When she married George Mansion she had repeated
to him the centuries-old vow of allegiance, "Thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God." She determined that should she ever be
mother to his children, those children should be reared as Indians
in spirit and patriotism, and in loyalty to their father's race as
well as by heritage of blood. The laws of Canada held these children
as Indians. They were wards of the Government; they were born on
Indian lands, on Indian Reservations. They could own and hold
Indian lands, and their mother, English though she was, made it her
life service to inspire, foster and elaborate within these children
the pride of the race, the value of that copper-tinted skin which
they all displayed. When people spoke of blood and lineage and
nationality, these children would say, "We are Indians," with the
air with which a young Spanish don might say, "I am a Castilian."
She wanted them to grow up nationalists, and they did, every
mother's son and daughter of them. Things could never have been
otherwise, for George Mansion and his wife had so much in common
that their offspring could scarcely evince other than inherited
parental traits. Their tastes and distastes were so synonymous; they
hated hypocrisy, vulgarity, slovenliness, imitations.
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