My Life

My name is Tina Delorme. I was born in the small town of Broadview Saskatchewan. My reserve, Cowessess First Nation is located nearby in the Fort Quapelle Valley. I’m a single parent with three children. My oldest child is my daughter Sheryl; she’s 20 and on her own and going to school. My other two children are boys and they live with me. My second youngest is Brendon, who is twelve, and my youngest is Shaun who is seven. I have three brothers and three sisters not including myself.

I was raised in a residential school from the time I was six to the age of fourteen. The boarding school on my reserve was called Marieval Residential School which has been torn down already. I never thought residential school was a big deal and I still don’t. A lot of people have their own opinions of what went on in the boarding schools back then. My mother and my older brother are still going through the courts. They both asked me if I also wanted to, and I said I have no reason to do so because I wasn’t harmed by the nuns. There were a few instances that I had seen and heard about, but had never experienced. There were some bad times and some good times, but I try to forget the bad and concentrate on the good.

However, I would like to share one bad incident. There once was this little girl who wet her bed and the nuns made us all stand at the foot of the bed while she walked down the aisle with her wet sheets, naked. Then they made us all stand around the sink while she washed her wet sheets. She was crying and asking if she could get dressed. You couldn’t imagine how bad we all felt for her, but the nuns didn’t even give her a second thought.