This summer, Bowdoinham residents Ted and Lara Ashouwak will travel to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to retrieve the remains of Ted’s long-lost Native American relative and accompany him to his final resting place in Kodiak, Alaska. .

From 1869 to the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were taken by the US government and sent to boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them by stripping them of their culture and language, according to the National Native American Boarding School. Healing Coalition. Among these was Ted Ashouwak’s great aunt, Anastasia Ashouwak, who was abducted in 1901.

Anastatia Ashouwak. Photo courtesy of Lara Ashouwak

Lara Ashouwak said the family had never heard of Anastasia until she received a phone call from the director of the Aluttiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak, Alaska last year.

The museum had found a name on one of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School tombstones in Pennsylvania similar to Ashouwak. “Their staff thought the misspelled name ‘Anatasia Achwack’ might be a relative of my husband’s family who lives in the Native Village of Old Harbor, Alaska,” she said.

Often these children’s names and tribes were misspelled on their tombstones, she added. Through DNA testing and ancestry.com, the grave was confirmed to belong to the Ashouwak family.

The Ashouwaks learned that Anastasia had died aged 15 of malnutrition, tuberculosis and abuse while attending Carlisle boarding school.

Native American Cemetery in Carlisle, Pennsylvania Photo courtesy of Lara Ashouwak

The Pennsylvania Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first government-run boarding school for Native American children, established in 1879. The school operated for 39 years, housing children from more than 140 tribes. Hundreds of children have died at school due to disease and harsh living conditions. While some of their remains have been returned to their families, at least 186 people are still buried in the school’s cemetery, according to the Carlisle Indian School Project.

The US Army has since inherited the Carlisle Cemetery and is working with the families of the deceased. Some chose to bring the remains of their ancestors back to tribal lands while others chose to keep them in Carlisle Cemetery with modified headstones.

Headstone in Carlisle Cemetery, at an archaeological and forensic site. Photo courtesy of Lara Ashouwak

“Students were forced to cut their hair, change their names, stop speaking their native language, convert to Christianity and endure harsh discipline including corporal punishment and solitary confinement,” according to the Office of Army Cemeteries. “This approach was eventually used by hundreds of other Native American boarding schools, some government-run and many more church-run.”

US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative in 2021, a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies.

“This painful investigation exposes a shameful stain on America’s past that has been whitewashed from our history books,” Domestic Appropriations Chairwoman and Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree said in a responding press release. to the $7 million investigation report. “If we hope to stop the cycle of intergenerational trauma felt by Native people, we must confront the 150-year legacy of federal Indian boarding schools that were established by the U.S. government to explicitly eradicate Native culture and indoctrinate Native children away from their communities. .”

Granddaughter of Ted and Lara Ashouwak, Bayley Rowland, wearing a handmade ermine headdress by artist Cassey Rowland. Contributed by Lara Ashouwak

“I’m so angry thinking about what happened to those kids,” Lara Ashouwak said.

She said her husband is stoic when it comes to the subject of Anastasia. “He doesn’t say much. His family in Alaska is proud to have made the connection.

In July, the Ashouwaks will participate in a week-long trip from Pennsylvania to Alaska to identify, honor, retrieve and escort Anastasia’s remains home. Seven other Native American children will be returned to their families at the same time.

Bayley Rowland, granddaughter of Ted Ashouwak, wearing a headdress made by her mother, Caseey Rowland. Photo courtesy of Lara Ashouwak

The Ashouwak family, the Aluttiq Museum, Koniag Government Services, the Aluttiq Tribe of Old Harbor, and the Bishop of Alaska’s Russian Orthodox Church coordinate Anastasia’s return to Old Harbor.

Anastasia will be buried next to her brother, Peter Ashouwak, and other family members she has never met. Her grave will be on the edge of a cliff overlooking her village and the Pacific Ocean, Lara Ashouwak said.

Anastasia was not the only relative of Ted Ashouwak who lost her life in the harsh conditions of boarding school.

“In my research, I recently found out who my stepfather’s biological mother was,” said Lara Ashouwak. “She, too, suffered the same fate as Anastasia, at the Chemawa School near Salem, Oregon. Anna Washbrokoff ‘graduated’ from the school – pregnant, became a housekeeper and died a few months later gave birth to her son who began life in an orphanage on the Tulalip Indian Reservation in Washington.

Ted Ashouwak and his granddaughter Bayley Rowland. Photo courtesy of Lara Ashouwak

Ted and Lara Ashouwak have been together for 40 years and met while Lara was working as a critical care nurse at Indian Health Service Hospital in Alaska. During her eight years there, she said she learned about the local tribes. She bought children’s books about the local culture, hoping to educate her children about their ancestry.

“I raised my children knowing their heritage,” she said.

The Ashouwaks’ two sons live in Maine and attend Mount Ararat Schools in Topsham, while Ted’s daughter, Cassey Rowland, lives in Alaska with her daughter Bayley.

Rowland is a well-known artist in Kodiak, creating native jewelry and elaborate headdresses. His daughter Bayley was named Koniag’s 2020 Youth of the Year for her daily which honors Kodiak-based tribes. In addition to being a Kodiak Alutiiq dancer, Bayley helps her family pick berries, clean freshly caught deer, tan fish leather, and gather beach grass to weave baskets.

The children of Ted and Lara Ashouwak, Joe and Sam Ashouwak, both students of Mt. Ararat. Photo courtesy of Lara Ashouwak

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