Decades later, a residential school survivor still reflects on those who vanished

Warning: This story includes details of abuse.

For much of her adult life, people told Debbie Paul she was a "survivor." She always wondered, what did she survive? What does that even mean? She never understood.

Two years ago she had a revelation following the discovery of 215 suspected unmarked graves found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.

"When that news hit of 215 unmarked graves, that's when it came to me that that's what I survived," she said in a recent interview. 

"Those nuns and people could have killed me, they stole me and got away with it. I said, 'Now I know what I survived, I lived.' It was easy, like the answer was there all the time and I just couldn't see it."

The 67-year-old, who is from Eskasoni First Nation and lives in Sipekne'katik First Nation in Nova Scotia, is sharing intimate details of her experience at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in the 1960s.

As Canadians mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, she hopes her story will help teach people about what happened, and encourage other victims affected by the horror of residential schools to tell their stories.

Some of Paul's earliest memories are not of residential school, but of her nmi', the Mi'kmaw term for grandmother. She credits her nmi' with sharing Mi'kmaw teachings with her and her late sister Maggie Paul.

"I knew her as kiju," Paul said, using the Mi'kmaw word for mother. "She looked after us when we were little and taught us a lot in life and in Mi'kmaw teachings."

That ended when her mother took the children and sent them to residential school in 1962. Paul later learned it was her stepfather, who was white, who coerced her mother to send her children away.

"I learned that in those days women had no say, no authority and she was property," Paul said. "That man beat her up quite a bit and that's when I learned to forgive my mother for what she did to us. I understood that this man didn't want us."

The Shubenacadie school, located in central Nova Scotia, opened in 1930 and was funded and run by the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic Church. Its main goal was to assimilate children into white society and diminish Indigenous culture.

It was the only residential school in the Maritimes and the students, a mix of Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik, came from Nova Scotia, Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Like many residential schools, there are stories of assault, both sexual and physical. One memory that sticks with Paul is how children would seemingly vanish.

"There were lines of beds. One day we'd notice one of the kids wasn't in bed. Then the next day another empty bed, and another one. Where did they go?" she said. "We didn't know what had happened to them."

The nuns who ran the school would tell the other children that parents had come and picked them up, Paul said, although she never saw a parent at the school.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has documented more than 4,100 children who died at residential schools, or who fell ill and later died in hospital or at home. The list includes 17 names of children at Shubenacadie.

But the centre says cataloguing who died is challenging, often because of gaps in the historical record, with many documents destroyed, and the huge volume of material that remains and still needs to be reviewed.

In 2021, shortly after the discovery in Kamloops, former Truth and Reconciliation chair Murray Sinclair said it's clear the number of children who died in residential schools is larger than what's been documented, and possibly as high as 15,000 to 25,000.

Paul agrees the number must be much higher.

No signs of burial grounds at the former Shubenacadie school grounds were found during a 2021 survey using ground penetrating radar.

Paul is left to wonder about those children who seemed to vanish while at the school, whether they died, and what happened to their bodies if they did.

Another memory that stands out for Paul is how some parents would send their children money, but the nuns who ran the school would sell candy to the kids and then pocket the cash. 

"We never had any money given to us and the nuns told the other kids to not give us any. If they did they would get a beating," said Paul. 

Paul compared it to hovering a carrot over a starving bunny. It was a way to toy with their emotions. Decades later, she questions the sanity of those teachers.

She remembers hiding outside in a corner on cold days, older kids trying to protect the younger ones from the weather. The nuns, she said, would beat their arms because they weren't "playing."

"We didn't mind the beatings cause it was warm, it was better than being cold," said Paul.

The Shubenacadie school closed in 1967. As documented in 2021 by CBC, Paul was taken by one of the nuns to Massachusetts, where she lived with a white family she didn't know.

She said she was abused and forced to act as the family's housekeeper, then sent back alone after a year to Nova Scotia with no explanation. 

She later sought compensation under the Sixties Scoop settlement agreement, in which the Canadian government provided up to $50,000 to Status Indian and Inuit people who were adopted or put in foster care with non-Indigenous families between 1951 and 1991. She was denied twice. 

"The requirement was to be taken for more than five years, and the nun took me for one, plus five years at the school. I wasn't abducted long enough for them," she said.

According to the Sixties Scoop settlement website, Paul is among the 13,552 rejected claims for compensation, and she continues to seek to be acknowledged.

When Paul returned to Nova Scotia, she attended Indian day school. Like many survivors of residential school, she struggled.

"I was 17 years old and everything was going wrong. I tried to commit suicide by drinking for two weeks. My life went to hell and my mother and stepfather kicked me out."

Paul was taken in by her auntie after the dispute and continued her drinking until her cousin talked her out of it. She credits him for saving her life.

"He went to residential school as well and it was someone I could talk to because he experienced the same things I did," said Paul.

Staying silent

Paul has talked with various survivors across the country about assault, addiction and sexual abuse. 

"I didn't understand what sexual abuse was because I didn't lose my virginity until I was 16 and it happened at the Indian day school. It was done by force, by the janitor that was there. So it wasn't my choice."

Paul felt her whole life fell apart and she couldn't find a way to push through. She slowly understood what happened to her after attending political science classes at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, but felt ostracized from other students based on her upbringing.

She married and would go on to live in Boston for a few years. 

Some residential school survivors don't realize for decades that what happened to them was wrong. Many stay silent. Paul's breakthrough came in her 40s.

"When you're a child you don't understand these things, an older person does. It's not a nice thing to talk about because you feel dirty, it makes me feel dirty." 

Finding artistic escape

There's another strong memory Paul has from residential school.

She recalls often having to attend church after being beaten. The children would be spanked for falling down after kneeling on hardwood floors for hours, she said.

But she was enchanted by the piano in church.

"I didn't understand the beatings. I was just getting beat every day, it's part of you and I was fed up. Something told me to play the piano and I started to learn and play during mass." 

Some of her family members were musical, and playing and singing fascinated her. In the residential school church, she remembers standing next to the piano. Finally, a nun agreed to teach her. 

She learned by listening and watching others play. She was a natural and fell in love with playing.

"You can imagine yourself so far away — like you're free. And I would just focus on playing all the time because I needed to get away from there. I didn't have the harsh realities anymore of getting beaten every day."

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour service at 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat.