The Lansdowne Letters: Prejudice

When you were growing up did you ever have to move far away
in the middle of the year and go to a new school? 

My family moved a lot during my childhood,
so I was familiar with having to start anew in another school
at the beginning, in the middle, and sometimes toward the end of a school year.

On the Move Again

Me (left) with Roy and Donnie

This was the year I attended three schools in three provinces as a second grader.

We were visiting relatives in New York State on the way to School #3 in Nova Scotia.

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

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Moving never became easy for me.
It was always difficult.  
The trauma of leaving my friends and starting over always hurt.

But sometimes the experience was intimidating, even scary.
That was the case when my family moved to Lansdowne House
in late February, 1961.
I approached my strange new school with trepidation,
because I knew it would be unlike any school I had ever attended.

Church of England Indian Day School

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada, fall 1960

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

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The fact that it was a one room school with multiple grades didn't bother me a bit.
I had been to all kinds of schools in my young life.

The fact that I would be the only fifth grade student didn't bother me either.
I'd been one of two third graders in my one room school in Margaretsville, Nova Scotia, and that had worked out just fine.

The fact that I would have to share a card table with my brother wasn't intimidating.
Rather it raised every territorial and competitive hackle I possessed,
because it was Roy, my brother The Instigator, whom I had to share it with.

However, the thought of my father as my teacher and principal was intimidating.
I remember peeking into his junior high classroom when I was five or six,
overawed by those huge seventh grade boys near the door
and my father's towering, authoritative presence at the front of the room.

Dad hadn't demonstrated a lot of patience in the past
when helping my brother and me with school work,
and my Nana MacBeath wasn't the only person worried about him roaring at us.
We two could bring out our father's inner Military Parade Marshal lickety-split,
but even this didn't scare me.

 Big Soldier ~ Kitche Shemaganish

(The Nickname the Ojibwa People Gave My Father in Lansdowne House)

Most Likely Prince Edward Island, Circa:  1952

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

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What scared me was the thought of being one of four white children
in a school full of Ojibwa children who spoke hardly any English.
I had never experienced being a minority, 
but I already was familiar with prejudice
and with how children could cruelly target those who were different.
I was about to be the one who was different. 

Some of my Father's Ojibwa Students

Lansdowne House on Lake Attawapiskat in Northern Ontario

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

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We were late getting to school that first time in Lansdowne House.
My father had left early to make sure the cantankerous stoves
had heated the school without burning it down during the night
and to haul the day's water supply for the school up from the DOT waterhole.

Mom fell behind the schedule to get us off on time,
surely hampered by the novel task of readying four children
for school with no running water or electricity;
and, it didn't help to have an excited four-year-old Barbie
going off to school for the first time.

We Five Shortly Before Moving North

Roy (left), Donnie, Louise (Me) with Bertie, Barbie

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada

Photo by Sara MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

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Anxiety preyed on me as we headed across the squeaky snow
and followed the narrow path through the bush to the other side of the peninsula.
We had experienced a warm welcome from Fanny and Nellie Kitchejohn the previous day,
but I worried about what going to a school filled with Ojibwa classmates would be like.

My fear of experiencing prejudice was visceral.  The irony escaped me at the time.
As I trudged up the steps to my new school, I was the living definition of prejudice,
burdened with a "preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience" 
that the Ojibwa children would greet me with prejudice.
(Definition: Google)

I tried to express the strong emotions I had experienced that morning
in an essay I wrote eighteen months later: 

"I felt the ugly fear and uneasiness of prejudice most powerfully 
as I crossed the threshold of my father’s school,
and a sea of coppery faces and coal-black eyes stared at the four of us. 

I could sense the atmosphere of curiosity mingled with fear and shyness.  
My brother, my two sisters, and I could not return an equal feeling
for we were four small white children lost in the midst of thirty some Ojibwa children. 

Never will I forget the feeling in the pit of my stomach, 
my shaking knees, aching throat, and pounding heart.  
I know now what it is like to be on the receiving end of prejudice."

I didn't get much school work accomplished that morning;
instead I tried to blend in and mimic the Ojibwa children's
responses to their familiar school routines.

A chirpy "Here, teacher!" from me during roll call 
earned me a glare from my father and his admonition 
that I should reply with "Present, Mr. MacBeath."

Our father expected we four to model proper school behavior and English
for the benefit of the Ojibwa students, not to mimic them,
even little Barbie on her first day of school ever.

While my younger sisters Donnie and Barbie sat among the younger Ojibwa girls,
Roy and I sat at our card table at the back of the room.
We pushed our papers and books around and observed.

Some of My Father's Ojibwa Girls
Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

The Ojibwa girls quickly
took our younger sisters
under their collective wings,
guiding them through
the unfamiliar school activities
of brushing teeth
and washing hands.






They comforted and sympathized with Donnie and Barbie
when they had to eat and drink 
the dreadful, government-issued bannock and powdered milk
that targeted Indian hunger and poor nutrition.

They even jumped up to help my sisters sharpen their pencils,
gathering around them in a colorful giggling group at the pencil sharpener.
No one jumped up to help me with mine.

I can still remember that first long walk to and from the pencil sharpener
and feeling all those dark eyes staring at me as I moved across the room.

Our Ojibwa classmates largely ignored Roy and me,
but I caught them sneaking furtive glances at us,
glances they quickly averted if my eyes met theirs.

The minutes to morning recess crawled by, 
and I glumly anticipated standing by myself
behind a corner of the school out of the wind.
Recess and acceptance loom large in the minds of children,
and I was no different from countless others.

The dreaded recess time came, 
and Dad drove us all outside to play.
I suspect he had a quick cigarette and a cup of thermos coffee
to settle his nerves at having the four of us in his classroom.
In fact, we may have had an extra long recess ~ 
one of the benefits of Dad's having his immediate supervisor
located an hour and a half away by bush plane.

I walked over to stand stoically by the swings
where the Ojibwa girls were pushing my sisters
higher and higher into the cold air.
I watched my brother attempting to chat
with a bunch of boys gathered by the steps,
thinking it was going to be a very long and lonely recess.

What happened next I recorded in my long ago essay:
"At recess, a very big Indian boy approached and hailed me. 'Hello, Nouise!'
I rallied round, managed a faint 'Hello,' and our problems were solved.  
Within minutes we were running, jumping, laughing, and shouting with them all."

That was George Jacobs, and he and Simon Atlookan
became two of my best friends among the Ojibwa children.
I am forever grateful for his reaching out
to this suddenly shy and awkward white girl.

George (left) and Simon (right)

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada, Winter 1960

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue


Bay of Fundy out of Westport, Brier Island
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

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For Map Lovers Like Me:

Lansdowne House, Ontario, Canada

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