Florence and her sister were forcefully taken away from her family when she was a little girl and put into a residential school. She was driven far away from her family, her braids were cut off and she was forbidden to speak her language. “I was always told before that that I was a beautiful little girl inside and once I was taken away I was told I was stupid and ugly. When I got older I fell in with the wrong lifestyle because I couldn’t go back home and I just wanted someone, anyone to accept me.”
In the Spirit of Medicine features the essays of Dr. Arne Vainio, an enrolled member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and a family practice doctor on the Fond Du Lac reservation in Cloquet. His essays on life, work, medicine, and spirit are published in News from Indian Country and you can find the link to this story here.