Page 48 - 1st Anthology 2011

band meetings happened there, also a lot of dances, and pow wow’s, and it was a really
nice place.

I remember this one time my dad telling me about this elderly lady and she used to live
by herself and they used to go check on her every once in awhile just to see if she was
okay. She still used to live in a tipi back in them days. Then one time they went to check
up on her and they were calling out to her to see if she was okay. She wasn’t well, and she
wouldn’t move. All that time she passed away in her sleep. They went in and checked her
out. The way she was sleeping, it was just like she was just sleeping natural. When they
turned her around they said she was just polluted with lice. So they had to burn up the
tipi, the one that she lived in. Whether they buried her there or down by the cemetery, I
really don’t know. My dad never told me her name. It was just the story they he told me.

The time that he told me we were riding and we were looking around for cows that were
sick. He was the great one to point out just about where she was living. We were looking
at that place. It was a nice place way out in Wolf Flats. He was great one at telling me all
these things. That is one of the stories I know. Another time I can remember was when
tuberculosis came. When they had to ship some of the people up to Edmonton to Charles
Camsell Hospital. I know my aunt Sarah, Robert Onespot, Clarence Big Crow, Agnes
Onespot-Thomas, Albert Waters, Ruth Starlight, and they all got shipped up to
Edmonton.

When they brought Clarence back he was a person that you never see in public. He’s a
kind of guy that’s shy and stays indoors. He didn’t want to be noticed. That’s the way he
wanted to be and he stayed to himself. He always stayed with his mom. He was self-
conscious. He didn’t want to be caught in public or anything.

Ruth, she’s still with us. Robert, that would be Brian’s father-in-law, and he passed away.
Agnes is still with us, and aunty Sarah she passed on. These are the people who had TB
that I know of.

Any other big disease like smallpox, I don’t really recall any of those things that they told
me. My mom and dad never really told me too much about it. I know there was small pox
but I never really had the fortune to hear any stories. They never told me anything about
it. They just never had the time to tell me. So I never knew too much about small pox, just
TB and those people that went up to Camsell, and when they brought them back.

The other time I know, the meningitis hit the reserve and everybody got sick. That’s an
awful disease and you can get really sick. Otherwise it was self-contained; I guess that is
how I would say it. The people that went through it, they never really talked about it to
us. Whether they didn’t wanted to know about it or they just want us to spare the misery
of it. You know all the sufferings that went on. So that’s, as much as I know, you know
things like that I never heard nothing from my mom and dad. I never heard anything
about the flu either.

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