Sending prayers for missing women

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This article was published 22/12/2010 (5431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

JENNIFER Catcheway turned 18 the day she went missing and joined the many aboriginal women and girls slain or missing in Manitoba.

That was June of 2008, and Catcheway’s family still searches for her. Her relatives were among hundreds of people who joined a solemn ceremony at the legislature Tuesday to honour the missing, hang special ornaments on a Christmas tree and perform traditional honour songs.

Every glass ball placed onto the spruce tree was a prayer to the Creator for answers to the fate of missing and slain aboriginal women in Manitoba.

The most poignant moment came when the names of the women and girls were said out loud.

Bernice Catcheway, Jennifer’s mother, said that earlier this month the family conducted its most recent ground search in the Ashern area, where Jennifer was last seen.

“We were out and the snow fell, and (it) was so heartbreaking we couldn’t search anymore,” she said. “We were out there for seven days, right from morning right till the end of day, until we couldn’t see no more, we were out there searching for her,” said Catcheway.

Mildred “Millie” Flett’s name was one of the many names heard during the ceremony.

Flett’s daughter, Angeline Nelson, and Flett’s sister, Lynda Neckoway, continue searching in Winnipeg neighbourhoods that Flett frequented. The 51-year-old was last seen in early June.

For Millie’s relatives, it will be their first Christmas without her.

“Normally, I spend my Christmas in Roseau River, where I grew up with both her and my dad. Last year, she came around to my sister’s house. We all had a meal together, we did what we normally did,” said Nelson. “It’s gonna definitely be different with her not being around, and we all miss her very much, we’re hopeful that we can find her.

“It’s a hardship to deal with every day, regardless of whether or not it’s Christmas,” Nelson said.

Neckoway described Flett as an artsy person who did a lot of beadwork and enjoyed being a mom to her five kids.

The Winnipeg Police Service has not had much to tell the family about her case, said Nelson: “We were hopeful that they were gonna help us generate leads and help us find her, but as time went on, any tip that we’ve received has more or less gone cold.”

Traditional healing ceremonies and a lot of prayer, help the Flett family cope.Flett was unsure how to prevent more women from going missing, but said, “I don’t know if there’s any prevention, but just to tell family you love them is important.”

At one point, a glass decoration smashed to the floor, its sound echoing through the rotunda. A couple of people gasped, including Bernice Catcheway.

“When that Christmas ball bust, it shattered… that’s a story to be told, that was just like our life the day Jennifer went missing, it shattered our lives,” Catcheway said.

The ceremony was held on the winter solstice because it is a spiritually important day for aboriginal people.

After the holiday, the tree will be returned to the wilderness, Christmas balls intact, thus sending its prayers to “gitchi manitou,” the anishinaabemowin name for the Creator, so that questions will be answered some day.

crystal.greene@freepress.mb.ca