Woman of ‘forgiveness and peace’

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This article was published 13/05/2009 (6232 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Decades before anyone apologized for the abuse at residential schools or offered restitution, survivor Gladys Cook was healing herself and countless others.

"She knew pain and anger wouldn’t have helped her or anybody or stop things from happening again," said Jeff Cook on Monday. His mother, Gladys, died at age 79 the day before Mother’s Day.

"So many people adopted her as a mother and a grandmother because of all the help and support she provided."

The substance abuse counsellor and volunteer was renowned for her empathy, listening skills and wisdom. She received many prestigious awards and honours for her work, but came from the humblest of beginnings.

Born in a tent on the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, Cook was taken from her home at age four to the Elkhorn Residential School where she stayed until she was 16.

Cook aspired to be a nurse but was told her education wasn’t up to par. She was determined to be in a helping profession, and used her empathetic ear to help others.

She worked as a drug and alcohol abuse counsellor for the friendship centre and was the co-ordinator of the National Native Alcohol Drug Abuse Program in Portage la Prairie. The Portage resident helped at the Women’s Correctional Centre, with local Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Al-Ateen Groups and the Agassiz Youth Centre.

She volunteered there twice a week for more than two decades, offering guidance to the young inmates and teaching them about native spirituality.

"She was a really good listener — very wise, gentle and caring," said Bernie Latoski, principal at Agassiz Youth centre, which named its school the Gladys Cook Education Centre.

She received awards including ones from the Governor General, the premier, the Order of Manitoba, the YM/YWCA Woman of Distinction Award and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award.

"She was a person of forgiveness and peace who loved everyone regardless of their background, their skin colour or their religious belief," said Rev. Norman Collier, who is officiating at Cook’s Trinity United Church funeral service in Portage today. "She had open arms for everybody."

A traditional service will take place Thursday at Sioux Valley.

"Gladys was an excellent example of someone who has been able to walk in both traditions," said Collier. "It… was fundamental to her healing and fundamental to her role in the healing of others. She was able to speak to all of us who are broken within both traditions," said Collier.

Her wisdom was sought all over, he said. "She lived in this tiny little house on 9th Street and couldn’t drive yet she travelled the world."

"All she had in her home was a telephone and a fax machine and piles of files and reports and papers from meetings."

And she was generous to a fault, said her son Jeff. "If someone came into her home and said they liked something, more often than not she’d give it to them."

She shared her residential school settlement money with people in need. His mom once gave a ring off her finger to someone who admired it, Jeff said.

 

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca