after the dormitory, after our showers and getting in our nightgowns. She said, we'd all know which bed to go to, 'cause that one had the salt. And we'd sit there and eat our apples. I said, in the night? And she said, yeah, in the night. And I said, then you go to bed with a full tummy? Well, it wasn't full, she said, but we'd have something to get us through the night. So that's, you know, causing them to be sneaky, you know, sneaky behavior. She said, well, we had to 'cause we were hungry. You know, I mean, the cruelty of boarding schools is just unending. And I mean, it's just not physical abuse, but psychological abuse and well, and we know that in the whole stripping, you know, of your identity from your culture and your language and everything else that makes you basically who you are.
Wynema Morris (00:41:59):
So she said, but I learned English and I could read and write. And she said, I wrote a letter and asked for my aunt. And she said, and I spelled it wrong. She said, the letter came, she said, my brother really laughed, 'cause he had to read it to his mom and dad. She said, I guess I put in there and how was my, a-nut Sarah? And she said, I was saying, how was my Aunt Sarah? And she said, so things like that, little things happen. I said, so you wrote a letter? Yeah, and she said, just funny little things she said. And, one evening she said, I don't know how this happened. She said it was after bedtime. She said, one of the older boys, he was a relative to one of the girls in the little girl's dormitory.
Wynema Morris (00:42:55):
And she said we were up high and she said there was a fire escape. And she said, of course. She said, we couldn't go there. She said, because you couldn't open it, because that was how we would get out. But once in a while, we worked that window up and then we'd lean way out over that metal step. And she said there was an older Indian boy. She said, I don't know what tribe he was, but he was wanting to talk to maybe it was his younger sister, and they found him, they brought her out. And she said, he had like four socks. But we didn't know there was four. And he said, you girls hungry? You girls hungry? Here. I got you some apples. She said, he took those socks and I remember took those socks and he swung it around like this and let it go.
Wynema Morris (00:43:43):
I said, catch it. And did it four times. So four of us had apples. She said, oh, she said, we were so happy. She said, oh. And I said, did you have a salt? Oh, she said, probably not that time. She said, but there's this guy, you know, that wanted to feed his sister. She said, I bet he was hungry too. Yeah. She said he put those, I was gonna write a book. I started it called "Apples in the Sock" because he put those apples in there and made a slingshot. And they had to catch it as it came up. So, they kind of, you know, when they put the older ones cared for the youngers. And you know, they managed to survive. And then she said, finally, she said, I didn't know this.
Wynema Morris (00:44:29):
All of a sudden she said, the matron came and said, okay, girls, pack up everything.Get your, get your shoes, get your socks, get everything. She said and you're going home. And I thought, going home? And she said, and I thought, how am I gonna get home? My parents don't have a way to be here. Are they coming on the train? She said, we didn't know anything. And so, she said, they got us all ready, she said, and there was a bunch of wagons. And then there was like milk wagons. And she said, it's some trucks. Those old rickety trucks. And some of the kids went in that. And she said, and me and Becky and Hazel, which was her other niece, and Margaret and a couple of the others, she said, we got in this one wagon and this one was gonna go to Macy and Decatur.
Wynema Morris (00:45:28):
And she said, and they packed us. I said, so a wagon trip would be like all day? Must have been. She said, 'cause they got us up early. They wanted us on the road as soon as possible, she said, but they packed lunch for us. And I said, what was it? Well, she said, that's before they had the carton. She said, so we didn't have anything to drink, she said, but we had a peanut butter sandwich. Oh, I said, so peanut butter? Yeah, she says, peanut butter with, some jam in it, she said. And that was our lunch. And she said, then they let us off on the main road. I said, is that the same road that goes from Decatur and Macy now? And she said, well, not really, because it turned off and it went towards Macy.
Wynema Morris (00:46:20):
And so where my father lives, she said it went east and this other road going into Macy went, west and then south into Macy itself. And I said, oh, so that road that exists now did not? No, she said it didn't, 'cause that's another story. And I said, okay, but so what happened when you got home? Well, she said, he just let us off. I said, okay, everybody out. And so she said, we just had sacks. She said, for suitcases, she said, I didn't have much. I said, did you ever see your old clothes, the ones that your mother packed for you? She said, no, I never did. So she said, we just had our empty sacks of lunch. She said, and then whatever small thing that we might have had, she said, that's what we had.
Wynema Morris (00:47:11):
And then we walked home. I said, off that road, you went down to your house? Yeah, she said, we went down that windy hill and everything. And she said I saw our mom and dad. She said, they came out of thefront door and they were standing on the step. And she said, oh, there's mama and papa. Of course it would be grandma and grandpa for her nieces. And said, well, is our dad there? Is our dad there? How about our mom? And she said, no. She said, we could see that it was just mama and papa. She said, and they see us. They're waiting for us. So, oh, she said, we just broke into a run. She said, we got home. And you know what she said? They were like, what? In Omaha.
Wynema Morris (00:48:00):
What are you doing here? Did you run away? And she said, we looked and we were shocked. She said, they hugged us and held us, but they wanted to know why are you home? And so she told, we don't know. Well, the community didn't bother to tell them that the school had closed. She said, a couple days later, someone from the BIA came down to Macy to tell all the parents that the reason their kids were home was because Genoa closed. It no longer had no children. But you know, I said, even a happy reunion was robbed from you, wasn't it? And she was like, you think too much? And I said, no, mom, this is the damage. I mean, if your parents knew you were coming home, think of the joyous reunion and the happy tears. Oh yeah, she said, there's plenty of tears. She said, and then, Papa, had to send, I guess Joe or one of the others, she said to go get those girls', my niece's, mother and, and dad. She said, let them know that they were home and that they were there with grandpa. I said, oh my God. They didn't know? Uh-uh. She said they didn't know we were coming home.
Susana Geliga (00:49:19):
And the safety of other kids that might've went home and their family wasn't there, then what happened to them?
Wynema Morris (00:49:28):
I know. That's why I said, well, what do you, I mean, your folks were home, but what if, I said, like Margaret, and she got home and nobody was there? What, you know?
Susana Geliga (00:49:40):
So can you repeat that part again? Like that they were sent home and then days later, can you tell me that part again? Because that's really shocking to hear.
Wynema Morris (00:49:52):
Yeah, well, it is, and it's just really, you know, it, it's pitiful and it's so callous, you know that the Bureau, but she said that when they got home, you know, the parents wanna know, what are you doing here? And of course they knew about runaways because of my uncle. Did you run away? And no, no. They said it's not gonna, they sent us home. Everybody came home. And she said, and my parents just didn't know why they couldn't, started guessing with each other. I wonder what happened? I wonder why? And she said they were happy to have us home, she said. But, it wasn't till, oh, maybe few days, maybe a week or something. She said, then the superintendent or somebody from the BIA came and said that we would have to register to go to school now in Macy, because the school at Genoa had closed that it had shut its doors. There's no more kids there anymore. No more school there.
Susana Geliga (00:50:56):
So your mom essentially, she completed her program because it was her last year, fifth grade when Genoa closed. And then,
Wynema Morris (00:51:04):
Fourth, fourth grade.
Susana Geliga (00:51:07):
Fourth grade, okay.
Wynema Morris (00:51:08):
Yeah, mm-Hmm, <affirmative>.
Susana Geliga (00:51:09):
And then, did, she get transferred to a day school, but it was there in Macy. It wasn't another boarding school far away somewhere?
Wynema Morris (00:51:19):
Right.
Wynema Morris (00:51:20):
Yeah, no, it was called Macy Day School. And she said, they told my mother and dad, and she said, my nieces, they're my sister and her husband, she said that the girls would now have to register for school, and attend the day school. And she said, and that was gonna be hard because at the same time she said they started to, there were no buses running kids to and from school. She said everybody either walk or they rode a horse or something. She said that's how they got to the Macy Day School. But she said, at the same time, they started to plow up the road and make a road between Decatur that would run straight north to Macy. And because it wasn't there before that other old road was.
Wynema Morris (00:52:19):
And it followed the, is it the Blackbird Creek? Anyway, she said, follow that creek. And then you would go that road then would turn south and you would go into Macy, and you can see it today. There's that creek Major Four Corners. And that's that road that head south. Well, that intersected with that old road, which was there. And that was the road to get to Decatur. But with the new road construction, she said then that put another hardship on Mama and Papa, she said, because he was farming. He was a good, he was a good allotee, she said, and went ahead and farmed. But she said they had to then live in a tent, she said. So, they were able to find a spot or a plot in a lot of Omahas. She said, from that area, we all had to live in tents in Macy so that us kids could go to school daily.
Wynema Morris (00:53:19):
So she said that was, you know. I said, so how was that? Did you ever live in your house again after that? She said, yeah, after the road was built, then we got to move back down to the house. She said, but by then she said, I, you know, it was a couple years later, so I was probably in junior high. And she said, I really, I like day school. And she said it was so much better. But she said, I remember being hungry and told Mama, when we get home after school, have something for us to eat, mama. And she said, her mother always did. She had the old wood stove, she said, and she would always keep back something from breakfast or from noon. And she said, when we got home, she said by then her two nieces had gone to rejoin her sister, my mother's older sister and her husband.
Wynema Morris (00:54:07):
And then she said, then the two other boys that were, I guess at Genoa, she said they were in sports. And she said, and after school, she said by then they did get a bus and it would let us off at the road at the top, on that new road. And then we'd run down through the timber back down to her mom and dad's house. And she said, I always wanted to get there first because if the boys got that leftover, she said, they didn't think about me. <laughing> So she said, I would race them home. And she said, and whatever was there, she said, we knew where it was. It was in that part of the stove that kept food warm. She said, and I remember that. So she said, I told her, please have something to eat, mama.
Wynema Morris (00:54:52):
And she said, I tell my brothers, 'cause of me, you got a sandwich or because of me, you get the leftovers. Mama saved it for us. So yeah. So it was really an experience for her. And I listened to her talk about that. And I said, you know, there's so many really bad stories coming out about boarding schools. those stories. She said, well, maybe 'cause we were too young. They really didn't, I don't know. She said, but I guess we were punished. But I just remembered the whipping. And she said, and how that one Omaha girl, I said, do you know who she was? Yeah. She said, I know her. She said,
Susana Geliga (00:55:39):
You said she picked the smallest stick and what happened to her?
Wynema Morris (00:55:44):
Yeah, she's the one that got welted, because they were all in trouble. And she said there was like four different sticks. And the smallest one, she said in Omaha, I'm gonna pick that one 'cause it won't hurt as much. You girls better pick the same one. And my mother said, I looked at that, she said, and it made a whistling sound when it hit her. Said it was just like that whistling sound that my dad had, when he would, she said he didn't always whip his horses, but every now and then, she said he had one and hedidn't hit 'em, but he would crack it over their heads and then they'd speed up. She said, and when it did that, you could hear that whistle, that whistling of that whip. And that's the same sound that this girl's whip made when they, you know, so-called, spanked her, and then she was crying and very uncomfortable that night because her bottom was full of welts and it was, you know, it was stinging and it was hot.
Wynema Morris (00:56:42):
So, but the others, my mother said, no, we think we're gonna take that great big one. And so all the others took the big one. But you know what this tells me? La Fleshche, well pretty much Fletcher and La Flesche, say that the Omahas did not punish their children physically. So they grew up without knowing, spanking. They didn't know what it was to be hit as children. And so this story then brings that to mind that they didn't know what whips were, they didn't know what spanking was. You know, they knew they were in trouble and then the way they had to do it was also humiliating, you know? And she said, she told us bend over and grab your ankles. And then she pulled up the dress and whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. She said, so when it came my turn, she said, I noticed that if you cried out right away and acted like you were really hurt, that she would quit.
Wynema Morris (00:57:49):
So she said, that's what I did. But that first girl, she said, that took that thin little, she said, I'll call it what it was, it was a switch and it was thin, she said, and it was awful. She said, and she really, really showed it. I said that's one of those bad stories, just like you hear about abuse from these boarding schools. Yeah. She said that was one, she said but we knew that wasn't the switch that we, but see, they didn't know which switches to pick. They weren't spanked, I mean, or physically abused that way. And so, I mean, so to me, when she was telling these stories, you know, well she and I would both sort of like, reason it out now, really what's going on here. And like, she didn't catch the fact that their homecoming could have just been openly and totally glorious, you know?
Wynema Morris (00:58:47):
But it wasn't because their parents suspected them of running away, you know? And, and they, they knew about that. So, you know, it was not as joyous as that could be because they were under the pull of suspicion of being, you know, having run away. And that any day now, you know, Genoa would probably come for them, or somebody would, and then the psychological worry between the parents, like, oh no, if they ran away, somebody's gonna come for them. You know, what should we do? Should we take them back? I mean, that's just conjecture on her part and mine. In sort of deconstructing what I meant by it wasn't a total joyous greeting when it could have been. Because they even robbed that from you. And so later on then comes the, somebody from the superintendent's office, not just him, but she said somebody from the agency came down and said that they sent us home 'cause the, the place closed.
Susana Geliga (00:59:59):
So, okay. Do you know if they were like, who came and told them that they had to go to Genoa as opposed to go to Pipestone or someplace else? Did you ever learn about that?
Wynema Morris (01:00:16):
No. Um,
Susana Geliga (01:00:17):
How they were recruited to come to Genoa?
Wynema Morris (01:00:19):
Yeah. I'm not really sure how that happened, but her parents must have been familiar with it because of the older three siblings that had already been sent out. So they probably, I don't know if they got a letter or if you know, how they were notified or somebody came down from the agency to tell them that my mother and her two nieces had to go to Genoa, you know, she said, I ust don't know how that happened. But my parents were acting sad and not real happy and telling me that it was my turn to go to school, that I had to go where Lucille and where Josie were. She said, and her Joe were. And she said, at first it thought, oh, okay, well you know, 'cause they're her siblings. Alright, I'll go. She said that I didn't know that I would not see them. I said, how often were you able? She said, not very. I very rarely saw them. And I'm like, gosh, mom, you know, you had family there, but you know, it's that concentration camp behavior of keeping people apart and, you know, it's just the cruelty. But when I asked her, I said, did you get treated bad? She said, good time. And then I said, well, I don't
Susana Geliga (01:01:46):
So you said she had a good experience.
Wynema Morris (01:01:50):
That's what she would say, initially.
Susana Geliga (01:01:50):
Initially?
Wynema Morris (01:01:50):
Initially, until we really started looking at what was going on here. And then she realized, my God, and she said, then, you know what? What other six year olds are taken and then they never see their parents for four years? And I said, well, that's not a good time, you know? And she said, yeah, yeah. She said, but I wasn't alone in that. She said, there others were the same way. And I said to me, that's what makes it really horrific, that this is, they can just, the government can just come in and take you and have total disregard for you as a, you know, human being, your feelings, your love, your connections with your parents and your community. And I said, look, you didn't get to see your brother and your sisters that often.
Wynema Morris (01:02:41):
She's like, yeah, you're right. Yeah. But for a while, and for a long time before I began to realize the, you know, the awfulness of boarding schools before then, she'd tell these stories and, oh no, I had a good time. It was, you know, it was fun. And then I couldn't believe that it was after hearing the predominance, and then I went back to my own father, but he was taken to Pipestone and short story there is for all his life, I used to see these three white marks across the, the back of his hand. And they were thin little lines. And I never, I just saw them, I just never questioned them until finally as I was an adult, I asked him, I said, what are those three white lines, dad? I've been seeing them all my life.
Wynema Morris (01:03:37):
What are they? And him too, he just looked at and said, oh yeah. He said, I got, I got those. He said, from I guess misbehaving, I said, misbehaving where and how? So, anyway, the story was that he was nine, he didn't speak English. And when he got to Pipestone, he just didn't know English. And they were told not to speak Indian. And, but he said, I had to, 'cause I didn't know what anybody was saying. And so he said, we were I guess being told to line up for this one teacher, or she was telling us to line up. He said, it's been a long time ago. And he was looking at his scars. And he said, I guess she was telling us to line up, but I didn't know what she was saying.
Wynema Morris (01:04:29):
He said, then I was older, he said, other boys were a little bit younger than me. He said, but I was nine. And he said, I didn't know what she was saying. So I was asking the other one, what's going on? What are we doing? And he said, well, you're in trouble. And, he said, well, what did I do? And she said, and she was telling me to come forward. And they said, go on, go on. And I said, they say it, English or Omaha? Well, he said, it must've been English. 'cause they didn't get into trouble. And they pushed me up towards her and she was yelling at me and, making me look up for her face. He said, she grabbed my chin and pulled my chin up and she was saying stuff. He said, I could feel her spitting everything he said.
Wynema Morris (01:05:14):
And then she was yanking and pulling my arms. And he said, I guess she was telling me that I needed to put my arms up. He said, 'cause she yanked them up. And so I left 'em there, he said, and then she shook her head, no, no. And she took each one of my hands, she said, with hers, and not very gently turned them so my wrists would be on top, he said, and she had a ruler and he said it was old government type ruler, and it had those metal strips in it. And he said in English, he said, I guess she was scolding me and hit me real fast three times, scolding me. And he said, and I looked, he said, and blood just began spurting out everywhere, and then he said, she was like, oh, he said, and it got on her.
Wynema Morris (01:06:07):
He said, it got on me. And he said, I don't know what she grabbed, but they something around my hand. And they took me to the hospital and hospitals where it used to be, the Indian hospitals were under the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the time. And then they took me over, he said, they must have stopped the bleeding. He said, I had bandages on my hand. He said, for a long time. He said, then it went away. He said, and it healed. I said, yeah, but look, it has scars. She scarred you. Yeah, yeah, she did. You know. But that, you know, I mean, he was nine years old when that happened. And he carried those all his life. And I never, until I questioned him.
Wynema Morris (01:06:57):
He didn't speak English. And you know, that has to just be, I mean, that teacher, and she did that wasn't just anger. That was, that's hatred for a 9-year-old Omaha boy that doesn't speak English, didn't understand, you know, to have that. And so when they say the legacy of pain and everything that comes from boarding schools, that it impacts us all. It does. And it is intergenerational because I could still talk about those things about my dad and about my mother. And it still, you know, still brings me to tears to think that they could be treated so inhumanely just because they're Indian kids, you know? And I know that there's much more stories out there. And my dad did tell me of some that happened to others. He said they weren't even Omahas, he said, but they got punished pretty severely too, he said.
Wynema Morris (01:08:12):
But there was one matron, he said, and I guess she was.
Susana Geliga (01:08:17):
Is this at Pipestone?
Wynema Morris (01:08:19):
Yeah, Pipestone. Okay. And he said there was one matron there called Beatrice Burns, he said, and her husband and herself, he said they were Indians, but he said they were real assimilated. They were Mr. Burns was a 33rd degree Mason. Like I'm supposed to know what that is and whatever. I've found out since. And that she was an Eastern Star. Well, they were assimilating into, you know, very much so into white society or what was society in Pipestone. But, she was like, became the mother to all of the younger boarding school boys. And he said, if it weren't for her, I would've probably ran away. If it weren't for her. He said she was really kind. And I said, did she feed you after school?
Wynema Morris (01:09:13):
I said, like, mom, she talks about being hungry. Yeah, he said she'd have stuff he said, fruit, he said, she gave us a lot of fruit, he said. But, it was, it was good, he said. But she was really good to us. And she must have been because, after Pipestone, well, my dad went there. He graduated when he was in the 10th grade. And then he worked there for a while, and then he enlisted in the Army. And then after World War II was over, then he got his old job back at Pipestone Indian School. In the meantime, had met my mother and then married her. And then my sister, of course, I was already born during that time as well. So, he brought my mother and myself up to Pipestone. And I remember riding the bus up to go to Pipestone.
Wynema Morris (01:10:07):
I didn't know where we were going. I just remember being on a bus and seeing, must have been in the springtime, because I remember the corn rows as the bus was going by. And they were just going by, you know, in a real weird pattern. And I remember that. And we were on our way to Pipestone to join my dad. But, Mrs. Burns was still there. And after it had closed in the early fifties, Pipestone, I mean, Minnesota wanted to take over that school to make it into a, what do you call it? A foster home, for everybody. Not just Indian kids, but a foster home for all the children in the state. And so they closed it to function as a school. And my parents got moved out. 'cause they were working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I mean, the very institution that implements all these horrible policies against Indian people.
Wynema Morris (01:11:02):
They worked for. But they weren't, you know, I mean, they weren't the teachers, they weren't the people in charge. They were at the menial tasks. But my mom and dad, that was the jobs that they could get and have and hold. And, because there was no jobs on the reservation, you know, and they were too poor to say, try to go to college or what they called going to, not secondary school, or they called it post-graduate school, some sort of post-graduate school. So they didn't have the means. So my dad went to the Army, then he came out, and then my mother, she worked in that very same hospital that my dad got hit at. Of course he's an adult now, but she worked there for a while. And then she moved over to the kitchen and the dining hall.
Wynema Morris (01:11:52):
So she worked there as, I don't know, a cook or a waiter or something. And until they, you know, they began to take classes and they started to educate themselves a little bit more. They didn't get their degrees, but they educated themselves so that they could take on more responsibility. And then my mother ended up being the head, what they call the head nutritionist or head cook, basically for some of the boarding schools and on the reservation, on the Navajo reservation. So, in the end they lived really good lives and they were very productive, but they never forgot Omaha. And they never taught me, or my sister and I used, I asked them, how come you didn't teach us Omaha? And their response, and my mother's response was, because we didn't want you to get treated like we did when you went to school, so we didn't teach you. So.
Susana Geliga (01:12:56):
So the last couple of questions I have is, did your mom or her family members, did they ever talk about being taught some type of skill that they had to do, or if they ever participated in an outing program, or if they ever got sick while they were there?
Wynema Morris (01:13:21):
I don't recall them talking about either getting sick, but they weren't taught, as you say, sort of like a vocation or to, you know, get additional training. While they were in school, they were just going, my dad from beginners to 10th. 'cause that's what the boarding schools did in those days. Then my mother, by the time she got from Genoa back into the public school system, or at least the Macy Day school, still BIA, that it was just school year after year. But she said that she just sort of gravitated towards she worked in the kitchen at the Winnebago Hospital first. She said, that's where I got my first job when I graduated from Macy public school. And she said, so, I watched and learned there. She said, by the time I got married to your dad.
Wynema Morris (01:14:24):
And then by the time the war was over and he sent for us, she said, I had some really good skills. So she worked in the hospital again at Pipestone, she said, and then the hospital went under Indian Health, no, excuse me, it went under Department of Health and Education Services or something like that, she said but I noticed, I liked preparing food. So when I was in the dining room and got reassigned to the dining room, she said, I learned all I could about how to cook and what to do. She said, and I knew how to cook being at home, but I didn't know how to cook for, you know, huge, large meals for, you know, hundreds of kids. So she said, I learned that and I liked that. So she said, I just sort of trained myself and read books.
Wynema Morris (01:15:13):
I said, mom, you're really smart. Well, she said, it was something so that I didn't always have to just be a waiter and I wanted to, you know, be in charge of something. My dad was the opposite. He said, I learned my jobs to do it very well, but I didn't wanna be a boss. He said, I didn't want that <laugh>. So he said, and I didn't mind doing what I did. So he was like a pipe fitter. And so I don't know exactly how that works, but he worked around coal and he died of black lung because in his early working years, Pipestone Indian School everything was heated. The sidewalks were heated for the winter. The employees that had these nice houses had garages, and those garages were heated. So the boys building, girls building the dining room, kitchen schoolhouse, the administration building, all these places had to be heated by steam heat.
Wynema Morris (01:16:16):
So in order to, you know, boil the waters, so it could get into the radiators among his job with some of the other Indian guys, was to shovel coal into this big, huge furnace. And, yeah, shoveling coal all those years, you know, or if a pipe went down, then he said, they'd call me and say, okay, you gotta go over there. He said, I'd go over there and the pipe would have bursted or it was rusting out, he said, and I'd have to, my job was to repair it, so they'd have to turn off the water, drain it. He said, I get it. And I'd come back, measure it, make those threads in it. He said, and I'd take it back and screw it back in and turn on the water and we'd be back in business.
Wynema Morris (01:16:58):
And I said, so that was your job? And he said, yeah, that was my job. So, but they, you know, they thought they were good employees. My dad actually retired from working in what was called the powerhouses. So he, you know, did that all his life and my mother, but they saved, and they sent me and my sister to college. And we both got through, it. But, you know, we were just oblivious to what they had gone through. We didn't know until later in life. And I began to learn a little bit more about boarding schools and what was happening and what was going on. And initially my mother said, oh, I don't remember having things like that. And I said, really? I said, well, sure. I said, I don't think Genoa was that benign. And then as we began to go through what it was that she actually went through it, wasn't that good. It wasn't good either. And she's only six years old, you know, <laugh>, I see a 6-year-old today and they're just babies.
Susana Geliga (01:18:11):
Babies, yes.
Wynema Morris (01:18:13):
Yeah, Vanessa Hamilton's little 7-year-old comes into the college and I hug him every time he comes in. I think, oh my God, you are the age or contemporary age of my mother when she was at boarding school. You know, and you're not even as old as my dad when he got sent, which was nine. But, you know, it is traumatic and it does visit the next generation. And, yeah. So, you feel it, you know, quite keenly, I would say. Absolutely. So I thought my son was never, when I got married and had my son, that he was never gonna go to any sort of boarding school, <laugh>, ever <laugh>. Yeah. So
Susana Geliga (01:18:57):
Can you spell your family's last name and say your family members again? One last time?
Wynema Morris (01:19:05):
Oh, okay. Joseph Gilpin, G-I-L-P-I-N. And then Josephine Gilpin. G-I-L-P-I-N.
Susana Geliga (01:19:19):
She was your mom?
Wynema Morris (01:19:22):
Yeah, these are my mother's siblings.
Susana Geliga (01:19:23):
Okay.
Wynema Morris (01:19:23):
And then Lucille Gilpin, G-I-L-P-I-N. So, and I did run into their names, you know, as a list of names of having attended there. And I think it shows a span of years and stuff, but I don't know, in the move after my sister passed away, you know, I just have a bunch of stuff and I don't know what I did with any of that. 'cause again, I was gonna write that book and I just never had gotten around to it. But, I did run into some of that. And even had, Genoa help me on some issues and, but again, it's just stalled. I don't know if I'll ever actually do it, but, I'm glad that this project, so it still can be told, you know, and if people want to listen to it, that's, that's good.
Susana Geliga (01:20:16):
What was your mom's name again?
Wynema Morris (01:20:18):
Elsie.
Susana Geliga (01:20:19):
Okay.
Wynema Morris (01:20:19):
Yeah. And her middle initial is V for Victoria.
Susana Geliga (01:20:24):
Is it E-L-S-I-E?
Wynema Morris (01:20:28):
Yep.
Susana Geliga (01:20:28):
Okay. Well I think that book would be such a treasure for you to write. And I want to thank you so much for your time and thank you for sharing.
Wynema Morris (01:20:38):
Oh, for sure.
Susana Geliga (01:20:39):
I'm stopping the recording now. Go ahead.
Wynema Morris (01:20:42):
Oh, okay.