I found this photo of the Rapid City Indian School on google images.
This section of the book went into full detail on how the children's needs were met. It discussed the the kinds of food they were given and how many mouths there were to feed. They fed anywhere from 250 to 300 children at every meal with the help of the girls in the kitchen and the boys in the bakery. Such large quantities of food didn't necessarily mean that the children ate well. The food was divided among so many mouths, that it was not always well prepared. The kids use to get pretty hungry as they were only given such a small amount of food. It wasn't until 1929 that the food menus showed considerable improvement in variety and the use of dairy products.
Health care for Indian students remained the most pressing need at the Rapid City Indian School. The indian populations were coming in contact with a variety of diseases such as smallpox epidemics, measles, influenxa and worst of all, tuberculosis. When an epidemic spread through the school, the staff could only nurse the sick and hope for their recovery. When time did not favor recovery, as when students wasted away from tuberculosis, schools often granted families wishes and sent the children home to die. Students received care from a full time nurse, assisted by students, and a local physician employed part time by the school. Poor health conditions became the norm at the Rapid City Indian School. The school's greatest failing was its inability to provide adequate health care for students, a problem directly attributable to inadequate appropriations. By the mid 1920's, the Rapid City Indian School was not a healthy environment for children.
It is truly unfortunate for one of the experiences to be diagnosed with an illness. The lack of adequate health care or a healthy nutrition and lifestyle does not display any importance as to caring for these children. Personally, it is a roller-coaster of overwhelming emotions learning about the epidemics and it's severity.
ReplyDeleteI definitely look forward to reading about any "positive" needs that were met that the children recieved.
"It wasn't until 1929 that the food menus showed considerable improvement in variety and the use of dairy products." This line in particular stuck out in my mind because in the first post you wrote how the school was only open for a short period of time, closing during 1933. That means those children didn't have much time experiencing nutritious food, but from the rest of the posting I understand that food must not have been the number one concern of the faculty.
ReplyDeleteI am taken back at the number of children that were enrolled in the school. It really had to take some careful engineering to meet the most basic needs required for them - food and health in particular. I cannot imagine what the mood of the school was when it came to the large number of children who were ill and gravely sick. To think that I could have been a student who would be helping a doctor one day and then finding myself in a sick bed the next day with memories of my own peers suffering in the back of my head. That certainly would have added to the every day stress that these children faced.
ReplyDeleteIts to bad they didn't have a better health system back then. We could only image how many survivers we would still have to this day and how many more stories we would have. Thanks for sharing your blog!
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