At Nebraska’s Native American boarding school, location of child graves and closure prove elusive

Carolyn Fiscus knows where her aunt, Mildred Lowe, spent her final days.

She knows the 12-year-old Winnebago girl became gravely ill in the winter of 1930 at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial Boarding School. She knows Mildred died.

She does not know where her aunt was buried. 

It’s a mystery Fiscus pondered as she sat in a folding chair beneath the sweltering sun in July 2023 and watched as a small team of archaeologists dug into the hardened Nebraska dirt. They were searching for the graves of children. Fiscus hoped her aunt might be among them.

She prayed, reaching out to Mildred’s spirit and the spirits of other children believed to be buried on land that was once a sprawling campus. 

The excavation had days to go, but the longtime educator and Ho-Chunk elder said she felt in her heart what the archeological team would soon realize: The children’s remains weren’t there. The search would have to continue.

Hundreds of children like Mildred were brought to the Genoa boarding school 110 miles west of Omaha during the institution’s 50 years of operation. At least 86 are known to have died there — young casualties amid the federally mandated erasure of Indigenous culture. Records show nine students were buried on school grounds. The remains of 37 others were sent home to their tribes. The final resting place of 40 is still unknown.

“It’s not just my aunt,” Fiscus told the Flatwater Free Press. “There are many others that haven’t been accounted for.”

In recent years, the U.S. government has acknowledged the troubled history of the schools and joined the nationwide search for those children through its federal boarding school initiative. 

But with a new administration in D.C., it remains unclear if the federally-led effort will remain a priority. 

The new interior secretary, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, is reviewing all department programs, including the boarding school initiative launched under President Joe Biden, according to a statement from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some Native leaders have expressed cautious optimism, noting Burgum’s relatively strong record on Native issues as governor.

Any changes at the federal level are not expected to impact the search in Nebraska, which has relied on state and local resources. Those involved remain hopeful as they continue to search for the graves.

With the search ongoing, Fiscus and other descendants face a festering question: What does closure look like when the school’s dead remain lost?

Unearthing a dark history

The Genoa school was among the largest federal Native American boarding schools built in the U.S. From 1884 to 1934, children from more than 40 tribes were taken by railroad or horseback to the arching sign that still reads today “U.S. Indian School.” At its peak in 1932, the 600-acre campus housed 599 students who ranged in age from 4 to 22 years old.

Spurred by the discovery of unmarked graves at similar schools in Canada in 2021, the U.S. Interior Department launched an investigation into the nation’s boarding school system.

To date, the department has found that at least 18,000 children were taken from their tribes and forced to attend schools founded in the name of assimilation. It also documented nearly 1,000 deaths and 74 gravesites associated with the more than 500 schools. Historians believe that the true death toll is likely much higher.

Records show that diseases such as tuberculosis spread quickly through the schools, greatly contributing to the number of deaths.

In Nebraska, the state Commission on Indian Affairs has led the search effort in partnership with the state archeology department. 

For Judi gaiashkibos, the commission’s director and a citizen of Ponca Nation, the search has been personal. Her mother was a student at the school. 

“It’s a buried history. It’s a sad story that America doesn’t want to fully accept,” gaiashkibos told the Flatwater Free Press. “So many people who grew up in our country and our state weren’t taught any of this history.”

Like many former students, gaiashkibos’ mother, Eleanor Josephine Knudsen, didn’t share much with her 10 children about her time at Genoa. 

Limited firsthand accounts and the loss of records to time make it difficult to fully comprehend what life was like at the boarding school, but some truths are known.

Children were physically abused there. A former teacher named Julie Carroll was one of two school employees to describe the abuse before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 1929.

“Some of the children were beaten up like dogs until blood flew out of their noses,” Carroll said.

Students were “loaned out” to work on nearby farms. Some would be stuck on campus for years before returning home. Some would return home only to find they had lost their native language; they were unable to speak with their relatives. 

And some never made it back to their families.

Search for the graves

Fred Hensley was a student at the Genoa school for eight months when in the spring of 1891 he succumbed to an unknown illness. 

The 9-year-old Winnebago boy’s body never returned home. According to the school newspaper: “Funeral services were held Wednesday afternoon … and the little body was laid to rest among the mouldering (sic) remains of his schoolmates who preceded him to the better land.”

Decades after the Genoa school closed, former students would mention the school’s cemetery, but no one could quite recall its exact location. Years had passed, and the 600-acre campus was filled in by nearby farms and the town of Genoa. Campus landmarks tumbled and any headstones that once stood were removed or lost to time.

Still, there is ample evidence that a cemetery once existed on the grounds. Its location was marked on a 1899 plat map, and there are references to students, like Fred, whose burials were shared in local newspapers.

State Archeologist Dave Williams gathered plenty of his own evidence before he began to dig at a potential grave site on the outskirts of Genoa in July 2023.

He was guided to that spot by a historic map, a team of cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar that had revealed four anomalies consistent with the presence of graves, the Omaha World-Herald reported at the time. For nearly two weeks Williams’ and his team dug into the sun-baked dirt.

In the end, they didn’t find signs of human remains. 

“I think we had high hopes because of those pieces of evidence stacking up,” Williams said. “Then to go in and spend time and not come away with anything is disappointing, but negative data is still data.”

Williams and gaiashkibos shared the results of the dig with the dozens of tribes whose children were taken to the school. There were varying ideas on how to proceed. Some wanted Williams to expand the search area and keep digging. Others wanted the team to look for more archival evidence before conducting another excavation.

Geophysical surveys will continue, and a specialized cadaver search dog team will again assist with the search.

“We need to locate the cemetery so we can work toward protecting it, and maybe bring a little closure to the descendants,” Williams said.

A reckoning

Closure is difficult to define. 

On Oct. 25, President Biden spoke before a crowd at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona and for the first time in U.S. history acknowledged the devastation of the schools. He called the country’s federal boarding school era “a sin on our soul.”

“The federal Indian boarding school policy and the pain it has caused will always be a significant mark of shame,” Biden said. “A blot on American history.”

Whether that work will continue remains to be seen. In a statement sent to the Flatwater Free Press, the Bureau of Indian Affairs said Burgum, the new head of the Interior Department appointed by President Donald Trump, is currently reviewing all programs at the department. 

“The Department of the Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs remain committed to our trust responsibilities of protecting tribal treaty rights, lands, assets, and resources, in addition to its duty to carry out the mandates of federal law with respect to American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and villages,” the statement read.

Tribal leaders in Burgum’s home state have been publicly supportive of his new role. 

“Governor Burgum understands Indian country and the challenges we face,” David Flute, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tribal Relations, said in a November statement to the North Dakota Monitor.

A few days before Biden issued his apology, James Riding In considered what it means to move forward as a boarding school descendant and Pawnee citizen.

The Arizona-based professor is an author, advocate and board member of the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project. While his relatives didn’t attend the Genoa school, Riding In feels connected to Genoa. The location is Pawnee homeland.

“This whole idea of reconciliation – it might be a good concept, but is it just like an apology being issued for past wrongs?” Riding In asked. “To me, reconciliation should have greater meaning.”

That greater meaning should translate into systemic change, such as land restorations, Riding In said. 

To gaiashkibos, locating the school cemetery is a move toward closure, and she has facilitated every step of the search. She watched as Williams and his team used ground penetrating radar to narrow in on an excavation site. She laid a bundle of sage on the damp October ground in 2022, marking the spot where a search dog indicated the possible presence of human remains. She toured an old dairy barn that once belonged to the school and touched the names of former students carved into the century-old wood. 

“(Finding the graves) also is a tribute to honor those who suffered at the hands of this failed policy to assimilate and ‘kill the Indian,’” gaiashkibos said. “Those children were the last little soldiers to die. I’m committed to finding the warriors, those children.”

Fiscus is still searching for the grave of her aunt Mildred. Records show the girl’s body was sent back to her tribe, but Fiscus has found no evidence that Mildred was buried on Winnebago ground. Another record indicates Mildred’s body was taken to an Omaha funeral home, adding to the mystery.

Despite the uncertainty, Fiscus said she found her own form of closure that summer day at the excavation in 2023. 

“I feel like she’s on her way home,” Fiscus said of her aunt. “Back to the ancestors.”