accm newsletter2_20pg_FINAL.indd - Accarchives.org

“It’s still there [but] it’s all painted white now. It’s like a general store and gas[station]. Well, they got to that place, ’cause they were way off in the desert.”Flora told Renona, “and so, I fixed your mother under a tree, not a tree, a bush.”Renona speculates that Flora must have had some small change. “A few nickelsor dimes or something. She went over there. I guess nobody seen, you know [toask], ‘What’s a schoolgirl doing by herself?’ And she bought one bottle of pop.They called it pop.” Flora brought the soda to Matilda and they drank it underthe bush before getting on their way.It was nearly dark by the time Flora andMatilda reached Palm Springs. After a longhot day the Patencio family often sat outside to smoke and talk. Renonaremembers, as a child, sitting out and talking with Flora. Renona continues,“Well, it was dusk. They were sitting out there, and all of a sudden one of themen seen something way over there, kind of moving, and they kept lookinglike that, looking like that, and they, so after a while they said, ‘You know what?Those are people!’ One of the men got his horse and rode to where they saw thepeople, finding Flora and Matilda. The girls got on the horse and rode the restof the way home.” Renona says about their father’s reaction, “My grandfather[Albert Patencio] was so mad. He was mad at the school!” Flora and Matildahad walked all day from sunrise to sunset. They did not carry water with them.There were no trees for shade and no water along the way. As Renona says, “Itwas all desert.”Not long after Flora and Matilda finally arrived home, the priest from St. Bonifacearrived on horseback; it had taken him all day to reach the Patencio home.Renona tells how her grandfather reacted to the priest who was responsible forhis daughters’ safety. “My grandfather was so mad at him. [He] just really laidthe law. I mean he was really mad, you know, that these little girls got awaylike that and took them all day to, you know, to get home. And so then I askedFlora, ‘Well, then what happened?’ and she said, ‘We never had to goback.’” Flora and Matilda never returnedto St. Boniface. Renona says, “They werevery happy, but I tell that story, and I justwas so awed about it.”The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missionsfounded St. Boniface Indian IndustrialSchool in 1890. Over one hundred students,from 1st to 8th grade, attended the schooleach year. St. Boniface provided instructionin reading, writing, religious study, and basicarithmetic from the Sisters of St. Joseph.Priests taught students the Catechism.Separated from their families, the students atSt. Boniface adjusted to the foreign boardingschool environment. Memories of boardingschool experiences vary significantly; not allIndian children disliked the schools, althoughmost missed their homes and parents. Butsome of the students and their families, like thePatencios, resisted the boarding school systemto the extent of running away and not sendingtheir children back.