Raymond Frogner, Head of Archives at the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation.
A collection of records kept by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Rome, including staff files and hundreds of black-and-white photographs relating to schools across Canada, offers “another piece of vital information” in identifying missing Indigenous children. says the chief of archives at the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation.
Raymond Frogner gained access in mid-July to the Oblate General Archives, where he spent five days doing a preliminary assessment. He was not allowed to return any paper copies of the documents.
He hopes this trip and the pope’s visit last week will reveal opportunities for further collaboration: to digitize and share the records of the General Archives of the Oblates and to gain access to all the relevant files there – including administrative files that could to shed light on policies run by priests and nuns in dormitories.
He also hopes the religious order will consider returning some of the materials to the local communities whose members are pictured or the subject of reports.
Pope Francis has said that genocide has taken place in Canadian dormitories
“This will be an example of reciprocity and something that will work to reconcile the relationship between the Catholic Church and local communities,” he said.
Instead, “they still have the position that they are a private archive, not a public one.”
He estimates there are 700 to 1,000 relevant photographs in three cabinets in the collection. They are from the early 20th century, sent to Rome by priests who worked in dormitories. The photos depict children and activities in the schools as well as the surrounding areas; some are from Kamloops and Cowessess schools, sites where unmarked graves were likely located. The children are nameless, but Mr Frogner believes the photos can be shared with communities to help identify them.
“This can add further information, especially for children who have gone missing and we have no evidence of their final destination. So it’s just another vital piece of information in these kids’ lives.
Personnel archives from as far back as 1815 also shed light on the life of the priests in the schools. Although abuse was not mentioned directly, Mr Frogner said, there were indirect references to problems.
“Sometimes it is mentioned that a priest has anger issues and has problems with children. It never directly discusses a priest who sexually abuses a child or anything like that,” although there is evidence that some disreputable priests have been reassigned to different places.
Previously, some Catholic organizations, including the Oblates — who ran most Catholic Church-run schools — were unwilling, slow or unwilling to share key historical documents with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, experts say. That changed last year after the discovery of the likely unmarked graves last year put pressure on the church to respond.
The documents, including diaries, photographs, narratives, letters and ledgers, are crucial to understanding who the children were and what happened to them. The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation has documented 4,120 children who died or did not return from schools — a number based on a close review of just one-third of its records. Mr Frogner estimates the full number will be thousands more.
Some Catholic records are still missing. Mr. Frogner, who is based in Winnipeg, is looking for pre-1945 ordination records for Kamloops — registers kept by parishes that typically contain births, baptisms, marriages and deaths. The information could help identify children who ran away from the Kamloops Indian Residential School or who disappeared and later married. “Nobody can tell me” where they are, he said. “That’s a big gap in my opinion.”
“It’s just another piece of the puzzle to try to discover the fate of these lost children.”
He said the Oblates appear open to the prospect of digitizing and sharing materials in their archives, although no formal agreement has been signed. He hopes to return to Rome to help with the digitization process.
A spokesman for the Oblates in Rome told The Globe and Mail that they are ready to share the materials. “The General Archives will share with the NCTR all records related to the boarding schools that have been/will be identified by the center,” Shanil Dinuka Jayawardena said in an email. He did not say whether they would share copies or materials directly with local communities, but said “the General Archives remains committed to working closely with NCTR specifically in the process of digitizing and transferring the files.”
Tiffany Prete, an assistant professor at the University of Lethbridge who has researched the history of residential schools on her native reserve, the Kainai (Blood Tribe) Nation in southern Alberta, has had difficulty accessing her own family’s records.
“It’s a very strange situation to know that there are records of your family members and your ancestors, but not have the opportunity to actually look at those records,” she said. Although access has improved in recent years, some materials remain restricted. Among the files still missing: Crucial school admission and discharge logs, which list students’ names and would indicate whether a child died at school.
She wants to see a greater effort by the Roman Catholic Church in Canada and Rome to share historical materials directly with local communities. “Having access to these records and being able to have them in your home community, as an Indigenous person, would be great.” To be able to go in and just read what happened helps to understand how we are in our current circumstances today.”
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