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First Ever Maȟpíya Lúta Summer Research Institutete
This past June 2023, six Maȟpíya Lúta students participated in the first Maȟpíya Lúta Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) at Marquette University in Milwaukee. MLSRI is a two week summer program that provides a forum for research, critical thinking, and community education focused on the history and impact of U.S. imperialism and Indian boarding schools specifically. The students utilized the archives of Holy Rosary Mission - Maȟpíya Lúta which are held at Marquette University’s Raynor Memorial Library to learn about historical research and produce their own primary research on the history of Holy Rosary Mission.
Throughout the weeks, students heard presentations on various topics that included: understanding Indian burial mounds as public archives, considering the way Indigenous history is portrayed in Museums, using creative writing to enhance research efforts, the history of missionary efforts in North America, and understanding U.S. Imperialism, and more.
The heart of the institute was the students' own research efforts. Each student chose a research topic and used the records to construct a narrative around it. Students utilized photographs, student publications, diaries, former school handbooks, oral histories and interviews with former boarders, financial records, newspapers, and more. Many of the students also found records and photographs related to their own family history. One student said that MLSRI “provided me with connection and clarity that I valued most throughout the program.”
Students’ research will eventually be on display for the Pine Ridge community to learn from. Their projects focused on the following topics:
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Kinship Depicted through Photography and Poetry -Destiny Big Crow
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Boarding and Schedules in the 1930s, 1970s, and early 2020s -ElleDonna Fastwolf
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Holy Rosary Mission: The Highest Value of Obedience -Kennedy Fridia
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Holy Rosary Mission Clothing Tells a Variant History -Bernadine Garnier
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An Insight into Holy Rosary Mission Through Student Publications -Jayden Hernandez
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Sports at Holy Rosary Mission -April Knight
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Community Advisory Council (CAC)
As we move into the next phase of Truth and Healing we have invited former student boarders to serve on the Community Advisory Council. They that have shared their story of their time as young men and women. We anticipate to have our first quarterly gathering later in the month of March.
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Upcoming March 2024 Research Trip to Denver, Colorado
The Jesuits reached out to the Sisters of St Francis of Penance and Christian Charity, whose first mother house was north of Niagara, NY once the schools started to come together. The first schools were St Francis and Holy Rosary Mission, where six Sister/Winyan’s /Nuns arrived to take care of the girls, food, cleaning and laundry. In 1939, as the Order grew a Midwest mother house in Denver was created for South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska needs. The archives hold much information on the role the Sisters played at Holy Rosary Mission. They have graciously responded to our request to look for information on their time here. We will also research more information on the Lakota Winyans who joined the Order, as this is an important part of this history.
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Executive Director Update
On July 3, 2024, as I drove down the driveway toward Red Cloud campus and parked in front of Drexel Hall and as I looked at this brick building where back in 1953 I saw this same building as my parents drove me and my younger sisters from Inkpata south of Kyle the first of September in 1953. There was a time in the past as I drove to this spot upon my return home in 1987 after living and working in California since 1963. In 1963, we moved to California on the Relocation Program, so my dad could work and take care of our family of five girls. The two older sisters graduated from Holy Rosary Mission, and one was in the Navy, and one was in a Nursing Program in New Mexico. I would have a deep feeling of something. Through ceremony, I was able to pull out the deep pain that that was deep in me. It was a little girl watching her mom and dad drive away after leaving me here with my suitcase of things. Me as the little girl, I understand now, was feeling abandoned coupled with “they don’t want me anymore.” I remember these were feelings not identifiable with words or description at that age, however, a feeling that was embedded deep within me. Years later, one late fall afternoon, I came after my little girl spirit who was in the little girl’s dormitory. I took her home where she then left me into the arms of Mi Ina and many Un’cis who then held her. I did share this with Mi A’te and he said “we cried all the way home to Kyle after we left you girls”. There are many stories of both men and women who were student boarders here at this place which has been here for 136 years and it’s their stories we are recording, good, bad, and ugly.
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New Truth and Healing Team Member
The Truth and Healing Department welcomes a new team member named Susan J. Hawk. Susan is an enrolled member of Oglala Sioux Tribe and the seventh child of Lambert V. Hawk Sr. (Oglala) and Mary Louise Apple Hawk (Kyle). Both of Susan's parents were former Boarders of Holy Rosary Mission, where they met and became high school sweethearts. Susan considers herself blessed to have both of her parents alive strong, healthy, and feisty. In the 1960’s both Lambert and Mary made a choice to participate in the Relocation Program. This choice led them to relocate from the Pine Ridge Reservation to the big city of Los Angeles, California. They raised their seven children in various cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. Susan, completed high school, worked, and lived in San Diego much of her life. In June 2023, Susan recently obtained her Bachelors of Science Degree in Business Administration Management from Oglala Lakota College. She is grateful and humbled to be a part of the Truth and Healing Team as the Administrative Assistant.
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Research Updates
Research Coordinator Gabrielle Guillerm has continued to use the archival records in the Marquette University Archives (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) to identify the Lakota children who attended Holy Rosary Mission / Red Cloud Indian School between the creation of the institution in 1888 and the destruction of the last dormitory, Red Cloud Hall, in 1980. We now know the names of over 4,100 boarders.
More recently, Gabrielle has also uncovered various diaries and journals kept by the Jesuits in the late 19th century and in 1924-1935, two of which are at Marquette University and another one in the Jesuit Archives & Research Center in St. Louis, Missouri. While these school and private diaries reflect the Jesuits’ views, not the children’s, they are nonetheless a valuable source of information on the early history of the school. They include the names of 8th grade graduates as well as details on the curriculum and extracurricular activities. They also provide a glimpse of what a typical school year and week looked like around 1930 (Thursday was confession day and Saturday was bath day). Because the diaries were private, even personal in two cases, they also contain information that is rarely found in more public-facing newsletters and correspondence. For instance, it is where there is detailed information on students who died at Holy Rosary Mission or shortly after returning home. Because all these diaries were penned by Jesuits, they tend to mostly give us a sense of the boys’ experiences at Holy Rosary Mission. This is why the next step is to conduct research in the Archives of the Franciscan Sisters, who were in charge of the girls and taught the early grades.
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