Granny Wabano Celebrates 110th Birthday

Submitted by Tom Porter

A Mushkegowuk Elder and the oldest residential school survivor in the country celebrated her 110th birthday on Jan. 28. Marguerite Wabano (nee Kioke) was a year old when Treaty 9 was first signed. She was 10 when the First World War broke out.

On her 110th birthday, more than 200 family members and friends gathered to celebrate with the woman affectionately known as Granny Wabano.

Granny Wabano was born in 1904 out in the bush along Ekwan River, north of what would become Attawapiskat First Nation. She was one of the youngest of six siblings to her parents, David and Hannah Kioke.

When she was about seven years old, she attended St. Anne's Indian Residential School, located in what is now known as Fort Albany. After two years of attending the school, her family moved farther into the bush to hide her and her siblings from the school and authorities.

As she approached adulthood, Marguerite met Raphael "Napihen" Wabano along Kattawapiskak River (known to Anglophones as Attawapiskat River). They married and she gave birth to seven children. To date, Granny Wabano has 23 grandkids, 77 great-grandchildren and 81 great -great-grandchildren.

Having lived for more than a century-and-decade, what is one of Granny Wabano's keys to life? Poonenamook – Cree for "forgive others."