The National Day of Vigils to Remember Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women on October 4th, began with the research that was conducted by Amnesty International. The researcher was an LLM, Bevery Jacobs, a Faithkeeper in the Seneca Longhouse on the Six Nations Reserve, in 2001. She travelled across the country to gather stories of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. She worked with Elders to compile the Stolen Sisters Report which ended up as two Reports for Amnesty International in 2002.
My sister, Debbie Sloss-Clarke was one of those women who was murdered in Cabbagetown, Toronto, in the summer of 1997. She was living there and was overcoming her addictions, dependency and Post Traumatic Stress she suffered from a car accident. She was cultivating her identity and her culture and we would take her to Elders Gatherings, ceremonial events and such. So, when she was murdered, the Police did not notify the next of kin because she was (1) Aboriginal; (2) she was a woman; (3) she was known on the 'street;' (4) she was a known drinker and druggie to the Police. So, the police never really investigated her death and continued to dehumanize her, when my sister, Kathy, who lives in Toronto, went to the morgue to identify Debbie's decomposing body. She asked the Toronto Police what happened to her, and the reply was a curt, "She liked to party." This response was an objectification of her life and this "blame the victim mentality" was a further degradation of her representation. So, my husband contacted Bev Jacobs in 2000 to let her know that Debbie's death was a traumatic event in our family, as we weren't able to feel, we were not able to hear, we were emotionally upset at the mention of her memory and name, and we could not talk about her. So, Bev came to see us, she interviewed us, and she helped bring our family together for a healing weekend retreat to be able to grieve her journey home to the SPIRIT world. We released her SPIRIT and we feasted her, and we did a proper condolence and ceremony to help her go home. We thank Bev Jacobs for her tutelage.
When Bev became the new President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, she knew that the Sisters in SPIRIT campaign had to be initiated by the NWAC, which it was, in 2004, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Bev was elected President in 2003. My niece, Laurie Clarke-LaCrosse and I began to attend the SIS initiatives across the country to bring attention to Debbie's life and humanity. Laurie was Debbie's daughter. There is a brother, Len, as well in Debbie's family. We went to Vancouver, and all the way to New Richmond, a Mi'kmaq community on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. My husband and I were at several family gatherings where we helped the families by conducting a traditional "Condolence" Ceremony for the families of these Sisters who were taken from us. We began to help with gatherings on the December 6th Montreal Massacre Anniversary, the February 14 V-Day anti-violence day across the country and International Women's Day on March 8th.
Our family is healing and we want to thank the Native Women's Association of Canada, the Amnesty International, KAIROS, and other agencies who have helped bring us together to "mingle our tears together." In our family, we have five girls and two boys. We have been pre-deceased by the deaths of two of our sisters, Debbie being one of them, and a brother. Our surviving siblings are our oldest brother John Sloss, myself - Mary Lou Smoke, my sisters Kathy Angus; Roxanne Gibbs, and Sue Contant. We still get together for family occasions to celebrate each other’s lives. Recently our niece, Debbie's daughter, Laurie Clarke-LaCrosse was married on September l9th, in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Debbie's SPIRIT was with our family on this happy occasion. We sang her favourite song to her. "The Cherokee Morning Song"