Residential Schools in Alberta: Emotional and Psychological Effects, A personal story, by Kathleen Steinhauer

Kathleen Steinhauer reveals her legacy of emotions following time spent as a student in the Edmonton Indian Residential School from 1937 to 1940.

The question was asked, “What do you feel were the emotional and psychological effects of residential school experience?”


Although I firmly believe this question is better left to experts in the fields of mental health and social adjustment, I will attempt to describe my personal feelings and experiences in this regard.


I left the school at the age of eight years after much abuse from the staff and other older students, an angry, belligerent, obstreperous child who, for the three years I was there was terrified most of the time. (Where was the next blow coming from?)


One of the punishments that seemed to be a favourite with the Girls’ Matron was to lock us in the broom and scrub closet. This was a dark cupboard under the basement stairs just off our basement “playroom”. There was no light in it and only a 25-watt bulb in the landing.


As well as being teased by the older girls about ghosts and ghoulies in the dark; this experience left me with a profound fear of the dark that lasted until I was in nursing training. Working night left me with little time or energy to give way to my fears.


I had never even been spanked before I went to school. I remember having much fun with my sisters and large extended family. There was a lot of visiting back and forth, a lot of work bees which were fun for kids, storytelling, music and dancing. We lived the wilderness life of Métis people who happened to fall under the blanket of Indian Affairs.


On my return home to stay it was decided that I would be home-schooled with correspondence school branch lessons. My mother was a teacher and she took on this task for us. This time in the closeness and comfort of my family, I’ve always felt to have been what was my salvation – the beginning of a long journey back to normal childhood.


I found the lessons easy enough, however I found it very difficult to get along with my siblings often quarrelling with them, starting fights for no apparent reason. I spent a good deal of “time out”, and was often spanked, probably as a result of my uncontrolled behaviour.


As I grew to pre-teens and left for a U[nited] C[hurch] Mission School (Duclos) [sp?] I had no close girlfriends. My only friend was my sister Doreen and the friends she was able to make had to put up with me.


When I was asked, as youngsters sometimes are, how I liked school, I remember saying very emphatically, “way better than residential school!”


It was a friend of my sister’s who, tired of having me tag along with them, suggested to me in no uncertain terms that if I would just try to be nice to people I might have friends of my own. It was then I began to realize – at the age of seventeen – that the anger I so often displayed was hurting only me.


This anger was sometimes quite directed. I remember playing ball, being ‘up to bat’ and imagining when I was big enough I would beat Mrs. Simpson with that bat until I had pounded her into the ground. Needless to say, I pounded so hard the bat broke. (Time out)


When I was ten I was being taught how to scale and eviscerate fish. To do this it is necessary to use a mid-sized but very sharp knife. That broke too, from stabbing Mrs. Simpson into the ground. At that time those imaginings of revenge didn’t frighten me, but they do now and have for a long time.


Attempting to get on with my life while at the same time having to very deliberately and consciously surpass these feelings of anger and hurt was of course very stressful. It too often resulted in outbursts of uncontrolled weeping; at other times forcing myself not to weep was equally difficult. Not very many people could accept or understand my mood swings and neither could I. There were abrupt needs for solitude just as there were almost erratic needs to be with people – at least not to be alone, and sometimes the people weren’t up to much good.


After a long time, I’m able to review my experience, although still troubling, as not unique. Having to be away at boarding schools all my school years I believe limited my parenting skills and I think my husband and children can attest to that.


Although my anger and frustration never came to that, I think I have some understanding of Aboriginal people who express themselves in violent and even murderous ways.