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Residential School Saint: The Life, Death, and Turbulent Afterlife of Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2021

Emma Anderson
Emma Anderson*
Affiliation:
Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa
*
Corresponding author. [email protected]
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Abstract

Rose Prince was a young Indigenous woman who lived during the first half of the twentieth century, spending most of her short life in a Catholic residential school near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, Canada. Shy and retiring in life, Rose's venerators believe that her understated devotion was rewarded by a postmortem miracle generally reserved only for God's greatest saints: incorruption. The Catholic hierarchy and Rose's Carrier people, though at odds on much else, are unanimous that the Lejac Indian Residential School unwittingly hosted a saint between its opening in 1922 and Prince's death in 1949, and the two groups seek together to honor her with an annual pilgrimage to her gravesite. But this fragile unanimity exists in dynamic tension with the two groups’ divergent interpretations of Prince's holiness, particularly as it pertains to the legacy of residential schools. For some within the Catholic hierarchy, Rose's sanctity provides a powerful justification for the much-critiqued assimilative educational system. For many Carrier, however, Prince is its starkest repudiation. For them, Rose was—and is—the heart of a heartless world, incarnating gentle compassion in a system that, while it trumpeted these Christian virtues, itself was notably lacking in them.

Keywords

Indigenous Catholicismtwentieth-century Canadian religious historysanctity, perceptions ofRose PrinceincorruptibilityIndian residential schools
Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 592 - 632
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History

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References

1 Rose Prince's people are known variously as the Carrier, Yenke Dene, Nadleh Whut'en, and Dakelh, terms that will be used interchangeably in this article.

2 Since this was the official name of the school, this is how I will refer to it in this essay, despite the dated terminology.

3 Hall, Lizette, The Carrier: My People (Quesnel: L. Hall, 1992), 9–10Google Scholar. Though written in the past tense to describe the beliefs and practices of Carrier people in 1915, many of these customs endure into the present.

4 Fiske, Jo-Anne, “Carrier Women and the Politics of Mothering,” in British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women, ed. Creese, Gillian and Strong-Boag, Veronica (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992), 201–202Google Scholar.

5 Hall, The Carrier, 16–17; and Fiske, “Carrier Women and the Politics of Mothering,” 201–202, 207.

6 Fiske, “Carrier Women and the Politics of Mothering,” 201–202, 210–215.

7 Fiske, Jo-Anne, “Life at Lejac,” in Sa Ts'e: Historical Perspectives on Northern British Columbia, ed. Thorner, Thomas (Vanderhoof: College of New Caledonia Press, 1989), 252Google Scholar; Fiske, Jo-Anne, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters: Spiritual Transition and Tradition of Carrier Women of British Columbia,” in “Native American Women's Responses to Christianity,” ed. Harkin, Michael and Kan, Sergei, special issue, Ethnohistory 43, no. 4 (Autumn 1996): 667, 673CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hall, The Carrier, 25.

8 Hall, The Carrier, 24.

9 Fiske, Jo-Anne, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” in Women of the First Nations: Power, Wisdom, and Strength, ed. Miller, Christine and Chuchryk, Patricia (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1996), 171Google Scholar; Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 667; and Fiske, “Carrier Women and the Politics of Mothering,” 201.

10 Hall, The Carrier, 77–78.

11 Jack Lacerte, interview with author, Burn's Lake, B.C., 6 July 2012; Chief George George in Ken Firth, dir., Uncorrupted: The Story of Rose Prince (Vancouver: Gold Star Productions, 1998), DVD; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 667. Hall disputes the historicity of this bereavement practice: Hall, The Carrier, 34.

12 The Catholic Church also opposed the Potlatch. See Hall, The Carrier, 105; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 668.

13 For a good introduction to the Oblates in Canada, see Choquette, Robert, The Oblate Assault on the Canada's Northwest (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

14 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 249–250; and Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 178–181.

15 Hall, The Carrier, 86, 93–95.

16 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 270; and Father R. B. Clune, “Reflections on the Church's Mission to Teach,” B.C. Catholic Register, 12 July 1975.

17 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 236–237.

18 Also known as Chief “Kwah.” See Hall, The Carrier, 41–48; and Charles Bishop, “Kwah: A Carrier Chief,” in Sa Ts'e: Historical Perspectives on Northern British Columbia, ed. Thomas Thorner (Vanderhoof: College of New Caledonia Press, 1989), 13–25.

19 Douglas Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?,” Vancouver Sun, 13 July 1996; and “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” Diocese of Prince George website (hereafter cited as DPG), accessed 5 November 2012, https://www.pgdiocese.bc.ca/our-ministries/first-nations-ministry/lejac-pilgrimage/ (page modified since access date).

20 “Transcript of Father Jules Goulet's Interview of Bernadette Rossetti (neé Prince), Celena John, and Evalie Murdock (neé Prince), conducted on January 15, 1991, in Fort Saint James, B.C.” (hereafter cited as “Rossetti et al. Interview, 1991”), Archives of St. Andrew's Parish, Fraser Lake, B.C. (hereafter cited as AStAP). Father Goulet, an important figure in formalizing Rose's cult, conducted a number of taped interviews with Prince's family, friends, teachers, and schoolmates throughout 1990 and 1991 in an effort to preserve memories of Rose.

21 Agathe Prince was pregnant with her tenth child when she died in 1931. The baby also perished.

22 Woodard, Joe, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay,” B.C. Report Newsmagazine 7, no. 40 (3 June 1996): 32–36Google Scholar.

23 “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net, accessed 5 November 2012, http://www.roseprincecatholic.net/ (page removed from website); “Rossetti et al. Interview, 1991”; Frith, Uncorrupted; and Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

24 “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net; and “Rossetti et al. Interview, 1991.”

25 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

26 For Rose's attendance of Necoslie, see “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG. For general descriptions of life at Necoslie, see Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 237–241; and Hall, The Carrier, 21, 80–82.

27 “School History – Lejac,” undated internal document, AStAP.

28 Father Joseph Allard served only briefly as Lejac's first director from January to July of 1922: “Notes on Lejac Indian School,” undated internal document, AStAP.

29 “Historical Survey, Lejac,” undated internal document, AStAP; “Lejac Indian School,” undated internal document, AStAP; and Clune, “Reflections on the Church's Mission to Teach.” For more information on Jean-Marie Le Jacq, see “Le Jacq, Jean-Marie,” OMI: The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/le-jacq-jean-marie/.

30 “Father's Diary Tells of Old School Days,” Prince George Citizen, undated; Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 243; and Sarah De Leeuw, “Intimate Colonialisms: The Material and Experienced Places of British Columbia's Residential Schools,” Canadian Geographer 51, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 343.

31 Frith, Uncorrupted.

32 Anderson, Emma, The Betrayal of Faith: The Tragic Journey of a Colonial Native Convert (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 207–234Google Scholar; and Miller, J. R., Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), esp. 151–216Google Scholar, 406–438.

33 Chrisjohn, Roland David, Young, Sherri Lynn, and Maraun, Michael, The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Residential School Experience in Canada (Penticton: Theytus, 2006)Google Scholar.

34 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 249–251.

35 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 243–244, 261–262; and Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 171–172.

36 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 250.

37 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 251; and Hall, The Carrier, 82–85.

38 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 172; and Frank Peebles, “Remembering Lejac,” Prince George Citizen, 27 August 2005.

39 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 254. It is possible that the numbering of students’ clothing, books, and even reusable cloth menstrual pads may have originated in the organizational practice of the nuns themselves.

40 Frank Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder,” Prince George Citizen, 20 August 2005.

41 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 249–250, 259; Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 171–172, 179; and Fiske, “Carrier Women and the Politics of Mothering,” 202–204. Fiske's research reveals that Oblate attempts to lower Carrier women's status was a spectacular failure, as female graduates of Lejac often took their “domestic” skills to the private sector. Many became capable of financially supporting their families, including male relatives.

42 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 241–242; and Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 170.

43 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 241–242, 263–264; Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 170; and Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder.” Parents faced the challenge of distance, prohibitive travel costs, and the difficulties of getting time off from work and of obtaining a “pass” to travel off-reserve.

44 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 674.

45 For a detailed list of all of the criminal charges laid, see Peebles, “Remembering Lejac”; and Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder.” Peebles quotes one lawyer who described Lejac as “bad to the core . . . among the worst of the worst.” Jack Lacerte claims that Rose witnessed other children being abused at Lejac (interview with author). Additionally, abuse sometimes occurred between students. See Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder”; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 668–669.

46 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 246. Oblate school records were largely restricted to financial and administrative matters. See also Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 236, 245.

47 Father Vincent James, interview with author at the Rose Prince Pilgrimage on the former site of the Lejac School, on Nadheh Whut'en land near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, 8 July 2012.

48 For discussions of Rose as “ordinary,” see Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay”; Bishop Gerald Weisner, interview with the author at the Rose Prince Pilgrimage on the former site of the Lejac School, on Nadheh Whut'en land near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, B.C., 7 July 2012; “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG; and “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net.

49 Tekakwitha's Jesuit biographers were Pierre Cholenec and Claude Chauchetière. For more on the life of Tekakwitha, see Greer, Allan, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Thérèse de Lisieux's famed (if somewhat saccharine) autobiography, The Story of a Soul, was published one year after her death in 1898.

50 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

51 Margaret Nooski in Frith, Uncorrupted.

52 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?” Similarly, Bishop of Prince George Stephen Jensen describes Rose as a “hidden little person”: Jensen, telephone interview with author, 25 May 2015.

53 Bernie McCorry in Frith, Uncorrupted.

54 “Transcript of Father Jules Goulet's Interview of Sister Susan Songary and Sister Bridie Dollard, July 4, 1990,” (hereafter cited as “Songary et al. Interview, 1990”), AStAP.

55 Wilma Pattison, interview with author at the Rose Prince Pilgrimage on the former site of the Lejac School, on Nadheh Whut'en land near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, 7 July 2012. Pattison's wording here reflects the fact that she was too young during Rose's lifetime to have formed independent memories of her.

56 Wilma Pattison in Frith, Uncorrupted. Evalie Murdock, another of Prince's nieces, concurs. See Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and Woodward, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

57 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 246–247, 255.

58 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 245–247; Clune, “Reflections on the Church's Mission to Teach”; Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 173; Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder”; Peebles, “Remembering Lejac”; “Father's Diary Tells of Old School Days”; and Hall, The Carrier, 83.

59 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 255.

60 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,”247, 248, 251, 255, 260; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 674.

61 Margaret Nooski in Frith, Uncorrupted.

62 Weisner, interview. The idea that Rose had been adopted by the nuns of Lejac fails to take into account that, until her mother's death in 1931, Rose had an intact, loving family that she planned to rejoin upon graduating. Moreover, in speaking of a substitute family at Lejac, Rose referred not to its staff, but to Jesus and Mary.

63 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 173.

64 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 256.

65 Father Niccolaus Coccola, a Corsican, was the third Oblate to serve as director of Lejac and also, with his twelve-year directorship, its longest serving. He held the post from 1922 to 1934, inclusively: “Statement of Bishop Emeritus Fergus O'Grady,” 1 October 1991, AStAP.

66 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and Douglas Todd, “Rose of the Carrier: The Making of a Saint,” Edmonton Journal, 3 August 1996.

67 Frith, Uncorrupted.

68 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 251, 255; and Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 173–174.

69 Kelm, Mary Ellen, “British Columbia First Nations and the Influenza Epidemic of 1918–1919,” BC Studies 122, no. 23 (Summer 1999): 23–39Google Scholar; Kelm, Mary Ellen, Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900–1950 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999)Google Scholar; and Hall, The Carrier, 90–96.

70 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 253; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 676.

71 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 253.

72 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 254; and Michael Clatter, “Lejac was Good: Attack on School Wrong, say Women,” Prince George Citizen, 24 January 1978. The appearance of a nun in full pre-Vatican II habit at the 2012 Rose Prince Pilgrimage made some Lejac alumni visibly uncomfortable, a reaction which Father Vince James compared to Holocaust survivors being confronted by someone wearing a Nazi uniform: James, interview.

73 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 676–677.

74 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 253.

75 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 252.

76 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 675–676.

77 Lacerte, interview; Hall, The Carrier, 82; and Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder.”

78 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 676.

79 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 255.

80 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 253, 248.

81 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 674.

82 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and Lacerte, interview. Jack Lacerte's fondest memories of Rose are of her working in the Lejac kitchens with his mother. For Rose's humming, see Pattison, interview; Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG.

83 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

84 Douglas Todd, “Indian Woman Revered as Saint,” The Ottawa Citizen, 11 May 1996.

85 Lacerte, interview.

86 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 246–257. Embroidery was also common in Carrier communities, particularly before the 1920s when beadwork became even more popular. See Hall, The Carrier, 11.

87 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 245; and Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 172–173, 177.

88 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 256–257, 259.

89 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 261.

90 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 263.

91 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 257.

92 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 248.

93 Another young girl escaped into music when she received singing lessons. See Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 177.

94 Bernie McCorry in Frith, Uncorrupted; Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and Pattison, interview.

95 “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG.

96 Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay”; and “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net.

97 Weisner, interview.

98 Hall, The Carrier, 82–84; and Peebles, “Remembering Lejac.”

99 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 250–251; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 674.

100 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

101 Pattison, interview.

102 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 251; and Hall, The Carrier, 81–82.

103 “Sainthood Considered for B.C. Woman,” Kingston Whig-Standard, 27 April 1996; and Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

104 Frith, Uncorrupted.

105 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 172–173; and Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 248, 249–250.

106 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 172–173, 176. Prior to the arrival of the Oblates, parents organized their children's marriages. See Hall, The Carrier, 24–27.

107 “Rossetti et al. Interview, 1991.”

108 “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG; and “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net.

109 Frith, Uncorrupted; and Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?” The hurt of her stepmother's rejection was reportedly exacerbated when hometown children teased Rose about her deformed back.

110 Lacerte, interview; and Lacerte, in Frith, Uncorrupted.

111 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

112 “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net. This source claims that Rose had a tumor removed prior to her diagnosis with tuberculosis.

113 Clune, “Reflections on the Church's Mission to Teach”; and Kelm, Colonizing Bodies.

114 Lejac's heating was notoriously unreliable. See Peebles, “Residential School Abuse Haunts Elder.”

115 Hall, The Carrier, 103.

116 Pattison, interview.

117 Caroline Linitski, interview with author at the Rose Prince Pilgrimage on Nadheh Whut'en land near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, 8 July 2012. All quotes attributed to Linitski are from this interview. See also Chris Miller, “Pilgrimage pays tribute to Rose Prince,” Western Catholic Reporter, 30 August 2010.

118 Father James Mulvihill was the Director of Lejac from 1947 to 1952: “Notes on Lejac Indian School,” undated internal document, AStAP; and “Songary et al. Interview, 1990,” AStAP. See also “Goulet interview transcripts, 1990,” AStAP.

119 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 670.

120 “Rose Prince,” Catholic.net; “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG; and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

121 “Sainthood Considered for B.C. Woman.” The decision to move the cemetery was very likely made by then-Director Father James Mulvihill, the same priest who had conducted a mass to comfort Rose as she lay dying in Saint John's hospital in Vanderhoof.

122 Jack Lacerte, telephone interview with author, 3 July 2012.

123 For example, see “Carrier Indian may be first Native North American Saint,” Halifax Daily News, 9 July, 1996; Douglas Todd, “The Spirit really Moved Her,” Vancouver Sun, 21 April 2000; Farley, Lisa, “The Reluctant Pilgrim: Questioning Belief after Historical Loss,” Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies 8, no. 1 (2010): 7Google Scholar; Miller, “Pilgrimage pays tribute to Rose Prince”; Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 670; and Peebles, “Remembering Lejac.”

124 Lacerte, interview.

125 Lacerte, interview.

126 Sister Eleanor Klusa in Frith, Uncorrupted. See also “Sainthood Considered for B.C. Woman”; Douglas Todd, “B.C. Woman Made most of Her Short Life,” Windsor Star, 11 May 1996; Douglas Todd, “Catholics Pray to Dead B.C. Woman,” Toronto Star, 11 May 1996; and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

127 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

128 Catherine Labouré, another nineteenth-century Marian seer, is also incorrupt. For a general introduction to the phenomenon of incorruption in Roman Catholicism, see Joan Carroll Cruz, The Incorruptibles: A Study of the Incorruption of the Bodies of Various Catholic Saints and Beati (Gastonia, N.C.: St. Benedict's Press, 1977); and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

129 Bishop Stephen Jensen has made this parallel in numerous homilies: Jensen, telephone interview.

130 James, interview.

131 Jensen, telephone interview.

132 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 172–173; and Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 243, 246.

133 “Statement of Bishop Fergus O'Grady.”

134 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

135 Lacerte, interview; and James, interview.

136 Frith, Uncorrupted.

137 “Deposition of Nick Loza,” undated, AStAP.

138 “Carrier Indian may be first Native North American Saint.”

139 Frith, Uncorrupted; and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

140 Nick Loza, interview with author at the Rose Prince Pilgrimage on Nadheh Whut'en land near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, 8 July 2012. In 2004, Father Yvon Beaudoin, an Oblate working at the Vatican, opined that he considered Loza's cure be the best documented, most promising miracle attributed to Rose's intercession: “Letter from Postulator General Frank Santucci, OMI to Bishop Gerald Weisner,” 2004, AStAP.

141 “Deposition of Nick Loza.”

142 Loza, interview.

143 Douglas Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray for Healing at Grave of B.C. Indian Nun with ‘Saintly Powers,’” The Vancouver Sun, 8 July 1996. Please note that contrary to the title of Todd's article, Prince was not, in fact, a nun. A young Alberta girl, Misty Broadbent, claims that Rose took away the horrendous scarring she received in a fire. See Bill Curry, “Pope Told of Sainthood Bid,” The Globe and Mail, 1 May 2009.

144 Rose's clerical supporters are quick to emphasize that incorrption alone is not proof of sanctity: Weisner, Jensen, O'Brien, and James interviews. See also Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray”; and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.”

145 “Sainthood Considered for B.C. Woman.”

146 Lacerte, interview; and Lacerte, telephone interview.

147 When direct application of the dirt is impossible, devotees sometimes make a pillow containing the earth. Others use the soil in a special, hybrid smudging ceremony: Pattison, interview; and Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray.”

148 Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray”; and James, interview.

149 Pattison, interview.

150 De Leeuw briefly notes the same dynamic: De Leeuw, “Intimate Colonialisms,” 356–357.

151 Weisner, interview. His stress on Rose's free choice significantly downplays her injury, bereavement, and her father's remarriage, none of which she chose.

152 Jensen, telephone interview.

153 James, interview. See also Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”; and “Carrier Indian may be first Native North American Saint.”

154 Weisner homily, 7 July 2012, given at the Rose Prince Pilgrimage. For a consideration of some of the positive aspects of residential schools, see Clatter, “Lejac was Good”; Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 255–262, 265–269; Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society”; Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 668–669; Peebles, “Remembering Lejac”; and Bev Christensen, “Grads Reminisce about Lejac,” Prince George Citizen, undated.

155 Weisner, interview. In 2006, Father Beaudoin of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints described the testimony gathered to date as “insufficient.” See “Letter from Postulator General Frank Santucci, OMI to Bishop Gerald Weisner”; and “Letter from Father Yves Beaudoin to Bishop Gerald Wiesner,” 26 October 2006, AStAP.

156 John O'Brien, SJ, telephone interview with author, 25 May 2015.

157 James, interview.

158 Todd, “Indian Woman Revered as Saint,” The Ottawa Citizen, 1996; Weisner, in Frith, Uncorrupted; and Weisner, interview.

159 Weisner's predecessor was Bishop Hubert O'Connor, who faced charges of sexual and indecent assault for acts committed during his tenure as principle of St. Joseph's residential school near Williams Lake, B.C. (the same institution where Prince's parents met). See “Carrier Indian may be first Native North American Saint.”

160 Weisner, interview, 6 July, 2012.

161 Fiske, “Gender and the Paradox of Residential Education in Carrier Society,” 271.

162 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 676, 670.

163 Miller, “Pilgrimage pays tribute to Rose Prince.”

164 Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray.”

165 Bernie McCorry in Frith, Uncorrupted.

166 Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 671; and Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray.”

167 Even those, like Tom George, who say “a lot of kids went under at that school. Why don't we make a shrine to them?” are quick to add that Rose “probably deserves” the attention being drawn to her kindness: Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray.” See also Todd, “Making of a Saint”; and Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

168 Fiske, “Life at Lejac,” 267; and Fiske, “Pocahontas's Granddaughters,” 674–675.

169 Pattison, interview; and Woodard, “Nor Suffer your Holy One to Decay.” Woodard suggests that lack of money was likely the reason for Rose's quick reburial, because the B.C. Church “could not afford the sort of glass-fronted ‘reliquary’ that houses hundreds of ‘incorruptibles’ in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.”

170 Lacerte, interview.

171 Jensen, telephone interview.

172 Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

173 Todd, “Hundreds Travel to Pray.”

174 Frith, Uncorrupted; and Todd, “Is She B.C.'s First Saint?”

175 “Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation,” DPG. The phrase “holy painting” is Margaret Nooski's in Frith, Uncorrupted.