Sometimes, all you can do is imagine.

Today I spent some time reading death inquiry reports from two residential schools in Ontario. Nothing that I saw today was particularly surprising, but the documents do weigh on me. Over a period of ten years, ten kids died at one school, and twelve at the other. Each report listed the name of the child; the cause of death; what sorts of medical care was done for the child; whether the local doctor evaluated the death as having been preventable. For every single one of these reports, the doctor determined that the school staff had done everything they could. I can’t time travel—and am not qualified to give a medical opinion even if I were there—but I am skeptical. At any rate, it does say what they may have thought about prevention: one a child had tubercular meningitis, little could be done, but there was no comment in any report about preventing the disease from having taken hold in the first place.

Often what strikes me the most is what remains unsaid in the records I read. The children and families have little voice, here, and I am still grappling with how to address this in my thesis. In this group of death reports, a principal notes that the mother of one small child came to the school to offer her comfort in her final days; a chief wrote to the Department of Indian Affairs to complain that often, communities learned of children’s deaths second-hand, as the school was not reliable about contacting parents. Following this letter, the principal forwarded brief notes to each family, notifying them of his regret and the funeral arrangements for the child. If the parents responded, their letters were not kept in the file. 

The report that sits with me the most tonight pertains to a little girl named Doris. Despite policies that children were not to be at a residential school until the age of seven, there are a great many cases of children attending the schools younger than that. The report noted that Doris, who passed away late one November, had turned four the previous March. Four. A handful of words on a page describe and rationalize the final days of a small child. 

With no words to tell the rest of the story, my imagination tries to fill in the blanks. For the sake of preserving myself for a month of long days in the archives, I cannot let it - but at the same time, I don’t feel right turning that side of my mind off. 

At the end of day two in the LAC microfilm room, this is where I’m at.