St. Mary's Brother Bewish Interview Part 2

I can see the reasons why we are really closing down there just, you know, the public schools have got the money and the wherewithal and they need the money and every time we have a student that there could be in their school and they are losing so much. How would you describe Sister Scholastic? Hardest working person I ever saw in my life and very, very, very seldom I ever seen her angry at any one, you know, an adult sometimes.

She's just scholastic allucian and tecla and we'll just spend maybe about a minute on each and just kind of try to sum them up as in, as best you remember them. We should have as a clock behind me so I can see what a minute looks like. Sister Scholastico was, to me, was, well, shall we say kind of the center of activities around here for getting things done in a tremendous woman and being able to take care of so many things and yet always seemed to have and know where everything was and what was going on and if I couldn't remember something about something that happened a year ago I'd go right to her and say, well, who was that fellow? Right away, just right away. And she was in the laundry here for most of the, when we moved up here, it wasn't long

before she was in charge of the laundry here and she worked hard at that and did all the sewing, every patch, you know, and my gosh, she would never let me go, she would come in and percing, she would say, brother, I need that shirt, whether this shirt here, you've got to get that off, bring it over and get another shirt, I want to fix that right away. She was that way all the time and anytime many clothes came in or something, brother, can you use this or brother, can you use that? Are you sure you have enough clothes? It's going to be cold, you know, she was very worried about whether I don't know if she thought maybe if I didn't have everything or I have to date, I would get tired and want to quit and go someplace, but I never felt that way at all at no time. Sister Techler was, oh, yeah, I got that again, Sister Techler. Well, she was very short and it was hard to understand her, but yours had to say yes or

no, or aha, because then she would say some more things and I wasn't sure all the time whether I was saying yes or no, I said, well, yes, and put an O in just in case, but she was, it's all on the spot as far as she could do, she could take care of the bread after I baked it, she was the one that did the cutting of the bread and everything else until she got so, so all that she couldn't do that was too much responsibility. She started to get mixed up, you know, and they were afraid that she was going to cut herself to pieces on the bread machine, it's got one of those little saws that go back and forth, you know, and so they got her off of that and got her into some sewing and things like that. Finally, it was just too much and so they took her out to on tan, that's where she died out there, jet of the Erson's house there, Montana. How about Sister Lucy?

Sister Lucy was very neat and right on the ball as it were and she was very much interested in helping the kids one at a time as it were after class, whatever the kid was doing or was poor at, she was willing to help anybody any time that she could, she was just available for anybody, especially the students because that's what they were here for and that's what she was here for to help out and that's the way I remember her. Any time I needed something or was there any questions, she was right on the spot too. How would you describe how important is the volunteer program? Without the volunteer, we would never get any place, just, you know, we couldn't afford it first of all and the volunteers, if they were just teachers that we hired, they would teach in class and close up at the time to go and go home and that was it, no communications

with the kids to mount anything and I find that the volunteers, they get in and they create something for them to do if they're slow or they're some have troubles and one thing another, I think there's enough of them that will take time off, they don't just go and do their house and stay there all the time away from them, they get in and they play volleyball and basketball with them and go for hikes and they get in with all the activities that they have. I'm a little too old for it now, I used to enjoy it but now we go in there and they're screaming and the band's going so I'm blasted and I just can't take it, I get nervous. Didn't you have a football squad happening? Well, I had football, all the older graduates are people way back, they all know about Notre Dame, they're not one that would dare fail and they all have what's happening in Notre Dame, how come they're not doing so good, so they get after me about it, I

said, well I'm not as tall as you know, if you had to distinguish between what the Jesuits accomplish and what the Ursulaians, they're not their job so much but what they mean to, the Jesuits mean to the mission and what the Ursulaians mean, is there a difference? I don't think you can separate it, without one you've got nothing, the Jesuits go they've got nothing, the Ursulaians sisters go, you've got nothing, you know, you just can't run it, not the way they are, if you could all get a nice big salary, well then you can order, get some people in there, kind of help what's going on but, you know, you just can't separate them and that goes for any order like up the Holy Cross, they had a different order there, the order, what's the, what they call those sisters, sisters of St. Anne, same thing, they were down at Copper Valley, same thing all over, everyone trying to help the

other one out and if there's anything missing or anything wrong right away, talk about the big fire, the big fire, I was, we at that time we had a, the bakery was in a different place was over near the, the furnace on the other side there where we have our food and it was about, oh I guess it must have been about 10 o'clock in the morning, the bakery I was raising the bread in the bakery and I went over to our house to get something over there and as I came over there was about four or five little kids, we had grade school then too, you know, we didn't have the full high school going yet, I don't think, I think it was kind of a junior high because we were, I think we had just, freshmen and sophomores those first two years, you know, it was in a, and what happened was that the little kids went over to play in the gym, you know, recess time for them and they ran up then they saw smoke and they all turned around and ran back and they were all yelling smoke smoke

and I ran over there and I thought, oh my god, look at this, the police up in the upstairs second floor we had the gym and behind the gym or at one end of the gym, we had a movie house up above where all the film were and everything and I ran up there and in the back room, we were in the room shut off from the rest, we had a little, we had a phonograph there with a lot of records and all our film, 35 millimeter film movies were up there and a couple of big projectors of course and then a 16 millimeter projector too and I got halfway up there, I was going to try to get to the door and take a good look around but I got a big pile of black smoke in my lungs and I just thought I was going, I almost went down right there, you know, and I just turned around and got out of there and one thing I remember that makes me mad to this day, I walked right by a 35 millimeter, I mean a 16 millimeter brand and almost a brand new machine didn't even think of picking it up, I was to get out and

get, get everybody notified, part of the pool was outside with part of his class, he had a class and something they were walking around or something and he just said, I wonder why they're having a fire drill, you know, some of the kids running around, you didn't know the places on fire until he got back to the building. So it was, by then, it was above the gym and it was all in the rafters on the rounded part of our building, like this building here, the same type and the fire was just going along the top and getting everything on the top of the building going, it was just a regular draft going through the heat was coming up, I mean the cold was coming up from below and going through. I got ran down to the post office, I was the postmaster at that time and we had our radio in there where we used communications for telegrams and weather and so forth and I called in Bethel and told him we had a fire over here and where it was and if it was anything we could do, anybody could help us and we needed some help, we didn't know how far it

was going to go or anything else, we just wanted to notify them, well they got busy right there, they got the National Guard over there and they got some air, a couple of airplanes and they come running over with a fire gear and a whole bunch of those, what do you call those fire extinguishers and one thing or another and they got in there and helped it, helped put it out but it was a long day, we lost the one whole building and then we had a, what do you call it, a tramway between the two buildings that covered place and that's where they came through it, we got a big tractor going and came through and just knocked that down as best we could and separated it and the wind was blowing pretty much towards this building, the wind was blowing pretty much towards this building and so we had a lot of the kids to go up into the second floor where we had a library for the kids and they moved all the books out and they tore everything off from around the inside of the walls

was best they could and I think it was two classrooms they had there, I'm not sure if it was divided at that time or not but they got everything out of the way and took everything out that looked like it was burnable as they could get hold of, we didn't have too many tools around and then they, we had turned on the water but we didn't have enough water if they had turned the light plants off because of the electricity when we were shooting water in there and we didn't want anybody electrocuted, so we couldn't really have both of them on at the same time without, there was no main switch or anything that we could see that we could monkey with and I had to get all the post office stuff out, a big safe in all the mail and all the stamps and all the books and everything out of the post office that was down in the basement for the building that was burning and I was amazed, it took us about, seems to me as I remember when I was trying to get that, when I moved

that safe in there we had about six men pushing the shovel and we had three guys taking it out when they had to take it out and hurry, they took it out, I was no monkey, I lost all my, I had to wear radio equipment, I had radio amateur and I lost quite a bit of my equipment, one was a big 500 pound, great big thing and all from the second world war they had those at all over the world I guess for transmitting the armed forces and one thing and it was working very well but when they got it out they didn't get it out far enough and it squirts the tail end off of it, it was just nothing I could do about it and before the day was over, Father Poo came down and says brother we just got a call from, what do they call those people that were going around at the radar stations that they had, they donated $150 to $200 for any piece of equipment and I think we need a radio, we got to have this constant contact when this fire is over and it says so you're it so to start

thinking about it but don't stop putting out the fire and then he took off but he wanted to cheer me up, the little, I was going to say getting the things out we had beds and everything else in the lower floor and the kids got their clothes out most of them and they took the mattresses out but they never got the beds out and then I opened up my room I said now look I had three boys, go in there and anything it looks valuable, give it out and put it, I told them where to put it you know, there was an old wagon out there and said underneath that wagon and take the big blanket and throw over it so they started empty my room and after the fire was all over I went over there to see what they took out, they had serious robot catalogs and all kinds of junk that was, stuff that I had there for the kids to look at you know, they got everything more or less everything out but they took everything. If you had to in a couple sentences tell why St. Mary's is special, why that's special I think it's because, I think it's because St. Mary's is special because, I think that

everybody here that is working here can see that we are helping the people out here especially the Eskimo people that are here and I think that the Eskimo people themselves and the students know that we're trying to do our best and I think as they grow up and get rid of the idea that they're little trying to you know just get out of school and don't do anything as they grow up they begin to realize they better study and they get going or they're going to be left behind and I just think it's just the spirit the way that very few trouble makers or anything if there is a trouble maker we talk to them and give them a chance and then after that here's the penalty next time you go if they get in something serious so they know ahead of time they can't say well they never told me I was going to happen

to me how do you feel about the this being the last year well I saw it already coming you I said my gosh the students are going down one time we had 125 and now we're down to you know this year I think we started around 60 but they just dropped down a lot of them right away they didn't they saw it was going to be a ball up here and have a lot of fun and do what they want around the village and get into drugs and everything else that's what was happening to some of them that were just right away we have a pipeline in here for some of these drug people and then the liquor with it too you know and so they were all told that these are the penalties if you're going to go sneaking off the village and getting into wine and drugs and you know liquor and so forth and you're not home on time for bed and you're sneaking out in the middle of the night that's it there's no second chance or anything while those that were didn't really have much on the ball as far as I could see in the first place they were the ones that pulled out first they just got out of

line so now we're down I don't think it's I don't know what they said they have left I don't think there's much more than 20 students here and boarding right now how do you feel about being close to me? Well it's it's you know I've been here so long that I afraid I'm going to be dreaming about it all my life whether I'm here or not but I can see the bish of sight of it is so expensive up here and you can't hold a bring those people up volunteers and run a class all those classes with just a few people and besides that we get I think there's probably some pressure and I don't I don't and be them or think that they're really doing wrong but these public school that they have in their village every student means so much money for them you know and they say well fire your kid goes to St. Mary's if he was here we get so much more money to run our school and maybe

we can get a swimming pool or I don't know what you know something's going on there and they get a pretty good I imagine a student must get quite a bit of money to into the school call for so actually it's the school itself looks like it's going to really going to close down but we still have hopes that we'll be able to use it in other ways to help the people here maybe not the kids so much but maybe the adults are so many so many things that we can do for them you know we have a deacons of for instance they're still learning what it's all about you have older people they still don't know some of them don't know how to read and write yet you know and I think there could be something like that if if we have enough personnel here and they're interested in it we have we have people that some of the parents would like to really be able to take hold of our religious

beliefs and be able to present it to their children so that it makes sense to them and I think the kids would if they're coming from their parents they'll be a much better off for it than just it's in class and a religion class when you write something down and it's just a piece of work for them to do you had to a single out one incident in the past 40 years it stands out in your mind oh boy well I I think that I would think it would have to be the fire that you know way it was a blessing because when they rebuilt they we made more room for for the students we had bigger enrollment after the fire than before the fire before it was mostly orphan kids and a few that parents wanted to come to school to get them away from their village where they may have been troubled in fact I know on few

places they that's what they told me they said they wanted their kid here not that he was bad or anything but they wanted them away from the village in the winter time it was just too much drinking and drugs and he hadn't been into that and they wanted them away to see what you know what they could do for them and did he had a single out one person in the 40 years well it had to be Sister Scholastica or Brother Murphy he was a man in charge of the boats here and all the work here when we pick came he was out of Kudurak and when he came up here he ran the boat built a barge he didn't build himself but he was in charge of it you know and he was getting pretty old who he was in his 70s and he knew they had some kind of cancer but he stuck with it and he didn't want to go out because he told him was one of those things going to last for a few years and then that's it and

so he stayed here and pretty soon he started to get weaker and weaker and then he began to mind beginning to go we had a brother that came to help him with the boat because he couldn't run it anymore he could sit in the boat and but he couldn't give all the orders and one to another and he woke up one time whether we were going up river he woke up and the brother you're going down river you're going the wrong way to turn this boat around and get going the right direction we want to get the same Mary's where we were going he was going the right way you know and he had an awful time with him it's calling down finally he saw something else that made him think well we must be going up river you know but he just couldn't believe he was that way and his greatest fear was that maybe somebody because maybe something he did someplace many years ago or some hour or another maybe a kick him out of the society before he dies and he didn't want that it was really funny you know and when I signed I guess a slips or something or just one of those things but he was a really a great

man to to be around he was a huge man all I know is what they told me they said I will be here next year what we're going to do I don't know but somebody has to be here and Jake brother Jake will be here too and I think they'll they'll have some activities going on I think father asterisk is going to plan the deacons retreat here possibly