CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald
July 12, 2013
AARON BESWICK TRURO BUREAU
ESKASONI — In 1955, a government Indian agent told Margaret Johnson that she had too many children.
On Friday, one of those children, now herself a mother, stood in front of a black granite memorial to the residential school system.
“There were 13 of us, but I never remember being cold or hungry at home,” said Lottie Johnson.
“We always had a cow and a pig and chickens and each other.”
She and eight of her siblings were packed on a train and sent to the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School.
There, they were beaten for speaking Mi’kmaq or for running or showing disobedience. They grew up away from their parents, along with aboriginal children from across Nova Scotia.
All of Eskasoni on Friday was remembering the residential school system and the harm that travelled through ensuing generations like a wave refusing to break against the shore.
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