Pièce N-2001-016: CN-87B - Maggie Morin

• Document sonore

1 audio cassette (22 min.)

This item is an interview of Margaret Morin, recorded in Hay River, likely in early 1994 by Margaret Bearard. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 60 minute audio cassette. Margaret Morin was born in Green Lake, northern Saskatchewan on October 1, 1927 to parents Gilbert Roy and Flora Sinclair. She was 66 at the time of the interview. There were 15 children in Margaret's family and the family lived on a farm. Her father worked in the winter hauling freight with horses and sleigh and in the summer on a boat. The family spoke Cree at home and her parents also spoke French. Her brothers hunted and her mother and the girls in the family prepared moosehides. Margaret attended school to Grade 3, when she had to quit to care for her sister who was ill with tuberculosis and had five small children. Margaret began working at the age of nineteen in a shelter for children, with her brother-in-law and sister-in-law. She worked there for seven years in the laundry and cleaning up the office. Margaret speaks about measles and tuberculosis being diseases that affected her family and community. She does some sewing, including beadwork and embroidery, which she learned from her mother. There is also brief discussion about traditional medicine, clothing, religion, and dances. Margaret met and married her husband, Alphonse Morin, in Green Lake. The family moved to Hay River in 1953 when Alphonse came up to fish. Alphonse and Margaret had three children.

This recording includes sides A and B of the tape.