The year is 1944. It’s the Turtle Mountain Reservation. It’s St. Ann’s School. In the background see the sisters’ house at the top of the hill. It’s summer. We, in those days, had school from Easter Tuesday till December 20th. Father Hildebrand didn’t want children standing on the road in the cold waiting for a tardy bus.
There was a little game played by a few adventurous, story telling, pupils. In the summer the story was, “I go to the government school.” In the winter the story changed, “I go to the mission.” We caught on. All graduated.
In the photo are a few of the many whom daily I grew more proud of knowing.
They all made a mark in life. Two nuns are in the crowd, both became superintendents of schools, one in Evansville, ID, the other in Bogota, Columbia. One boy became a priest, another a brother, each of the four was or is a Benedictine monastic.
All were the kind that rose to a mark. George is there, at the age of sixty-three he got his master’s degree. Charlie, as roads contractor, said, “Father, if I’m not flying it, you can use my plane.” It was a Mooney. When I had to cover three states, I once got a plane, not Charlie’s, stuck in a marsh in northern Minnesota at Ball Club. Until the prop started splashing water, I thought I was on a very green and nice runway approach. The Ojibwa’s are good at pulling things out of the water.
Our basketball team was playing in Rollette. On the side opposite me were the student bleachers. George played to that side. Each time, while he dribbled, deft and hostile hands took the ball from him for an easy lay-up. He didn’t seem to mind.
I called time out. “George, what’s going on?” “Look, Father, the one with a red sweater. She’s tiny, MA KANI cute, enit?” He had a better look at her from his seat.
We were family and they absorbed me into their homes. They were Billy and Rainy and Dummy and Charlie and Beef and Bugger and Mendamin and Flab and Chuckie and Choochie and Fuzzy and Porky and...
Girls don’t have nicknames because the boys respect them. The girls have earned it.
I’ve followed each of them through their lives of service to the tribe and to the outside world, each a hero or a heroine.
Look at the young faces of young men and women who became stalwart, sturdy adults, together now forever.