FAMILY OF NURSES
Caring for others is in the blood
Three generations of caring began with a vision of a woman in white.
First Nations people have a unique history in Canada and much of it is linked to early federal government policy. Despite legislation designed to assimilate First Nations people, one family overcame those limitations and turned a negative into a positive, which resulted in a family legacy that continues today.
It is a story that began on April 27, 1914.
Rosabelle Rider was born in the Carry-the-Kettle First Nation, but was known to many in the Fort Qu’Appelle Valley as nurse Rosabelle Robertson. It was not an easy life. Robertson’s mother died in childbirth and her father was unable to care for her and her siblings. Robertson’s eldest brother tried to care for the family, but he was too young.
Eventually family members intervened and the children were separated.
However this was during the era of Indian residential schools.
When Robertson was 10 years old, she and her siblings were sent off to residential school, but two days before that happened, their grandfather Dry Bones gave each of them an eagle feather and an Indian name.
“He gave her the name White Star Woman, because he seen her in white,” said Andrena Gordon, Robertson’s daughter. “Well, they took the feather away when she got to school, but she had her name.”
It would be the last time Robertson would live in her community.
She and her siblings were sent to a residential school in Round Lake, Man., because there was no room in Saskatchewan.
They were then sent to the Brandon Indian Residential School.
Robertson grew up in Manitoba Indian residential schools.
Although she lost her language and cultural teachings — she excelled in school.
The nuns at the Brandon Residential School decided Robertson would make a good nurse and sent her to St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg for training.
Gordon is unsure of when her mother graduated from nursing school, but said she was still very young.
As a result of her post-secondary education, Robertson lost her Indian status, which meant she was no longer considered to be an Indian as defined in the Indian Act and was no longer a member of the Carry-the-Kettle First Nation.
Robertson did not let that stop her from diving into her nursing career, which she grew to love and would eventually pass down to the generations of her family.
Blair Stonechild, professor of indigenous studies at the First Nations University of Canada, is well aware of the enfranchise clause in the Indian Act, which robbed people of their Indian status if they pursued post-secondary education.
During the time the Indian Act was being set up in the late 1800s, social Darwinism was the theory of choice and policies and laws were influenced by this way of thinking.
Social Darwinism held the belief that First Nations culture was inferior as were First Nations people, who were not capable of obtaining higher education, said Stonechild.
“So based on that type of thinking, they believed if there was an Indian who was successful in getting post-secondary education, then they really shouldn’t be an Indian,” he said. “They shouldn’t be protected. They shouldn’t have Indian status. They shouldn’t be a legal minor and they should have the rights of an ordinary citizen.”
He said it was all part of the enfranchisement movement to get Indians “to basically become white people.”
The clause first appeared in Section 86 of the 1876 Indian Act, which was also the original Indian Act.
Stonechild included that clause in his book, Education: The New Buffalo, which explored the history of education as it applies to First Nations people.
Section 86 states that any Indian who received a doctorate of medicine, a law education or entered a religious order could be enfranchised.
In 1927, the Indian Act was revised and rather than eliminating the clause, it was broadened.
“It more or less said that anyone who had enough education, that minister (responsible for Indian Affairs) may look at that person in terms of enfranchisement,” said Stonechild.
He said it was rarely used, but it was there as a threat.
“They attempted to use it against Fred Loft who organized the Legal Indians of Canada, but usually it ran up against opposition either by the community or by other politicians,” said Stonechild.
Although he had not heard of any instances of it happening, he is not surprised if it was because most First Nations who would have been enfranchised by the clause would have lost connection with their home community.
“BASED ON THAT TYPE OF THINKING, THEY BELIEVED IF THERE WAS AN INDIAN WHO WAS SUCCESSFUL IN GETTING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION, THEN THEY REALLY SHOULDN’T BE AN INDIAN,”
BLAIR STONECHILD
Unfortunately, Robertson did not have a family to fight for her rights and with no parents, she did as she was told.
She went on to became a nurse, but when she graduated from nursing school in the 1930s she did so as a non-Indian.
Gordon believes her mother was either in her late teens or early 20s when she began her nursing career.
It was during this time that she met her first husband Andrew Robertson, another enfranchised Indian. He had lost his status when he joined the army.
The couple moved to Norway House First Nation located in northern Manitoba, where she began her nursing career.
Gordon said her mother told her stories about living in an isolated community.
Robertson used a dog team to travel to help people, Gordon said with a laugh.
The couple had two daughters — Gordon’s half sisters — one of whom died in infancy.
Unfortunately, the relationship ended and Robertson moved back to Saskatchewan and began nursing in Fort Qu’Appelle.
It was in the 1930s, and health care services for First Nations people was limited, said Gordon.
Robertson and a small group of doctors grew tired of the situation and lobbied the government for their own hospital and they got it.
According to the Canada’s Historic Places website, the Fort Qu’Appelle Indian Hospital was built in 1935. It served both as a hospital and an infirmary for tuberculosis patients.
Gordon said her mom made an impact on the community and surrounding First Nations and everyone knew her as “a good nurse.”
While in Fort Qu’Appelle, Robertson met Andrew Gordon.
In 1952 the couple had their first child together — Andrena — when Robertson was 38. Four years later, they had a son.
It was a decade later that Robertson began feeling ill.
She was in her 50s when she was diagnosed with Addison’s Disease, which she contracted due to her work with tuberculosis patients.
She finally married Gordon’s father in the 1970s and the couple settled on the Pasqua First Nation.
According to the Indian Act at the time, any non-status person who married a status Indian would automatically become a status Indian.
Nearly five decades after the federal government declared Robertson a non-Indian, she became an Indian again.
White Star Woman passed away on Sept. 13, 2005. Her accomplishments are not documented anywhere, but her nursing legacy lives on in the most unlikely of sources.
As a young girl, Gordon swore she would never fall in her mother’s footsteps and become a nurse because she knew how time consuming such a career could be and she didn’t want that for herself. Or so she thought. In 1970, 17-year-old Gordon left home and moved to Winnipeg to live with family.
The need to be independent prompted her to look for training opportunities that could lead to employment.
She put in an application for a licensed practicing nurse course without thinking she would be accepted.
“I never had good grades,” said Gordon.
When she passed the course she not only surprised herself but her mother as well.
Like her mother, Gordon worked in Manitoba for several years. She moved back to Saskatchewan and took a job at the Indian Hospital in Fort Qu’Appelle.
It was then she began to understand the impact her mother had on First Nations communities in the area.
“I had people come up to me and say, ‘Your mom delivered my children or your mom was such a good nurse,’ ” Gordon.
She said it feels good to know the difference her mom had on the lives of others.
The best pieces of advice her mother shared was to be compassionate and to care for the people.
“When patients start to become a number, then leave because you have stopped caring,” she said.
Gordon left nursing, not because she stopped caring, but because she decided to work directly for her community.
She moved to Pasqua where she helped establish the health clinic.
Like her mother, she says the nursing bug never leaves.
She believes nursing is in their blood because now her only child Danna Henderson-McCallum has begun her own nursing career.
Gordon still has people who ask for health advice, but believes her role is far less significant than that of her mother’s and her daughter.
“I have people come up to me and say, ‘I seen your daughter, is she ever a good nurse,’ ” she said with a laugh.
“Some of these elderly ladies that I used to work with tell me what a good nurse she is.”
Gordon said she is proud of her daughter.
“There are people who can get into nursing and they can get the highest marks but it takes a special kind of person to be a nurse — a really good nurse,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter if they are pink, blue or purple. You have to care.”
Henderson-McCallum is working at the All Nations Healing Hospital in Fort Qu’Appelle, which is the upgraded and modernized Fort Qu’Appelle Indian Hospital.
Henderson-McCallum, like her mother before, adamantly proclaimed that she would never become a nurse.
“I wanted to be a journalist,” she said. “I wanted to be on TV.”
Unfortunately, prior to completing her degree her personal life took a turn for the worse.
She left Regina and moved back home.
Henderson-McCallum took a special care aide course because she wanted to do something.
At the moment, she cares for long-term care patients and couldn’t be happier.
“Before this I didn’t even know I could just care for anyone,” said Henderson-McCallum.
“I never thought I could care for somebody like when I’m with my own kids and I’m doing stuff with them.”
Henderson-McCallum is happy to carry on her family’s history of caring.
Like her grandmother and mother before her, she has found her true passion and plans on continuing her nursing education and becoming a nurse practitioner.
“I just want to be here to help,” said Henderson-McCallum.
Stonechild says times have changed and more First Nations people are pursuing higher education.
The education clause was eventually removed from the Indian Act in the 1960s.
“Now you don’t have to choose,” said Stonechild. “First Nations can walk in both worlds.”