 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Sacred History: Researching and Preserving Native Cultural
Resources
|
  |
| The grotto was an integral part of the school, and served as a Catholic shrine for between mass devotion. It is one of few recognizable elements of the school remaining. |
St. Boniface Indian Industrial School was a Catholic-run Boarding School in Banning, California . Built at the base of the San Gorgonio foothills, the school served Indian families from nearby reservations such as Morongo and Soboba, as well as students from as far away as Arizona and San Diego . The church bells rang out the school schedule at St. Boniface for over Sixty years.
Although little remains of the St. Boniface school, several students and staff lay buried in the school's cemetery. Since the 1950's there have been some attempts to keep the cemetery clean and protected, but nobody has stepped forward to assume responsibility for its care. This project's aim is to protect that cemetery and restore the honor it once had before vandalism and decades of negligence defiled it.
There are three major things to accomplish:
A ground-penetrating survey must be done to determine the true cemetery boundaries.
A viable plan for restoration of the cemetery should be planned and implemented.
An organization must be found to care for the cemetery long-term.
I began this endeavor with a very simple end-goal: to restore the St. Boniface cemetery in a lasting way, and to call local attention to its need for continued care and vigilance. The methodology was a clear series of steps:
Obtain the proper permissions from the property's current owner.
Find a charitable source to fund the project, and
To execute the actual restoration with the help of other volunteers.
Over the past few months; however, new discoveries have challenged the project's original simplicity.
• The present size of the cemetery is smaller than its original size – perhaps by half. Several people related this to me, and the complete tally on the list of burials certainly suggests a bigger area as well. This means that we will need to do a non-invasive ground penetrating survey of surrounding land to determine the cemetery's true boundaries.
• The owners are negotiating the sale of the entire property, including the cemetery parcel. It might be possible to arrange the gift/purchase of the cemetery parcel through the Native American Land Conservancy (NALC) . If not; however, I might have to wait for the change of ownership to complete, which could take several months.
In light of these discoveries, I've re-thought my original strategy. Before any restoration can be done, I must clear up where the actual boundaries of the cemetery lie, and how to secure access to the cemetery land, either through purchase or mitigation. Accomplishing this will be “Phase One” of the project, and I will join with the NALC to do it. “Phase Two” is when I can finally call together a committee of interested people to discuss the proper restoration of the cemetery, and how to fund it. Whatever happens in the first phase will affect our plans in the second phase, so Phase Two will remain “penciled in” for the time being.
For more specific and up-to-date happenings, please check the monthly logs.
June log
July log
August log
September log
Links:
Find out about recent developments
in the project.
Learn more about the St. Boniface
School
View Photo Gallery
Contact Information