There’s an effort by the United States Government to uncover how many Indian Boarding schools existed across the country and how many children lived and died in them.
Today, the Spokane Tribe is working to identify the closest living relative to Martha Lot, a Spokane Tribal girl who died at Forest Grove Indian Boarding school in 1880.
Her dad, Chief Lot, agreed to send Martha, known as Mattie, with other Spokane Tribal children to the school to learn to read and write English. But historians say Mattie died months later of illness.
Through our reporting, we also learned from Pacific University Archivist Eva Guggemos that there are four other Spokane Tribal Children buried at Chemawa Indian School near Salem, something the tribe members did not know until KHQ notified them.
Now, work is underway to identify the children’s closest living relatives. They will decide what to do with the children’s remains.
Often, families choose to leave the graves untouched. Sometimes, they bring them home to be buried next to their family.
Work to find the closest living relatives is taking time because the Spokane Tribe says family names have changed over the years making it tough to identify the closest decedents.
