Amelia Schafer
ICT + Rapid City Journal
RAPID CITY, S.D. – To honor the memory of the victims and survivors of the Rapid City Indian Boarding School, the Remembering the Children Memorial has partnered with local artist Dale Lamphere to create a sculpture for the future memorial site.
Over 50 children died at the Rapid City Indian Boarding School, a government-run boarding school that was open from 1889 to 1935. Several children are still buried in unmarked graves in the former school lands and not all deaths are accounted for.
To honor survivors and victims, the organization is working to establish the Remembering the Children Memorial – a $2 million, 25-acre space on land tribal historic preservation officers have identified as unmarked grave sites. This will be one of the first major boarding school memorial sites in the United States.
Lamphere is working with apprentice Derek Santos, Oglala Lakota, on the sculpture. Elders and community members were able to place pieces of clay on the sculpture and shape it into something the community could be proud of.
For the past nine months, Lamphere has worked alongside community members and Santos to develop the sculpture, called Tiwahe, which means family in Lakota. Lamphere has had previous experience working with the Indigenous community on art pieces.
In 2015, Lamphere created the Dignity of Earth and Sky sculpture that overlooks the Missouri River crossing in Chamberlain, South Dakota. Lamphere also created the Hunkayapi and Mitakuye Oyasin statues on Main Street in downtown Rapid City.
“I’m honored to help with this,” Lamphere said. “I look at it as an offering of reconciliation for what’s happened in the past and a way to heal those wounds. We need to really embrace the truth about the past and celebrate the Native Nations of this region.”
The memorial is intended to be a gathering space for prayer and remembrance. The design will feature a large walking path with history boards and art along the route. At the end, 50 boulders will be placed with the names of each child who died engraved on them. Four sculptures of traditional children’s burial scaffolds will be placed near the boulders.
“We’re ripping off the bandaid with this project. I hope this sculpture and this project can help stop the bleeding and help us heal,” said Amy Sazue, Oglala/Sicangu Lakota and the Executive Director of the Remembering the Children Memorial.
When designing the memorial, organizers gathered input from families of the deceased, descendants of survivors, tribal historic preservation officers, community members, tribal leaders, elders and spiritual advisors. Wilmer Mesteth provided teachings on constructing burial scaffolds before he died, and all completed steps were presented to spiritual leader Richard Moves Camp for approval.
“Listening to our elders’ stories of the boarding school, we don’t want this to be forgotten history. We want it to be something people can relate to or connect to,” said Ray Janis, Oglala Lakota and a member of the Remembering the Children Arts Council. “This project is going to provoke feelings in people that they may not understand, but it’s also going to heal people and I think that’s a great thing.”
Initially, there was some pushback about Lamphere, a non-Native artist, designing the sculpture and a perceived lack of community involvement. At one point, Lamphere dropped out of the project, but after encouragement from elders, he decided to rejoin.
To make sure that the project continued in an uplifting manner, the board made some adjustments such as adding an apprenticeship. As the apprentice, Santos will be able to work in Lamphere’s studio space and create his own sculpture for the Remembering the Children Memorial pathway.
“It’s an honor to be a part of this,” Santos said. “It’s such an important story to tell for my people.”
Initially, the Lamphere sculpture was going to be a mother and child. After speaking with Indigenous elders and community members, the design was altered to show the entire family. Facing each of the four directions are a member of the family, a mother, father, son and daughter. Behind them, two grandparents look over their shoulders.
“We wanted to find a way to move forward without wasting the time or efforts of the people before us, that’s when we decided to have an apprentice and allow for community input,” Janis said. “It needed to be able to represent everybody, because this doesn’t just affect one group of us, it affects all of us – our whole family tree. Even though this was the early 1900s, that’s only two or three ancestors before us.”
Being able to gather community input was a huge benefit for the project, Janis said. This way, survivors were able to see the sculpture and represent themselves. While no one particular person is depicted in the statue, many elders said they saw their family members in the faces.
Bev Warne and Kathy LaBonte, two of the Indigenous women instrumental in advocating for the construction of the memorial and statue, said that over the past decade their hearts and minds have gone into the project.
“This is responsive to the community and creates a pathway to healing,” Warne said. “We are thrilled that everyone is coming together.”
Once the sculpture’s design is completed, a mold will be made and taken to a foundry in Colorado where it will be turned into metal. Once completed, the statue will be installed in Rapid City sometime in 2025.
In the meantime, Remembering the Children organizers and Lamphere are planning on holding more opportunities for community involvement. Over the summer, the group is planning on hosting art workshops for Indigenous youth at Lamphere’s studio.
Construction is set to begin on the memorial site in May 2024.
“We’re not letting someone else tell our story; we’re able to tell it whether it’s through our grandparents or us. It’s amazing,” Janis said.
This story is co-published by the Rapid City Journal and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the South Dakota area.
Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute $5 or $10 today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter.