And so it happened this spring when All My Relations (AMR) Episcopal Panel co-chair Kathryn Fournier visited the Archives to entrust a number of AMR books and resources, such as a copy of the Indigenous Peoples’ Atlas of Canada, to the Archives so they would be available and accessible to people in the diocese.

On the subject of such resources, Lockwood mentioned that all the churches that operated Indian Residential Schools on behalf of the Canadian government agreed to send all of their documents related to the schools to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg as a part of the Indian Residential Schools settlement. Here in the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, that required copying and sending about 14,000 documents. It was a three-year project (2013 – 2015) for volunteers Mary Barker, Lynn Glenn and Caroline Herbert who searched the collections for references to the schools. Then archivist Meg Stewart compiled an index of those 14,000 documents copied and shipped to Winnipeg.

Fournier said she was flabbergasted that there were so many since there were no residential schools located in the diocese, so people here may have felt “one-step removed” from that history. Information from Lockwood and her initial perusal of the documents, however, revealed that Woman’s Auxillary groups from many parishes were very involved in sending bales of goods to the schools right across Canada from the early 1900s, often to particular students who they knew by name. It’s all there in hand-written minutes of their meetings., Fournier said. “Shipping them all over Canada and up to the Arctic over so many years. That to me, indicate a, a fairly high degree of engagement.”

The women certainly did this charitable work with the aim to support the children and their education and likely viewed the schools’ aim to provide Indigenous children with education in a positive light, without knowing about the suffering and abuse many endured while they were students. And yet, present-day Anglicans could read a report of bales sent to students in the years between the early 1900s and the 1920s knowing that it was during that time that Dr. Peter Bryce wrote and published reports on terrible conditions in the schools that he warned were contributing to the deaths of children. Dr. Bryce’s reports were disregarded by the federal government of the time, which suspended funding for his research, blocked presentations of his findings and eventually forced him out of public service and into retirement.

Fournier thought that Anglicans in the diocese would be interested to explore the files and learn how people in their parishes or families, perhaps a great-grandmother, were engaged in trying to support the children in the schools.

Editor’s note: Details about Dr. Peter Bryce’s reports have been added to this version of our original story to be published in the October print edition of Perspective.

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The quilting group usually meets two mornings a week during the winter months. People who like their quilts to be hand-stitched can bring their quilts to the group. “We track the hours that it takes to quilt a quilt …and then we use that as a fundraiser for the church. It ends up costing whoever has the quilt a couple of hundred dollars,” quilter Marie Cheesman told Crosstalk.

When she learned about the group Quilts for Survivors, she brought the idea to the other quilters who were enthusiastic about the idea. The Rev. Matthew Brown suggested they approach the ACW to help fundraise for the costs of shipping the quilts to the Quilts for Survivors office in Timmins, Ont., and the idea was keenly received.

“I think we started the fundraising for that in May and by the end of June we had the $700. And all that is freewill offerings that people give during coffee hour after the 10 o’clock service,” Cheesman said. The quilters would drape a quilt over an easel to show their work with a flyer about the project as a reconciliation initiative. It was a good opportunity for more of the community to be involved and to support the project, she said.

Brown blessed the quilts at the Sunday service, following National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

In October, a couple from the church planned to deliver their package including 10 completed quilts, 26 quilt tops, 20 quilt blocks, a selection of bindings and backings, and 12 handmade cards created to accompany the quilts to the Quilts for Survivors studio in Timmins.

Quilters and anyone interested in supporting this work in other ways can find more information at https://www.quiltsforsurvivors.ca/.

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