ORANGE MARKS SURVIVAL FROM RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL
Co-founder of awareness day urges all to wear colourful shirts on Sept. 30
Phyllis Webstad has faced her life challenges with the beliefs that one must make one’s own way, always forging ahead no matter what the obstacle.
It’s what made her succeed as a single mother, after finding out she was pregnant at the tender age of 12. “Quitting was never, and has never been, an option,” she says of taking on such a heavy responsibility before she was even in her teens.
She went on to attain a diploma in business administration from Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in Merritt, and later, an accounting diploma from Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. She has been a vicepresident of community relations for a resource company and for a time taught English in China.
Today, she is a respected leader in her community of Wildwood, B.C., not far from the First Nation reserve where she spent her childhood.
Yet it has been in looking back, to a painful time in her life decades earlier, where Webstad has so far logged her greatest career achievement to date.
The Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, an annual event each Sept. 30.
Recognized not only nationally by the Assembly of First Nations but internationally just three years after its formation, Orange Shirt Day encourages citizens to wear orange in support of survivors of Canada’s residential schools system — and to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and the conviction that every child matters.
On Tuesday, Webstad stands before a standing-room-only crowd of more than 200 at Bow Valley College, which includes teachers, staff and scores of students from all over the world. She’s here to tell the story of how a soft-spoken, gentle woman has come to be one of the leading voices for residential school survivors.
Like the better-known Pink Shirt Day each February that takes a stand against bullying, Webstad’s decision to choose the colour orange was a very personal and poignant one.
The girl who was born Phyllis Jack grew up on the Dog Creek reserve southwest of Williams Lake, B.C., part of the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, raised by her grandmother, Lena Jack.
The small house they shared had no indoor plumbing or electricity; their food was mostly from the land and water, caught fish and wild meat, picked berries and vegetables from the garden.
“A lot of my life with granny was just focusing on survival,” she recalls.
At six years of age, she was sent to St. Joseph Mission Indian Residential School, a few hours away.
Her grandmother took her shopping for a new school outfit.
“I chose a shiny orange shirt,” she says. When she arrived at the school, “we all got stripped and my shirt was taken away.”
While Webstad doesn’t get into the details of her treatment at the hands of school officials — according to Justice Murray Sinclair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “almost half of all children who went to a residential school suffered a serious physical injury of some kind” — she remembers well the emotional effect it had on her.
“I felt like I didn’t matter,” she says.
“No matter how much we cried, there was no help … there was a time when I couldn’t even say my own name without crying.”
For years, she couldn’t even look at the colour orange, the hue reminding her of the year she spent in a place where she was told her culture and history didn’t matter.
“I always say to the little ones I had to stay there for 300 sleeps,” she says, as a photograph of her as a young schoolgirl is displayed on a large screen. “They can identify with that.” In the spring of 2013, Webstad attended the St. Joseph Mission Residential School Commemoration Project and Reunion events in Williams Lake, where she was encouraged to share her story.
For the first time, Webstad spoke out about her residential school experience.
Since launching Orange Shirt Day in 2013 with the help of friends and supporters, Webstad has travelled across the country to share her story.
Sometimes, it’s been more than she could handle.
“September was crying month,” she says of the decision to hold the day on Sept. 30.
“That’s when children were taken from their homes.”
Still, this unlikely voice for other residential school survivors plans to forge ahead, like she has always done.
“The world needs to hear a story, even if it’s painful,” she says at the end of her very personal story, one shared by generations of indigenous Canadians.
“To listen and to understand, to have empathy, not sympathy … just be an open ear for survivors. And wear an orange shirt on Sept. 30.”
I chose a shiny orange shirt (on the first day at St. Joseph Mission Indian Residential school). We all got stripped and my shirt was taken away.