The Survivors Speak

202 • Truth & Reconciliation Commission
For some students, the last day of school was also the last day that the school itself was
open. Rose Marie Prosper said she would never forget the day the students were told that
the Shubenacadie school was going to be closed. One day in early 1967, her teacher, Sister
Charles Marie, came into the classroom.
She went up to her, her desk there, and she just
stood there, and she, she was looking at us, like
we were all just talking among ourselves, and she
was just standing there looking at us. And, we were
like, ‘Okay, she’s going to flip out pretty soon. She’s
going to snap her yardstick on our desk and tell us
to be quiet or something.’
And she didn’t say anything. And I was sitting at
my desk and I was looking at her. I wasn’t talking
because I, I get strapped for everything, so I kind of
learned, not to talk. So, I was sitting there and I was Rose Marie Prosper.
looking at her and she was standing there. She had
her hands like this up to her mouth and she was looking at all of us. And, she said,
“Okay,” she said, “I want everyone to quiet down.” So we were sure we were all going
to start our work.
So she sat on her desk in the front there. She said, “I have something to tell all of you.”
And she said, “After I tell you,” she said, “I want you all to stay in your desks, stay in
your chairs, and not to make any noise; to be very, very quiet.” So we didn’t know
what was going on or anything. And then she said, “When you leave here in June,
you’re not coming back.” She said, “The doors are closing for good.”
It was the happiest news; it was the happiest thing we ever heard. I mean, at the time
you’re not supposed to touch a boy or nothing, but we had boys in our classroom,
and when she said that nobody was coming back in June, that you’ll never see each
other again; you’ll never see any of the nuns again, you’ll never see the school again,
nothing. She goes, “When you go home, you’re staying home for good.” When she
told us that, we all jumped out of our chairs, we banged our desks, our books went
flying, we hugged each other, we grabbed the boys. And we were crying, we were
laughing; it was the best thing we ever, ever heard. 739
Dorene Bernard was also at the Shubenacadie school when it closed in 1967.
Remember my last day walking out of the residential school at the end of June 1967,
and we were the last ones to leave because we were getting on a plane, so we had to
be, we were the last ones to leave that school, me and my brother and my sisters. My
mom was going to meet us at the airport in Boston. We were waiting for a drive to
come take us to the airport. And it was just like an evil place, it was empty, you hear
your echoes walking through and talking, like this place, you could hear your echo
everywhere you went.