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Female Firsts: Edith Monture · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is any in Samantha. I talking to stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told your production of I Heart Radio. And
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we're so excited today to be talking about another female first,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: which means we are once again joined by our good
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: friend Eves Hive. Eves, did you eat the rest of
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the cheesecake? Yes, very quickly, go by like it was
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: gone the next day, and it was very delicious. But
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I think it's we helped because I definitely took some homes.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a little bit home as well, and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: then a little bit kept getting a bit when you
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: didn't have a whole cake. But I didn't think about that,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and I was like, huh, I wonder how long how
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: much it is gone? I'm sure, well it's been a month,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: so surely God all of it's gone. But I'm just saying,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I like, I really want to go back
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and get some. I'm not on that side of town,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: but I'm like, I need to take a trip over
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: there just to get some cheesecake. Yes, I have a
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: random question for your Eaves. What's your favorite season? I
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: would say summer because I've been saying summer for a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: long time, but I think that might be like otto
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and gray did me as a person who is conditioned
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to not have school during the summer. But I love
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: hot weather. So, like I've thought about it, I'm like,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like that late springtime is like the temperature
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: is really nice, then everything's in bloom during spring. Spring
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: is also I'm like a spring baby. I was born
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: right on the cusp of winter spring, right at the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: beginning of spring, so it's a really beautiful season. But
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I still think summer is it because the sweltering heat
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: is It's just something about it that makes me just
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like really appreciate everything to do with, like the outdoors
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and just like being all of everything, even though it's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: kind of oppressive sometimes the heat. But yeah, I say summer.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I would say, my officially answer is summer. Okay, so
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: this is like your prime time it is, yes, Wow,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I think you know, one of the few people that
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I know would actually say summer, especially of those of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: us in Georgia where summer feels like it's half the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: year with all the bugs and humidity. But wow, yeah, okay, right,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: there is also, Yes, there are a lot of elements
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of it being summer that I don't like, being the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: bugs that you just mentioned like the spiders that build
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: their webs overnight. I'm always running into spiders in my
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: yard and just like cursing all the books that are
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: out but right' it's worth it to me, Like the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: pros outweigh the cons. I like it. I say this
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: because I'm being bitten right now. I just dont two
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: new bug buys on my legs, so that means there's
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a bug inside my house eating me as we speak.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: They're rude like that, They really are so rude. The
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: bugs are rude. You're right, what about y'all? Oh? I
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I used to love summer, but I think once I
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: was not a student, and that didn't mean you have
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: like three months off. That changed Now I love fall.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of why I was asking, is because
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: we're in like in Georgia, the distinction isn't quite as
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: clear or as early as it is for a lot
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of other places. But we're kind of on that place
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: where a lot of people are talking about fall. But
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: it's still like ninety degrees outside, right, So, and we
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: were just talking about how you know, dates and times
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: still feel strange. So it's just odd to me that
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: people are talking about a lot of fall things now
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and some people are already doing their healthy shopping. Cracks
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: me up that I might, yeah, but it's ninety degrees
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: at this current moment. Yeah, but the nights, so the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: nights are where you can tell a little bit of
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a difference. Is starting to get a little bit more
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: cool cooler. And some people have been asking me about
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: horror movies. They're like, when are you gonna start your
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: horror movies? And I'm like, well, I don't really stop
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: because this timeline here's Samantha. You and I watched hocus Pocus.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It was my birthday and we were like, let's kick off.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: That made you watch The Heathers too, which is a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: little more dark like Fall slash Halloween Ish did for sure.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Apparently my niece, who is twenty years younger than me,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: her and her friend group dressed up as the Heathers,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and I was like, how do you how do you
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: even know? How do you know this? What is happening? Yeah?
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I am a Fall person as well. I think that
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: has everything to do with there's something about for me.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: School started actually in Fall, like in that time frame,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: so I think of the newness of that my birthday,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: other people's birthday is typically that I know are in
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the fall area. And then, yeah, Halloween was not a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: big part of my life growing up. It's like I
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: like the candy bit, but I don't love the dressing
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: up bit that that's still not something that I love,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: mainly because I'm not creative and I don't invest a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: lot of money in it because I'm like, I'm not
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: paying two d dollars to dress up as character for
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: one day. Of course I'm not in that world so
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that that's all new. But like horror movie and all
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of that, definitely, but I'm also like you were out.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I can watch that oneever and I employ it and
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I just want to have more of it. But I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: love cardigans like nobody's business, and I will wear the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: hell up. I'm still wearing a poncho during summer, so
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I will keep wearing them. But knowing that it's appropriate
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: during this time makes me even happier. Yeah, coats are
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: my favorite article of clothing and it used to be
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: a running joke among my friends is that I have
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: more coats than like anything else, Like I don't have
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: enough coats for the number of like pants or anything. Like.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I just love a good coat also use Okay, this
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is a great question. Samantha and I have talked about
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it a lot, so we don't need to answer, but
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: out of curiosity before we get into this episode, were
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: you ever interested in going into the medical field? No? Never,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: no never, short answer, Um, Samantha, I both were very brief,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: but well, I won't say very good country. Yeah. Um,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I thought I had a plan, but it died very quickly.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: My I was like, almost throughout all of my primary education,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I thought I was going to go into medical field,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: but then high school senior year, I was like, never mind. Yeah,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I was pretty I was staunched writing from the beginning,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: and it's pretty much never never swayed from that. I mean,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I mean that's that's not completely true, because I was
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: into fashion for a minute. I had other tangential things,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: but like writing was always the central focus, right, Yeah,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: but probably all for being interested in medicine or medical field,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: because it is like it's fascinating to me, but it
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: is above me, for sure. It's a lot. It's a lot.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Samantha and I hung out with somebody this weekend who
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: was in the nursing field and just hearing her talk
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: about it and like she was like taking tests over it.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that is difficult. But the reason
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask is because the first she bought
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: for us today was involved in the medical field. So
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: who did you bring for as eaves? Yes, So today
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about Charlotte Edith Anderson Montour, who
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: usually is just referred to as Edith's Montour. She was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the first Indigenous Canadian woman to become a registered nurse,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and she was reported to be the first first Nations
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: woman to gain the right to vote in a Canadian
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: federal election. For some reason, my mind is totally blanked.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And was like, you know, you know when you hear
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a word and you think that's correct, isn't it? And
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: then your brain is like is it It's like Canadian,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: it's not Canadian. And then I was like, no, but
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: it is Canadian. I is thrown in there. You have
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to go before the A, right. I can see how.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: It's not like I don't use that word or see
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: that word regularly. I don't know why my brain just
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: flipped out about that very interesting story reading into this one,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Um and Samantha, you were talking about you were reading
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: some of the journal entries that you found. So this
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: one is just another fascinating story that I'm kind of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: angry I hadn't heard about earlier. Yeah, and it's really
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: not a ton that's very easily accessible out there about her.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's because there's not much documentation of it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely worth talking about. You know, we haven't
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: really gotten into that many indigenous Native American first on
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the show, so I think it's great that we're going
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: to be able to get into one today. And I
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: think we also we haven't We've like Maryann shaq Carry,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like we've gotten into some Canadian history. But
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: it I'm happy to bring that to the table today
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: because I like to, you know, try to keep a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: variety of people from different cultural backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and nationality. So yeah, I'm really excited about that. And two,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about her either, So yeah, I'm
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: really excited to get into her story today. So I
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: think that the history of women nursing in North America,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and specifically the history of Indigenous women in nursing in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: North America and Canada is like a very rich history.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: It's something that I didn't know much about, but it
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: seems like like a place that you can really delve
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: deep into because there are so many ten drils that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: it connects to, you know, the history of war, which
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: we'll get into this episode, the history of medical practices
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and healing practices and Indigenous communities and also medicinal practices themselves.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It's just it touches so many different things. So I
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: think it's really fascinating to talk about, you know, think
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: about those different histories all melded into one, and Edith
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Montour is definitely a part of that. She was born
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on April tenth, ninety and Oschweigen and Six Nations of
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the Grand River, which is the largest First Nations reserve
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: in Canada, which is located in southwestern Ontario. So it's
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the only First Nations reserve in North America that includes
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: all six holding O Shawny Nations, which is it's an
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: alliance among the six Native American nations that sometimes called
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the Iroquois Confederacy. Edith Montur was a member of the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Mohawk Nation and the Mohawker the easternmost nation in Honor
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: O'shawny territory. So Edith was the youngest of eight children.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: She went to day school in the reserve and she
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: got her high school diploma at Brantford Collegiate Institute. And
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: once she graduated, she tried to apply to nursing schools
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: in Ontario, but she wasn't accepted to any of those schools.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So this is where we get into the Indian Act
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: in Canada, which was passed in eighteen seventy six, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: it's still in effect today, though it's been through many iterations,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: many amendments, so it doesn't look like it looked in
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six. Obviously a lot about it has changed
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: in that in that time period. But it defines who
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: is a so called Indian, which was who had Indian
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: status under the Act. It gave the federal government authority
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: over registered Indians and over reserve communities. And it's part
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: of just a longstanding effort to assimilate First Nations people
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: into Canadian society by devaluing their distinct political, economic, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: cultural practices. So I think we talked about this before,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: but a lot of more things happening in the United
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: States as well. Um when it comes to efforts to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: assimilating I think we may have mentioned before, boarding schools
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and things that were specifically built and enacted in policy
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: to remove and strip Native Americans, in Indigenous peoples of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: their of their own practices, their language, their ways of dressing,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: all of the things um and to make them quote
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: unquote less savage, not my words, but less savage and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: more civilized. And this was the case with the Indian
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Act in Canada as well. So as part of it,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: women were barred from voting and running in chief and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: council elections under the Act. And they also had to
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: deal with the issue of enfranchisement, which in this case
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: is the process by which Indigenous peoples would lose their
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Indian status under the Act and become full Canadian citizens.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And that's related to this conversation in many ways, but
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: it's related to education specifically, where any Indians who got
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a university degree or became a professional like a doctor
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: or lawyer would lose their status as an Indian. Enfranchisement
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: meant that Indigenous peoples would have to throw away their
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: cultural and legal identities and couldn't pass along their Indian
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: status to their children. So First Nations people were enfranchised
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: for getting a university education. They also work for things
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: like serving in the Canadian Armed Forces, for marrying non
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Indian men, and for leaving reserves for long periods, so
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: on and so forth. And I'd also like to just
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: call out that Indigenous people have also had always had
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: their own caregiving practices in their own communities. So I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: don't want to make it seem like the history of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Indigenous healers in Canada starts with Edith montor like she's
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: one part of the long history of healing practices within
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Indigenous communities, and also of like in a line of
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Indigenous nurses and people who acted as midwives and all
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: these sorts of different caretaking. There's also accounts of Indigenous
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: women who served as nurses and midwives to colonizers. So
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: it's not like she is the beginning of all of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: this conversation, but she is a pioneer in the history
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of Indigenous women who nursed in this way in Canada
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: in the United States, because she's as well get into
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: she was in the United States for a bit or
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: came to the United States, but on top of the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: assimilating policy suppressing Indigenous healing practices, Indigenous women were also
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: largely barred from nursing programs in Canada until the early
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to mid nineteen hundreds, so Montor herself was barred from
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: pursuing professional training in Canada. She was rejected from schools
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: without even getting interviews, and so many Indigenous women would
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: go to the US to get professional training, so that's
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: exactly what she did. She turned to the United States,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: where she was accepted too and began attending New Rochelle
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Nursing School in New York. She graduated and became a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: registered nurse in nineteen fourteen, which is the first, so
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: she became the first Indigenous woman who's a registered nurse
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: in Canada. So when she was asked why she became
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: a nurse, she just said it was something to do.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: The way that it seems like it's been explained by
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: family members is that like she kind of downplayed her
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: achievements and like the things her status as a pioneer,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you know. So yeah, she was then hired as a
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: nurse at a private school in New Rochelle, and she
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: joined the war effort for World War One in nineteen seventeen,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and in that she joined the Westchester County Unit B
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of the American Expeditionary Forces Army Medical cores. So, after
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: more training in New York, she left for France in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: February of nineteen eighteen. She stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and she arrived in France on March six. So just
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: for some numbers. During World War One, there were more
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: than twenty hundred nurses who served in the Canadian Army
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Medical Core or the CIMC. SO service in the CIMC
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: required women to be white, to have British citizenship and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: quote unquote high moral character, physical fitness, and to be
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: between the ages of one and thirty eight. So a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: number of Indigenous women did serve as nurses in the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Army Nurse Corps and the American Red Cross stateside and overseas.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: In France during the war. There are twelve Indigenous women
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: who have been identify as doing so, but more its
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: thoughts that more of them did actually serve. It's just
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that the record keeping is there for who those people were.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: But as we can't imagine like they were definitely more,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: they were definitely more. Yeah. So Edith volunteered and worked
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: as a nurse at based Hospital twenty three m v Tail,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: France for more than a year. She was responsible for
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: treating soldiers who were shot or a guest, and she
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: sometimes worked at other medical centers in France as well,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: which you mentioned earlier that Samantha. You read some of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: her diary entries. Yes, yeah, she kept a journal. What
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: did you read? So essentially I've only got through a
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: little bit, but it kind of reads as if it's
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: like a nineteen twenties, nineteen tens kind of movie when
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you were in New York and living that life. She
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: talks about getting legend gimbals. She talks about going to Hoboken,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: going out with friends, writing letters to people saying farewell.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So she was prepping while working there, prepping to leave
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: apparently from what I could gather, because they started in
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, So the diary was actual really handed down
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: their family and her daughter Helen, who she also has
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a friend named Helen. In the diary, we read her
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: daughter Helen kept it and preserved it, and it was
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: so fragile that they had actually sent it off to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: have it typed up, and they gave it to all
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of the descendants, all of her descendants so they could
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: have a copee to say what it was like. I
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: saw that they sent it off to the Modern Literature
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and Culture Research Center in Toronto as well. Yea, yes.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: The thing that I really liked about this, of course,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: as y'all already not really love, like the just reading
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: these people's stories and the fact that some people had
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the like, the thought or just were interested in recording
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: their own stories, which we have from her, which I'm
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: just grateful for, because she had a diary that we
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: even haccess too, because she didn't have to do that, right,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: but it was her. It was just before she died,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: is when her granddaughter transcribed the diary, and thankfully they
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: didn't make it available to us, the portions that they
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: didn't make available, but it was she died not that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: long after lived a long time by the way. Yeah,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but the diary is, yeah, it's it's really cool to see.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Like I I liked how much she talked about the weather,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: which I feel like she's talking about it so much.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: She's just like a sunny day, beautiful day in cloudy day,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and I love her. I also liked how she's just
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: like nothing happened today, uneventful. I wrote letters like that's
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: how like, yeah, I get that I stayed in. I'm
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: glad to know that I'm not the only one someone
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: who made so much history just had a day when
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: they just stayed in. Yeah. So it made me feel
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a little bright. And more times she was like uneventful,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: didn't do much. It was cloudy today. Yeah, I do like.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I like how mundane it is. And and just to
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: you know, go through that kind of day by day
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: with her, even though every day isn't in there, he said.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: It started. Her entries began in January of nineteen eighteen,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: and they ended after the armistice in nineteen nineteen. And
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I will read a couple of entries from the journal
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: to just so y'all get to hear a little bit
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of what she wrote. So, while she was serving there,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: she befriended a patient, one of the I guess more
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: notable or one that's been talked about a lot in
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the articles that are written about her, Earl King, who
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: was a soldier from Iowa. And she said in her
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: diary entry on June sixteenth, nineteen eighteen, quote my pet patient,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Earl King, who adopted me for his big sister, died
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: at this a m at seven fifteen had hemorrhage at
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: three fifteen am. The poor boy lost consciousness immediately. My
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: heart was broken, cried most of the day and could
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: not sleep. That's the end of the quote. She was
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: pretty upset when he died, and she wrote to his parents,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and his parents visited her. She visited them, and they
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: struck up kind of a friendship. So that's one of
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the more I guess things that she didn't really write
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a ton about specific soldiers in her diary Injuries, and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: she in a later interview she did say about her
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: experience in the war. We would walk right over where
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: there had been fighting. It was an awful site. Buildings
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and rubble, trees, burnt, spent shells all over the place.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Whole town's blown up. She didn't really talk a ton
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about discrimination that she faced or the difficulties of war,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: but she does say in her last journal injury quote,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: when we looked over the shell torn fields and think
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of the millions of dollars in property destroyed, to say
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: nothing of the tremendous loss of life. We cannot wonder
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that in France they bury the dit facing the north,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: even in death, they dare not turn their backs on Germany.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: A bit of sentiment, of course, but who can blame them?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: So Edith returned to North America and soon went back
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to the Six Nations Reserved in Canada, where she married
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Clay brand Montour in nineteen twenty. They had five children,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: which were budd, Helen, Ron, Don, and Gilbert. Although Gilbert
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: died as an infant in nineteen twenty nine, she continued
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: her nursing career and she worked as a nurse and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: a midwife at the Lady Willington Hospital on the Reserve
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty five, and in nineteen thirty nine she
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: was elected honorary President of the Oswegan Red Cross, so
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah her nurse, saying she continued to do what she did,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: which was nurse on the reservation, and as the nineteen
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: seventeen Military Service Act had given wartime nurses the right
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to vote, that's where the other first came in, where
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: she was the first female status Indian and registered band
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: member to gain the right to vote in a Canadian
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: federal election, although Indigenous women in general weren't able to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: legally vote federally without losing their Indian status until nineteen
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: sixty and her son mentioned that he remembers other veterans
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: encouraging her to vote in federal elections with them. Her daughter,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: who Samantha brought up earlier, Helen, was a founding member
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of the National Aboriginal Nurses Association, which is now known
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: as the Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association. But yeah, Edith continued
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to serve until she retired, and in nine, like Samantha said,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they transcribed the diary and Edith herself died on April third, nineteen,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: which is just before or her hundred and sixth birthday,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And she was buried on the Six Nations Reserve and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: there is a memory of her and there, Edith Monter
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Avenue in Brantford, Ontario is named after her, and there's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a park there that's named after her as well. So
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: she is What I'm trying to say is she is
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: recognized for her work in her pioneering status as an
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Indigenous woman in nursing in Canada. Yeah, and I think
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: so much of this story is emblematic for what we
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: were talking about in our cheesecake champagne celebration of these
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: first of somebody like you said, she's like, well something
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to do, Like she wasn't in it necessarily, like was
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: kind of shy about talking about her first or you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: was just wasn't talking about it that much, but was
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: just doing it and then having I love that she
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: kept this journal that we can read. That's something I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: personally really enjoy is when people are yeah, even if
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: there's nothing really to report, you report it and just
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: like yep, you know, because I think it gives you
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a full picture of their experience as we do like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: build up, Oh, here's there first, but there's a whole
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: life and a person behind that that didn't have plenty
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of mundane days or did go to you know, gimbals
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: for lunch and like it was exciting. So I really
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: enjoy that aspect. Looking to her story, Yeah, me too.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I'm really appreciative of it, I mean, and happy that,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: like you know, the family made it available for us
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to be able to read. And also just it wasn't
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that long ago when she passed away, So just to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: think about this first happening in such recent history, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: to know that she also has a living legacy is
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: it's nice to know and that you know, her work
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: people like me and you know, the three of Us
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: is still being uncovered and you know, we can talk
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: about it within the framework of the rest of Indigenous
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: American and North American history, just like it's involved in
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: so much. So yeah, I think it's super cool. Yeah
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: for sure, and that that was interesting too, where sometimes
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: i'll hear first tonight, I'm trying to like have a
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: context before I look it up, like when was that,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, wow, I'm pretty recent. But yeah,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: once again, Eves, we bought a great story. Thank you
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: so much for bringing it to your attention. Is there
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: anything else before we wrap up? That's all? Thank you
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: again for having me. Always loved being here. So oh yes,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: could y'all imagine? Though? I have to ask, like, do
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you think she imagined that we would be reading and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: it would be published her journal? Because for me, my
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: thought is, oh my god, I die, don't read my journal. Yes,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I've had this converse before. Yeah, I don't want people
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to read my diary. I was I was thinking about
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: that when I was reading hers, and yeah, you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I know there's some stuff that was out right, I
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: hope so you need. I wondered to what degree there
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: was self censorship as well when she was actually writing
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: right her diary. Of course she knew she was going
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: to war. I know that that. Yeah, I think you'd
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: already covered the fact that you know people who went
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: off the assumptions you're not you're probably not going to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: come back if you're going to be there. And so
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: perhaps she was doing this in order to have a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: lasting memory, for someone to keep that record so she
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: could exist. But yeah, in my head, I'm like, please,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: don't read my diaries, don't don't read my journal I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: kinda keep that locked. Don't do that. But they're so embarrassing, exactly.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: We've talked about that. When I was growing up, I
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: had a diary and it had like a little key
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and I, you know, lock it that you could have
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: just like kicked that lock, just like ripped it a little,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: strapped that one across the journey, but it was all
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like this past again today, like I lost, But I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: wasn't ready for you to mention that one. It's true. Yeah,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So for those who are interested in finding the actual
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: diaries as they put it up, I found it on
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: War Diaries dot c A if anybody wants to go
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and read, because it is it feels very I feel
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: like I'm I'm understand like, without knowing any context of
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: where she's at, it feels like I'm there a little
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: bit with her crew of nurses, I start going about
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: their day because she makes sure to talk about all
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of the nurses around her, people around her and sharing
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: her experiences, so she should definitely go read it. But
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it's very interesting. Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, I unfortunately burned
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: my diary, but I wish I really didn't want anybody
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to read yours then I really and you know, looking back,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and it was fine, it's okay, but they can laugh
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: at my boy ast any day. And yeah, that's the thing.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: They're my diaries. Aren't this well partitioned? You know, like
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: everything is in there, so while you might be able
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to read one page, the next one is something I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: probably wouldn't want to share with anybody. That's why you
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: need a good You need a good friend to go
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: through it first, and you're like, okay, she'd be fine
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: with this, can burn this forever, but like this section
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is okay, yeah, min not illustrations in it and everything. Yes, well,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: thanks so much as always eased for being here. Where
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: can the good listeners find you? You can find me
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at not Apologizing, also on Twitter at Eaves
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Jeff cote Um. You can go back and listen to
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: episodes of This Day and History Class, which talks about
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: people in history and different events on days in History
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: by the Day, and on the podcast Unpopular, which is
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: about people in history who were persecuted for the actions
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that they were taking. Yes, and also on this very show,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: so many, many many episodes of Female First on this
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: here very show called stuff Mom Never Told You. We're
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: estimating that it's twenty six. Yeah, well we'll get ready
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: for our fiftieth More cheesecake, more champagne. Absolutely, okta upgrade
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: and maybe just do a whole like tear of cheesecakes
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: or something. Yes, gets bigger fireworks coming out at the top.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Our boss Wiel lovers, Well, we did have kind of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a big send off with the champagne bottle. The last
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: one true went off while recording. So yeah, and listeners.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: If you would like to find us, you can. You
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: can email us at stuffing to your mom stuff at
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: i heeart media dot com. You can find its on
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: what are at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: stuff I Ever Told You. Thanks as always to your
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: super producer Christina, thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Stuff I Never Told You production of iHeart radio. For
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: more podcast from my iHeart Radio, visit theear radio app,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Apple podcast or where you listen to your favorite show.