FROM THE TRIBAL ARCHIVE
1918: The Swinomish Day School Closes Its Doors Theresa L. Trebon
The Swinomish Tribe’s first school facility closed its doors forever one hundred years ago this June. There is no person now living who attended classes at the Swinomish Day School, or even remembers the small white one-room schoolhouse that once stood just south of St. Paul’s Church. However, the impact of the school reverberates in the community today as it shaped the education and lives of the grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles of current tribal members. Swinomish parents played a direct role in the creation of the Swinomish Day School in the late 1890s. (For more information about the school, see “A History of Education in the Swinomish Tribal Community,” on Page 17 of the October 2012 qyuuqs). As the Office of Indian Affairs began to aggressively push tribal children into the Tulalip Boarding School that decade, Swinomish parents objected. Not only did they want their young children to remain an integral part of family life at home, they had grave concerns about contagion at the boarding school, particularly tuberculosis which was widespread among the Native communities of Puget Sound. The Office of Indian Affairs acquiesced to the parents’ petition and in 1898 tribal members, together with Farmer-in-charge Edward Bristow, built the school. Children attended the school through the third grade at which point many left for the Tulalip Boarding School. For the next twenty years the Swinomish Day School played an integral role in community life. However, attendance over the years was sporadic depending on the quality of the teachers, a trait that ebbed and flowed. By 1916 some Swinomish students including Garfield Day, Clarence Billy, John Wilbur, Maria Edge, Edna Preston, Tandy Wilbur, Emaline Willup, and William Cagey were enrolled in the La Conner School District. After Swinomish Day School attendance declined over the next
two years, the Swinomish Farmer-in-charge, Joe Shell, recommended it be closed permanently. In 1919 he noted that “nearly 50% of the eligible (Swinomish) scholastic population” was enrolled in the La Conner School District, a reality made easier by the construction of the Morris Street Bridge across the Swinomish Channel. By 1922 the old school was listed as “abandoned” and by the early 1930s the building had been torn down. One of the most important legacies of the Swinomish Day School lives on: three historic pictures of Swinomish schoolchildren in front of the school. These photos made their way into museum collections in La Conner and Washington D. C. over the years but never with the identification of the children pictured in them. Now, just in time for the 100th anniversary of the school’s closure, those names have been uncovered thanks to a recent discovery at the Seattle Public Library. This is the only identified image of Swinomish children in a group photo prior to the 1950s and will hopefully link many families here today to their ancestors of a century ago. Petition of Swinomish Parents to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs – Washington D. C. October 1, 1896 “Whereas we the heads of families of Swinomish Reservation . . . realizing the need of an education for our children and having been compelled to send them to the Tulalip School, a long distance from their home, thus depriving them of the advantages of school until they were old enough to leave home. Therefore we respectfully pray that you establish a day school on this reservation. That our younger children may have equal advantages with those enjoyed by the children of other reservations, and we earnestly promise if such school is established to send our children with all possible regularity.”
Letter from Swinomish Farmer-in-charge Joseph Shell to Supervisor W. Humphries, Nespelem, Washington, September 4, 1919
sw d bš qyuuqs News e e
Historic photo on PAGE 20
19