Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
gifts of history
this is a photograph of my great-grandma from my dad’s maternal side – ida olson (yes, she’s the one with the gun).
my mother has come for a visit this weekend and as part of my birthday gift she presented me with a slim photo album containing shots of ida’s life around 1901 in minnesota. it seems, that as a young and well-educated woman, ida ended up a teacher in a residential school (the type of live-in school where stolen indian children were sent away from their families to be stripped of their heritage and culture). this small set of quite beautiful photos contains a number of pictures of first nations people (as well as photos of ida’s house and friends) taken in that same time period. she has captioned them all in a tidy script, so we might now see something of that time and possibly understand some small shred.
what to make of this legacy? some of my family have only been on this continent for one generation, and some for several – and i have long been aware of the ways in which i have benefited from the legacy of genocide and colonialism directed against the first nations people of north america. this volume is the first indication of a family link to direct complicity in the re-education of native peoples – and for that i have a woe in recognizing that any white people who were present during those times not only had a benefit, but a direct impact on the lives of those so wholly subjugated by the ever-expanding powers.
this gift is a reminder of a cruel legacy – and for that i am glad to receive it. click *more* to see a few more photos.
the residential school population with priest and teachers
“branch of sioux indians”
“bunch of secoh lake chiefs”
3 Comments on “gifts of history”
Red Cedar 
Thank you for sharing these rare, sad and wonderful photos with us. And you know, what makes it saddest of all for me is that Ida, and the people like her, saw themselves as doing good, as the “good Europeans” as opposed to those who wanted to just exterminate Native People. Behind it lay a cultural-religious arrogance that would not allow Native People to be themselves.
Wow! This is an incredible gift! The pictures seem in very good shape. As much as I despise the memory of residential schools, this is a very important reminder to keep and never forget. It would be interesting if you could possibly find any way to identify any of the First Nations People in the pictures and possibly give them copies if they wanted them. Some of my friends who went through the residential school sytem would want copies, others would not. Obviously it is up to the individual..and with all the education happening around what happened in those schools one never knows! I would want copies. I would want to give them to my Kohkum.
Yes, it is awful, these memories – but also why I am grateful to receive them – to never forget. I had the same impulse when I received them – to give them back to the people. I was thinking of looking up Sioux people who may have been in that area in the time and the Secoh Lake band and making copies of the photos and at least sending them to the band office so that they can have them in their own historic records. That is probably the only way that any family members would ever have a chance of stumbling upon them – is if they enter the public record. All this family of my father’s is long dead and until the photo album came into my hands we never knew about ida’s teaching years – so finding out specific information would be really difficult.