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The Secret Life of Canada: Season 6, Episode 8. Crash Course: Mary Greyeyes

Hosts: Leah-Simone Bowen and Falen Johnson

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: This is a Secret Life of Canada crash course. Just a little bit of history.

FALEN JOHNSON: Hey, Leah.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Hey, Falen.

FALEN JOHNSON: Leah, can you take a look at this photo and describe it for me?

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay. So I'm looking at a black and white photo of two indigenous people. They're outside. There's a man with a headdress, and he has like a beautiful blanket covering him, and he's standing. And then there's a woman kneeling in front of him, and she's wearing what looks like a military uniform, and he's kind of holding, I think it's like a pipe and some sweetgrass over her head. It looks very kind of ceremonial esque.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. So this photo was taken in the summer of 1942 and circulated across Canada and into the UK.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: So what is going on here?

FALEN JOHNSON: Well, let's start with who's in the picture. The woman is Mary Greyeyes. Mary was born in 1920 and from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. She lived there until she was five, when she was sent to St. Michael's Residential School in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. After completing grade eight, which at the time was as much education Mary could get at St. Michael's, she stayed on at the school cooking, cleaning and taking extra lessons at night from a nun. I think a lot of people wonder why anyone would stay at residential school if they didn't have to. And there are a multitude of reasons and circumstances why this would have happened. I think it's important to point out that at this time, Canada was still feeling the effects of the Great Depression, a time that was particularly devastating on the prairies where crops had failed.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Yeah. So these were really tough times, and maybe just a little bit of stability and a meal or two was better than going out there. Yeah.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. So soon after, World War II broke out, and Mary's favourite brother joined the war effort. And she wanted to follow in his footsteps, so she made the trek to Regina to enlist. This is an account from Mary’s son on how her recruitment happened.

SOUNDCLIP

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Mother was the first Indian girl to enlist in Canada. Her brother, David Greyeyes, was in the army. As an opportunity to learn and expand her knowledge, while sitting in the recruiting office, 22 girls went in ahead of her, only to be rejected. Being the last one interviewed, mother didn't hold out much hope of enlistment. However, she was accepted into the CWAC.

FALEN JOHNSON: And so Mary became the first indigenous woman to enlist with the Canadian Women's Army Corps.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay. Wow.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. And it's worth mentioning that there isn't a lot of research on there on this subject. And record keeping at this time was a bit dodgy, but everything that I have read names Mary as the first.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay, so they were letting indigenous women enlist at this time and they weren't before this or…

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah, it was a recent change. Prior to 42, the requirement was that only a British subject of white race was allowed to join up.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay, very specific there.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah, I guess so. But officially or not, women had always been involved in war. The creation of the Women's Corps was a way to regulate and control women's roles in service. It was a way to place women in administrative or domestic roles to free men up to fight.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay, so Mary gets in and then they took this photograph right after, I'm assuming.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yes. Only a few weeks after signing up, in June of 42, this photograph was taken. So in the picture, we see Mary kneeling, and standing above her is a man. His name is Harry Ball. He was a Cree World War One vet and was asked to pose in the photo for 20 bucks. Mary was offered a new uniform and lunch.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay, I just want to back up here and address the Harry Ball in the room. Was that… so that's his name.

FALEN JOHNSON: He's a World War One vet, Leah.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: I know, but can we not make fun of people's names who also fought in World War One? I mean, I think…

FALEN JOHNSON: I don’t know. I can't answer that question for you, and I refuse to.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay. Okay. So back to the story with Harry and Mary. Mary was offered the uniform and a lunch. I hope it was a great lunch.

FALEN JOHNSON: Well, it was wartime, so I'm certain that it wasn’t. And I remember my grandpa telling me stories about eating oatmeal sandwiches during the depression, so.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Oh, man. Okay.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. Okay, so back to this photo. When I started looking at it, it definitely gave me suspicious vibes. It kind of reminded me of the episode that we did back in season four, The Boy in the Photo.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Right. Yeah. That's where we looked at this very iconic and famous image of Thomas Moore Keesick, who was a young boy. And they basically in residential school, made him take this before and after photo. And spoiler alert, the photo was highly, highly staged.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yes. And whenever I see photos of indigenous people from back in the day, I kind of have my sceptic lens on. You know, who took this photo? Why was this photo taken?

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Right. And so because it's wartime, you're assuming, what you're implying here is that it was probably a bit of wartime propaganda. Is that right?

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. So as mentioned, we see Mary kneeling in tall prairie grass and a World War One vet is standing over her, blessing her. And in reality, that World War One vet, Harry, was not a chief. He was a counsellor at nearby Piapot. He would eventually become a chief, but at this time, he wasn't.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Okay.

FALEN JOHNSON: According to an article by The Tyee in 2012, the items used in the photograph were borrowed. The blanket, the headdress, the pipe, they were all taken from nearby homes by, wait for it, Mounties.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: The Mounties enter the chat once again in a predictably disappointing way. I guess I'm not surprised by that at all. Yeah.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. So The Tyee article is based on an account by Mary's daughter-in-law, Melanie Fahlman Reid. Melanie heard Mary talk about the day the photograph was taken, and says that Harry and Mary had a conversation in Cree that went something like this.

SOUNDCLIP

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Christ.

FALEN JOHNSON: God, it's hot. What did you get for this?

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: I get a good lunch.

FALEN JOHNSON: I got 20 bucks.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: So what are you bitching about? You get 20 bucks and I'm down here with bugs?

FALEN JOHNSON: End scene. So we can't know if that is exactly the way things went, but I want to believe.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Wow. I mean, it makes sense. It doesn't look like a very comfortable photoshoot, if I'm honest.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. And so after this photo was taken, it's printed throughout Canada and the UK. Mary eventually gets stationed in Aldershot, England, Southwest of London. And it was there that she cooked and did laundry, which she apparently hated.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: You and me both, girl.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Hate it.

FALEN JOHNSON: She requested a transfer, but one of her sergeants lied on her paperwork saying that Mary does not speak English. I also read that Mary was forced to sleep outside of the barracks for some of the time that she was in the forces. She did eventually transfer to London, and part of that transfer was that her superiors wanted to present a pro diversity workplace.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Oh, so it was more, you know, essentially co-opting of her image and who she was for a bit of propaganda.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah, isn't that what pro diversity means? Sorry.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Hey.

FALEN JOHNSON: I couldn't help myself. Okay, so.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Brought people to the front, am I right?

FALEN JOHNSON: It's picture day

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: No decision making in the back, am I right? Okay. Continue. Continue.

FALEN JOHNSON: Okay. Okay. So in London, she's invited to public events. She met the future Queen of England, Elizabeth II, the Queen mother, and King George VI. She made the news in the UK with headlines like, she's a full blooded Indian, but now she cooks for the pale faces, which is what people said about me when I worked at Tim Hortons as a teenager.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: That makes sense.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah, it does.

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Makes sense.

FALEN JOHNSON: Yeah. She apparently received many marriage proposals while in the UK, but she declined. And when the war ended, she returned to Canada, to Muskeg Lake. Eventually, she met her husband, had children, and worked in a restaurant and as a seamstress. Years later, Mary's daughter-in-law, Melanie Fahlman Reid, helped to correct the record and get Mary credited in the photo. Now, when you visit Library Archives Canada, where the famous photo of Mary is held, the caption reads…

SOUNDCLIP

LEAH-SIMONE BOWEN: Private Mary Greyeyes, Cree, from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Canadian Women's Army Corps, with Harry Ball, Piapot First Nation.

FALEN JOHNSON: But I have to say, what I found when I was researching Mary and her story, the names and roles of indigenous women who served, they’re really hard to find. There are some that are easier to find, women like Edith Anderson Monture, who was a nurse in World War One, or Frances Beudry, who enrolled in 1976, or Wendy Jacko, whose family alliances with the Crown and Canada go back to the War of 1812. But these names aren't widely known or as known as they should be. Mary is said to be the first indigenous woman who enlisted, and this photo of her was widely circulated as a way to get others to enlist, other indigenous people. Yet, the story behind this photo remained a mystery to many for half a century. And that seems wild to me. And I think we all have to do better in our remembering.

TRANSCRIPT: The Secret Life of Canada, Season 6: Crash Course on Private Mary Greyeyes

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