Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

DELINE (Nov 01/99) - When sickness came North, treatment went south and often, so did many of the patients. Some came back and other didn't.

Deline resident Morris Neyelle said when the tuberculosis epidemic swept through the North, patients were rounded up and treated like animals.

His mother, Jane, was in treatment in Fort Simpson before flying south to Edmonton. She told him of life in the infirmary in Simpson.

"Sometimes if I was alone with her, she would cry about it -- about the way the Grey Nuns would treat her and the people, just because they were natives," he said. "They treated our people like dogs and that's what pisses me off."

Jane trusted the church and the advice of the nuns, so she went without question, Morris recalled.

"In those days they didn't know," he said. "The Dene people trusted the Catholics with their whole heart ... it always bothered me the way they treated her."

While his mom was taken away, Morris and his brother were left to fend for themselves, until again, the church intervened.

"When they took her, I was six and Charlie was 12. My dad was working in Inuvik, on the new school," he recalled. "Charlie and I were left here as orphans, so they sent us off to residential school in Aklavik."

He said the two were worried if they would ever see their parents or Deline again.

"I was always wondering where our parents were and no one would tell us," he said.

Meanwhile, his mother was admitted to the Fort Simpson infirmary, where she told him the food served was rotten and sometimes infested with maggots. If the patients wouldn't eat the food, they weren't given any more.

"They wouldn't serve the next meal until they ate that one," he said. "Because of that, people died -- they starved to death."

"She said there was a certain lady from Fort Liard, who was so upset from the food, she wouldn't eat it, she would just slam it on the floor," Morris said.

When his father learned of Jane's treatment, he prepared a package of food and a letter demanding better treatment for his ailing wife.

"He wrote a nasty letter to that doctor and sent a bag of Dene food," he said. "They spread out a cloth and laid all this food out on it -- clean, fresh food; dry meat and fish."

"When they saw that, they were cooking for her every day and in one week, she gained 11 pounds," he added.

His father's efforts to help his wife didn't end there, Morris said.

"They made a plan to get her out of there," Morris said. "One morning, the doctor came in and said, 'We have good news for you Jane, you're going to a hospital in Edmonton.'"

Morris said that to Jane, this was not exactly good news. She would be going farther away from her home and her family; she didn't know what to expect in Edmonton and she worried she might be treated worse than she was in Simpson.

When the day came to leave, she left her sick bed for the first time since she'd arrived in Simpson.

"She stayed on that bed for 10 months, she never put her foot on the ground once," Morris said. "The first step she took on solid ground, she cried."

He said that once in Edmonton, his mother was relieved and started to feel better than she had in months.

"The next morning on a plate there was bacon and eggs," he said. "As soon as she saw that, she said she knew she would live."

As she gained her weight and health back, and after 18 months, Jane returned home to Deline and so did the boys.

Despite the treatment of his mother, his brother and himself at the hands of the Grey Nuns, the priests, the residential school and the hospital this man holds no real grudge.

He says his real peace came from absolution.

"Forgiveness is the biggest thing you can do for yourself," Morris said and smiled.

"Time will tell," Morris said. "When judgement day comes, they will have to answer for that."