Everybody's grandma

Sherry Whitehawk has eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. For most grandparents that’s where the counting stops. Not so for Sherry.

For clarification: many still know her as Sherryl and still call her that, but she will explain how that additional letter in her first name came about, and why it is no longer there.

Since her retirement from a career in social work and very active volunteer participation in community and Indigenous organizations, she became a story-teller known as Grandma Sherry, talking about her childhood and youth growing up on a reserve in southwest Manitoba, and touching on many indigenous aspects of life.

She is also grandma now to literally tens of thousands of people who subscribe to her TikTok channel, where she has 250,000 followers and almost two and a half million likes. Plus some thousands more on Facebook and Instagram.

This spring and summer, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN)  Language channel is showing a series of 13 half-hour programs called Grandma Sherry’s Kitchen – a cooking show that was recorded in Yorkton last year. 

Grandma Sherry, who three years ago had those 10 grand- and great-grandchildren, is now everybody’s grandma.

Transcript

Dick DeRyk 0:00

Sherry Whitehawk has eight grandchildren of her own, and two great-grandchildren. For most grandparents, that’s where the counting stops, but not so for Sherry.

Dick DeRyk 1:08

I should make clear right off the bat that some know her as Sherryl Whitehawk, and still call her that, or as Sherryl Mydonick. But later you will hear how that additional letter in her first name came about.

Dick DeRyk 1:24

In recent years, since her retirement from a career in social work, she became a storyteller, talking about her childhood and youth growing up on a reserve in northern Manitoba, and touching on Indigenous aspects of life, including food and cooking. When she tells stories to groups like she did at SIGN in Yorkton back in March, she becomes grandma to many more, several dozen more from that workshop, the first of two hosted by SIGN Next Steps this past spring. We recorded her speaking with that group and have included a fair bit of what she said in this podcast.

Dick DeRyk 2:05

She also became a grandmother to literally tens of thousands who now subscribe to her TikTok channel, where short videos of her talking about life grew from a very modest start in 2023 to now having 250,000 followers and almost 2.5 million likes, plus some thousands more on Facebook and Instagram.

Dick DeRyk 2:32

And this spring and summer, APTN, the Aboriginal People's Television Network, their language section, is showing a series of 13 half-hour programs called Grandma Sherry's Kitchen, a cooking show that was recorded in Yorkton last year and which started showing on APTN on May 5th. That now also has a TikTok channel, which in the past seven weeks has gone from zero to 5,500 followers.

Dick DeRyk 3:03

Grandma Sherry, who three years ago had those 10 grand and great-grandchildren, is now everybody's grandma.

Dick DeRyk 3:13

As a storyteller myself, I was fascinated to hear her stories and wanted to tell the story about the storyteller. And who better to tell it than Grandma Sherry herself? You'll hear excerpts from the workshop at SIGN and a later conversation we had around her kitchen table. I also talked with someone who she took under her wing when he was a teenager, and who is now the mayor of Yorkton.

Grandma Sherry 3:58

I'm Grandma Sherry and in the world of TikTok, they call me an Influencer because I make a TikTok and a million people can watch it and they get very intrigued with what I'm doing. That's me, but that's not all of me. I didn't get to that point from here to there. I was born in 1955. I was born on January 29th. I was born on a cold winter day in northern Manitoba. My mother was a full-blooded Dakota Indian from the Oak River Indian Reserve, now known as Sioux Valley. And my father was of European descent, and him and his family farmed just a few miles off the reserve. And he came from a family mostly of boys. He was the second youngest. His job was to go to the reserve corner every morning and pick up whoever they wanted to work for their farm that day. And my grandfather worked for them a lot, so they picked up my grandfather, and there was my mother. And my mother was an interesting story because she was married before, and she had three children already, but the marriage had ended because, well, you might as well know it, her husband went with another lady and went off, right? So there was my mother alone, but living with her parents. And so she'd go to work on that farm. And my dad liked her. She was quite pretty, my mom. And my aunt told me, she said, I knew your dad had a crush on your mother because when he picked us up, we all got in the back of the grain truck to go to work, she said. But she said, your dad would say, Kay, do you want to come and sit in the front with me? And there it was. And then they realized in 1955 that was against the law. A man of European descent could not be with a woman from the reserve without consequences. And the consequences would be that my mother would have to leave the reserve with her children, and my father would lose standing in the community. There was a lot of things about it. And my father, his family had a very good standing in the community. But my parents decided, you know, they were young, that the best way to deal with this is to run away to northern Manitoba and buy a little shack and live in the little sugar shack. So they did. They bought a little house. It was a one-bedroom shack with no power, no nothing. And there they were together, lovebirds, madly in love. And they had me. And it was a cold day, and in those days, our people did not get born in hospitals. We got born at home. So some neighbor had come and helped mom, and there I was. So my parents were thrilled to have me, and they named me Sherry Denise Stevenson. That was my name. That was my dad's name. So that's how I started my life. And in those days when you had a child, you went to the post office, you got the form to fill them out and you registered them. So my father came back for forms, and my parents filled them out, and they put Sherry Denise Stevenson on there. Well, it didn't really end right there because then a neighbor dropped in. He said, I heard that you had a baby, and my dad said, Yes, here, here she is. She's a little girl. And the man said, Oh, she's a cute little girl. What's her name? And my dad said, We named her Sherry Denise. And he said, Oh, Sherry after the brand of wine. The brand of wine was a very cheap wine that people drank, not for the taste. So my dad said, right away, Well, that's not good. They're gonna think we named her after this wine, mom said. Oh, I don't think it'd be that bad. Well, we can't have that. So he put an L at the end of my Sherry and mailed it away. And I did not know that until I was in my 30s, and I needed to get this birth certificate. So it comes in and said, Sherryl. So I confronted my mother and said, What is this about mom? Oh, ignore that. She said, Your name is Sherry. So I said, Well, this says I'm Sherryl. But I was thrilled because I had a choice, right? I'm telling you that because many people in Yorkton know me as Sherryl. I'm really Sherry. So I've gone back to my original name Sherry because it always bothered my mother. Why are you calling yourself Sherryl? It's Sherry. And I thought, well, it sounds better than Sherry. There's Sherry, was always someone in the movie, some dipwit, or maybe was working the corner street or something. But, you know, Sherryl was just a little bit more respectable, I thought. So now I'm back to Sherry.

Dick DeRyk 9:02

Grandma Sherry points out that the Department of Indian Affairs of the day knew everything about everybody. And they soon found out that her mother had a baby and was living off the reserve. Those who had a permit and a job off reserve could live off reserve, she points out. But that doesn't include children, because they weren't working. Her mother was living with her common law husband on the farm and working. But Sherry was not allowed to stay there because there was no reason for her to be there according to the law of the day. Sherry's last name was changed to her mother's last name from her previous marriage, McKay, and she was sent back to the reserve. The law at the time stated that children used their mother's legal last name. But her mother and father were never legally married, so her mom's previous legal name was passed on to Sherry.

Grandma Sherry 9:58

Now I told you that I went to live with my grandparents. I was maybe two years old, and I went. And we lived in a house that was one room, a little log house. And I do have a picture of us in that room, and the ceiling is low and it's logged. It would be about a quarter of this room. It was just a room. It did have a plank floor, though. And it had a wood stove and it had one window, but there was no glass. They used wax paper that they got from the bread. When you bought bread years ago, it was in a waxy paper, and they'd take that and they'd put that over the window. So you couldn't really see out that window, but it let light in. And then one door. And in the middle of the floor was a door that went down into a cellar where the vegetables and stuff were kept. The walls were not big logs, they were logs like this, poplar trees, and the walls were thatched with clay and straw. And that was a wonderful time. Man, when we needed to knock the old clay off the house and re-thatched, it was a wonderful time. We all participated. Many of my stories revolve around my grandmother because my grandmother, the most wonderful, beautiful woman, she was so kind and wonderful, and I want you to know about her. And I thought, what story could I tell so that they would get a picture of what my grandmother was like? So I'll tell you about my grandmother. She looked after us. She made a pot of soup every day. She made a big pot of bannock, fry bread, and she watched over us. Anywhere my grandmother went, we went. There was none of this leaving kids behind. There was none of this, the oldest stay home with these little ones, we're going. We all went. And we would go to pick berries, everybody went. And she never left anybody behind. She carried the babies on her back. She was also known in the community to help other women. When other women were going to have a baby or they were having problems with women's issues, they would come and talk to my grandmother. And we lived outside, by the way, in the summertime. We didn't live in the little log house. That was only for the wintertime. In summertime, the clay was all knocked off and the wind sort of blew through. It was left open like that. And we lived in the bush under lean trees. It was a wonderful life. We could sleep on the ground under the stars. Look at the northern lights. Oh, it was beautiful. The only times we didn't sleep under it was if it rained. My grandparents had several old cars parked in a bush, and we went and slept in the old cars. Oh, it was fun. There was a fire where she had tea, the fire where she made the soup every day and the bannock. That's where we lived. And one day, someone was coming. And we said, Kunjsi, that was what we called your grandmother, Kunjsi, to way when I be. He said, Someone's coming over there. So she, oh, well, go and get them. That was our way, our Dakota way, is that when you saw people coming to your camp, you sent the children out, and we went out and we helped. Whoever it was coming, if they were carrying something, we carried it. We held them by the hand, we led them to my grandmother, and then they sat with my grandmother. It was an older woman, and she had a little girl with her, about my age. I think I was about five. And they got there, and the woman was talking to my grandmother, and she was saying, This is really bad. I don't know what I'm gonna do. So my grandmother said, Let me see. So the little girl took her hand and showed my grandmother. And on her hand, it was full of warts all over her hands. So my grandmother looked at them. Oh, she said, so she went to the fire and she pulled out some stones from the edge, probably still warm, and they're kind of black, kind of like porous. So she took about five of them and she gave them to that little girl, and she told that little girl, you rub those on your warts. My grandmother watched the little girl, put them on all the warts. And then my grandmother took a little white cloth and she said, Okay, put those here. That little girl put those rocks in there, and my grandmother tied them with a bow. Take these rocks, she said, and walk. And you walk that way, you see where that little hill is over there, she said. You walk that way and don't look back at me, just keep walking. She was saying this in our language. Walk over there, she said. And when I say there, you turn around and you look at me, and she said, You take those rocks, your hands, and you throw them back, and then don't look back, come walking back towards me. And just walk and move your arms and just look at me and come back. Oh, this was interesting, you know, as a kid. We said, Well, now what's gonna happen? Like, are these warts gonna all fly out over there? Or what's gonna happen? You know, I was very curious. So sure enough, the little girl went. And I remember watching, I said, Oh my, that's a long ways. Whereabouts, and also, that's it, she said. So is the little girl remembering? Is she gonna remember to turn around? Oh yeah. She threw them back and she didn't look back and she came. There, she said, those warts will fall off in the next few days. She said, you want some tea? They had some tea and we played together, and that was it, and away they went. I always thought about that and I thought, oh, my grandmother is so smart. Imagine she knows how to get rid of those warts. So then one day, again, someone's coming. A woman is coming, an older woman, and there's a young guy with her. In those cases, if a woman, older woman is coming with a young guy, we didn't go out to meet them because she had a young guy with them. But we watched. It seems if the grandmother is kind of dragging him along, he just was coming, he was lethargic. So they came and they sat down, and the older woman immediately started to cry. Oh, we all got very quiet because we all knew when people cried, just be quiet and sit. We heard her crying, and my grandmother comforted her. So then the woman moved in closer to my grandmother, telling her what was going on. And oh, I was straining my ears as far as I could. What is going on? You know, something, something. A pretty woman. She ran, she doesn't want him. Ooh, something's going on here. And she said, mm-hmm. So I kind of knew then. This guy's girlfriend doesn't want him anymore. She's off with someone else, and he's crying, his heart is broken. How is Kunjsi gonna handle this? Well, you know what, Kunjsi did? She went to the fire and she pulled out about five of those stones and she put them up, she put them in that boy's hand. She said, rub them over your heart. Rub it good, just keep rubbing. So that boy sat there and he was rubbing this in his shirt. My grandmother comforted the mother and told her, These things happen, but it will all work out for the best. Right now you're crying, but it's gonna be okay. So then, well, I thought to myself, now what's gonna happen. Like this guy has been rubbing these rocks on his chest for quite a while. It seemed like a long time. And I just couldn't keep my eyes off this guy. Then my grandmother comes, put those in here, ties them up. You walk over there to that hill. You walk over there and you walk strong. Make every step count. And when I tell you to stop, you stop, and you turn around and you throw those rocks back as far as you can, and then you come back here and don't you take your eyes off of me. Just come back, walk like this. Don't look away. She used a very firm voice. So the boy, away he went. Stop. He turned around. I thought, is he going to look up? Because this whole time and his eyes were downcast, he just didn't see. He threw the rocks away, and I saw those rocks just flying. And then he started walking. And his steps got so strong, and he looked right at my grandmother, and he did not take his eyes off my grandmother. My grandmother went like this. She took him by the hands like this. She shook his hands and she said to him, You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Your grandmother loves you. We love you. You want some tea? Yes. Cold bannock, okay, cold bannock. And away they went. So I have an ending of the story. I don't know what happened to the little girl's warts. I don't. I know I saw her years later, but I never noticed if she had warts or not. But I don't know. I just don't know what happened here. But I do know what happened to that young boy or that young man because at the next powwow we went to, which was, you know, the next year, and we were sitting at the powwow, and this young man came over and he was carrying a baby. And he had with him this beautiful girl, and he said, Kunjsi. And he gave my grandmother a hug and a kiss. My grandmother kissed the baby. Oh, she said, That's good. I'm happy for you. Are you happy? Yes. That was my grandmother. She was a midwife. She was a psychologist. She was a mental health worker. She was a grandmother. She was a mother. And she was so full of love. And that's what I've learned from my grandmother. The teachings of my grandmother have always been treat people the way you would want to be treated. When I meet people in my years of working, I would always think to myself, what if this was my son? What if this was my daughter coming to me with tears and these fears they have? How would I want them treated? That's what my grandmother taught me, and that is what I hang on to. And that is what I want you to know. So now you know how I got my name. You know about some of the circumstances of being born into a mixed family, half- breed they called us. And how we did live under the Indian Act until 1960. I was born in 1955. In the 1960, that law was lifted. We could then leave the reserve, but the schools were not integrated yet. We had to go to school on the reserve. So that's why I lived on the reserve until I was seven years old, because in 1962 the laws changed and we were allowed to go to the schools. You've learned all that about me, and you've learned some things about my grandmother. You've learned some things about my parents and their wonderful love story. I didn't tell you about all the mistakes that they've made and all the mistakes that I've made and all the mistakes that every single one of my family members. We've all made mistakes. But as my grandmother used to say, hang on to those mistakes. Because if you don't, they'll come around again. Hang on to them and learn a lesson from them. Every time you make a mistake, be grateful. So if something happens to you and you're held accountable, be grateful for that. Say, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Now I need to fix that in myself so that I don't make those mistakes over and over. Growing up as a half-breed for myself, you have one foot in this world and one foot in this world. And the people in this world don't really like you that much. And the people in this world really don't like you that much. So you gotta rely on liking yourself and your cousins liking you. But that's how it is. But as time goes on, like for myself in 1962 when the laws changed and I could go to the schools, that's when I moved to the farm with my parents, and I started going to the school. And I have to say that it was probably then that everything changed for me, because the world I knew on the reserve that was such a beautiful world, because our home was not in the house, our home was in the land. And our home, that little place that we slept on the floor, that was just the place we slept. Our home was outside. It went up to that hill over there, and those bushes over there, and that over there where the well was, and over there. We knew where our home was, and we knew everything about our home. Everything. I can walk out, and I know if there is a stone out of place in my home, and that's how it was at Kunjsis. We knew, oh, there's fresh marks in the sand. What was that that ran across here? What was that that slithered across here? We knew. We kept close contact with the home that we lived in. And it was such a beautiful life because my grandparents did not tell us about hardships. My grandfather went every single day and he left us, didn't have a car. Away he went walking. And his job for the day was to find work. And he worked for the farmers, and the farmers did not have money either. They were having a hard time poor. So they traded for food. And sometimes that food was struggle food. And when I cook on my TikToks, I use struggle food. Like they went to the abbatoirs and they picked up the taniga, which is the stomach of a cow, and they brought it home and washed it and cleaned it and made soup. Not my favorite soup, but hey, it was there. But they lived off the struggle food. I remember eating chicken feet. Now it's funny, one of my cousins, my coach actually said, We never ate chicken feet. I said, Yes, we did. No, we didn't. Yes, we did. And I know we did. And there was no one I could ask, but I know we ate chicken feet. But none of my siblings that I grew up with will admit to eating chicken feet. I don't know why, but they were delicious. And they're just full of this jelly stuff. And oh, they taste so good. So chicken feet, the liver, the tongue, the pig heads, the pig feet, anything like that. My grandfather would come home with a big box of pig fat. My grandmother sliced that up and rendered, and she had lard. Those were the kind of things. But we just survived like that. And I never ever thought that we were poor. I never thought that I was without. But once I started going to school, I knew that the world had changed. All of a sudden we learned about Christmas and that every child was supposed to get a gift. And I remember going to concerts at the school, and the kids would all get these gifts, but we didn't. What is this Santa Claus all about? You know, does he not know we're here? Things like that really impacted us. We didn't even have birthday parties, we didn't celebrate birthdays. And then all of a sudden, birthdays were a big thing, and everybody's come to my party. Oh, a party. And although I never went to any of the parties, but I wanted to go. And so you live in a world where you're so interested in what's going on, and you want to be involved, and you know, I have things to offer. I'm smart. I can teach you to hop scotch. I can teach you to skip up to a thousand and cross your arms. I can do all that, I can teach you. That's how my world changed. I slowly learned that there was us and them, and that I was sort of caught in the middle. What I decided was I was just going to live the way my grandmother told me. Try not to criticize people, and I try to walk away from hurt. I've been hurt in my lifetime, but you walk away from it. When you start focusing on the life that has made you bitter, you'll never get better. I have been married three times. So I've been divorced three times. But I'll tell you this. I love my husbands to this day. Although the marriages broke, those things healed.

Dick DeRyk 28:44

When she was a teenager, Sherry lived with a Mennonite family for a year or so. She wanted to learn about Christianity, and she also looked after the children of the congregation while their parents attended the church service. That's where she discovered her love of telling stories. Stories from her own childhood and stories she had heard from her grandmother. She also had thoughts about becoming a missionary and went to Bible school for one semester.

Grandma Sherry 29:15

The Christianity that I learned about, which I never felt at home. I always felt as if I didn't really belong. And I would put on my dress and I'd carry my Bible and I'd put the money in there for the offering. But I never felt at home. It was not until I got cancer that this young woman came to my home and she was a Jehovah's Witness. Come in, come and visit me. I was lonely. But I was on something. I said, Don't believe in your way. I was told you were a cult, but we'll visit. Yes. And they agreed. Linda agreed. She said, yes, that's good. She said, the only thing is at the end of can I read you a Bible verse? Sure, that's fine. She came every week to visit. And she started bringing other Jehovah's Witnesses to my place. They were really enjoying my visits because I'd be sitting there telling them stories, right? And they would just love it. Oh, tell us another story. And then one day, my ex-husband Wilfred, him and his wife dropped in to see me, and they brought me some sweetgrass. And I knew about sweetgrass, and I used to burn it once in a while, but I wasn't really into it. And they brought me sweetgrass and some tea. So I put the sweetgrass on the coffee table and the tea in the fridge. And wouldn't you know that afternoon Linda arrived with one of her friends? I said, Oh, good, come in, come in. So they came in. And all of a sudden she stopped and said, Uh oh, we got to get out of here. I said, What's wrong? She said, That. I said, What? We have to leave the sweetgrass. So I said, Oh, don't worry about that. That's just sweetgrass. I said, Our people pray with it. Oh no, it's of Satan. And away, oh my goodness. And away they rushed. And I was just shocked. I thought, what is this about? Why are they scared of my sweetgrass? I thought, oh, look into this. So I remember being told that it was against the law at one time, and it was against the law to burn sweetgrass until 1970, something, 78, I believe, when that law was lifted. I thought, why did they ban this? So then I looked into it, and here the settlers that were living here were terrified of the Indians. And they thought we had the special power through our prayer and our sweetgrass. They were terrified of it. Wow, it must be powerful. So I started praying every day with the sweetgrass. And one day I started to cry when I smudged. And all of a sudden I realized that I was a part of this earth, that I was part of nature, and that the Kantanka was there all around me. And his love was there. And that's what my grandmother told me about. I thought I'm finally home. I finally know what I believe. I have nothing against Christians. Be Christian all you want to. I say praise Brown Jesus. But I will pray this thing. And I love it.

Dick DeRyk 32:28

Sherry moved to Yorkton in 1991 or 92. She was a single mom.

Grandma Sherry 32:34

This community has been a wonderful community to me. I have nothing bad to say about this community. It's wonderful people, and my experiences here have been wonderful. I have always felt welcomed and accepted here in this community.

Dick DeRyk 32:55

One of the local youths she met was a teenage and at times troubled Aaron Kienle. An older and wiser Aaron, now the mayor of Yorkton, was at the workshop at SIGN in March.

Grandma Sherry 33:08

Aaron has been a part of my family. And it was a funny thing because my son Matthew and my children's last name is Mydonick, because that's who I was married to in Kamsack. And he came home one day and he said, Mom, my friend Aaron needs a place to sleep, can he come and stay with us. I said, sure, sure, that's good. Seemed like a nice kid. And he came and he lived with us.

Grandma Sherry 33:34

I did not know he ran away from home. I just found that out. Honestly, I'm not kidding. I did not know that. And I just found that out just a couple of months ago. I was asked to do an open prayer, and Aaron was there. And he got up and spoke, and he told the whole group and me, I ran away from home. And Grandma Sherry opened her home. I did not know I was giving home to a runaway. And then he said, I always feel so good that she was able to do that. And I was like, Aaron, you don't know how good I felt when you were living with us. Because it meant that there's another sign that I am being accepted. I am being seen for who I am. And so every time someone accepted me, and that gave me a better life. I had no idea he was going to become a Mayor one day. Maybe I would have even been better to him. I don't know. He was a total blessing to our home. And he's still friends with my son. They are still friends. And actually, you're friends with both my sons, Tim and Matt. But yeah, so Aaron has been part of my family and has brought a lot of joy to me for sure. And his parents are lovely people. And someday I'm going to apologize.

Dick DeRyk 35:06

Aaron, Mayor Kienle, comments on his relationship with Grandma Sherry.

Aaron Kienle 35:12

I would have met her through her son, Matthew, and the other boys as well, but Matthew was my age. And so through skateboarding, I met Matt. And then I think as it works kind of for all kids, you kind of pick the most friendly household, and that's the one you hang out at. And so that was Matt's house. And so over on Sixth Avenue, if I remember correctly, we would skateboard over there. And that was the place we'd refuel on, you know, water, juice, maybe some snacks, and watch skateboard videos and hang out. And Sherryl was always just kind. There was nothing that, you know, she wanted us to leave or wish we weren't there or any of those types of things. And so that would be when I first met her, and then ended up spending, you know, a fair amount of time in that house with her boys and getting to know her. My memory and recollection of Sherryl was that she let us be us. It was one of those households where if you know one of the kids said to swear you weren't getting in trouble, and you know, if you were hungry, you ate. And if you needed a place to stay, you could. And so I just always felt like I was welcomed. Sherryl was, you know, incredibly kind and generous. There was a number of us. My cousin was around for part of it. And so yeah, it was like the whole crew, just like, you know, some kids are running around town on their bicycles. And for us, it was skateboards. And so any of us that were kind of skateboarding together as we go downtown and skateboard around or off to wherever, home base was Matt's house. Home base was Sherryl's Place. And so on, you know, weekends or times where you know we had time off, and we'd head over to one of the local video stores and pick up movie rentals, and we'd watch movies at Sherryl's Place. And I honestly I can still remember vividly some of the movies that we would rent that, you know, I was like, oh man, can we watch? You know, there's this skateboard. It was skateboard inspired, but it was a movie called Kids and it was rated R. And I was like, are we allowed to do this? And you know, yep, back to Mydonick and watching movies, and it was great. Along that time, actually, was when I first met the girl that I would marry. And so then there was that too. Like, I came from a more strict upbringing. And so I was like, you know, are is it okay if I could bring my girlfriend here? Matt's like, oh yeah, don't worry about it. And so I think the very first movie that Carrie and I ever watched together was in Matt's bedroom in Sherryl's house. And so she got to see like it's crazy when I really dive into this, and I hadn't thought a lot about it until, you know, last year out at Cody First Nation, I was attending a powwow and I ran into Sherryl there and took a picture so I could send it to Matt. Look, I ran into your mom. And on the drive back from Cody back to Yorkton, I couldn't help but like just think about all the things that tied Sherryl and the Mydonick family to my early life in Yorkton. And now, now like where it's gone over 30 years is crazy. Those were years where us as little skateboard kids, quite honestly, none of us came from a place of means. And so we were all kind of like angry little skateboard kids, like rich kids have everything. We don't have stuff, and we don't like the establishment, and government is bad, and all the things, right? That kind of skateboarding, counterculture, punk rock music, you know, kind of all brought us to. And Sherryl, none of it bothers her. You know, Matt played in a punk rock band. We would jam on instruments, and that was fine. The flexibility that she showed, and the love and the care and the support and the generosity and all those feelings. It took me a lot of years to get over some of those hurdles and to realize the impact that you can have on the youth because we're all going to be adults someday. Do you want to be remembered as somebody who's kind and supportive, or do you want to be remembered as, you know, somebody who's like, get out of the house, get out of here. You're doing bad things. You shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that. I can tie so many things back to this part of my life because I think as kids are, you know, in that 16, 17, 18 years old, just so many changes are happening. And for me, you know, there was lots going on. So I was 16 when I started spending a lot of time at the Mydonick household. But then I went back home. That was the agreement I had with my family. I was in Yorkton to kind of learn about getting a job, holding a job, living away from home. It was kind of, it was almost like an educational experiment, being homeschooled. This was part of my education. I'm so thankful for that. However, you know, I was the oldest, so I don't think mom and dad knew the effects. I didn't know what the effects would have of like having that sense of freedom and getting out into the world, if you will. And then being in Yorkton, man, I loved the community. I loved the friends that I'd made. I knew there were opportunities in Yorkton. I had met a girl. So I'm back home now, back, you know, on an acreage near Fishing Lake. I'm still on the phone talking to all my buddies and talking to my girlfriend. And man, do I miss Yorkton? I don't think you realize what you got, but I knew what I wanted. And it seemed like everything I wanted was in Yorkton. I end up, as the story goes, I end up kind of running away from home, kind of set up a whole bunch of things in motion that put me in a vehicle where I was like, I'm gone, and mom and dad will find out when my brothers deliver a letter to them saying that I'm not coming back. I had a place to live. We'd kind of pre-set up. There was a bunch of guys in an apartment. It wasn't a good scene, but it was something to start. And then, of course, because these guys maybe, you know, were a little wild, I think they got evicted or something ended up happening where I was without lodging. So had work, you know, had the girlfriend, had the friends, had the community, but didn't have a place to live. And being 17 years old, it's difficult to find an apartment. So for a period of time, I was living in my car. A few different friends would say, Hey, if you show up and you hang out, you know, you can probably sleep on the couch and then just get out of here early in the morning and nobody will know the difference. Setups like that. It wasn't very sustainable. Matt talked to his mom, and Sherryl and Paul allowed me to come and stay at their house, which now is on Broadway, a different house. And so I stayed in the basement, got a bedroom, and fully moved in, like I lived with them. And Sherryl took me in. And when I think back on it, like I don't even recall what I paid for rent. I definitely wasn't paying for the food I was eating, I'm sure. And there was never, never a doubt that Sherryl was gonna feed me and was gonna look after me, and I had support. And then through that time, crazy as it is, but I knew that I wanted to be with my girlfriend forever. I just both of us were like, hey, we're gonna get married. And I know we're young, but we're gonna do it. Sherryl was my adult in my life that I could have those conversations with, and she provided a lot of support. So kind. I don't remember her ever, ever, ever giving me crap or saying anything negative towards me or my ideas. She gave me space that ended up allowing me to find a way onto my feet and stay in Yorkton, which has now become a pretty big thing. Stay in the relationship that I had. And she thought it was good. She loved Carrie, she still loves Carrie. And she saw the future that I was trying to make, even though a lot of adults were like, You're crazy. Like I had one of my aunties who was like, I'm not coming to the wedding. This is a terrible idea. And Sherryl was always so supportive. And so just now looking at how things worked out, like, I don't know. Like she had to be part of changing my life. It's wild how you can tie it back to like, you know, a six-month or a year period where her being just a good adult to a to a teenager who's gone through some stuff was really vital in my life.

Dick DeRyk 42:42

When we talked across the kitchen table, I asked Grandma Sherry why and how she told stories.

Grandma Sherry 42:52

I worked in mental health and so I saw up front the problems and the issues that our Indigenous people were going through at that time. And part of it was when the residential school first came out, and how shocking it was for people, and myself included, that no one ever talked about it. My grandmother went to residential school, she never talked about it. My mother went to residential school, never, my aunties, my uncle. Everybody just kept quiet about that. And so then I realized that even my parents and aunties and stuff, they never said anything about rez life or how it was long ago. That was the past. We don't do that anymore. But whereas my grandmother and grandfather told us those stories, and I realized that we have to start telling stories, but in a positive, good way. We can't just go there and just the the truth is brutal and is scary, and I don't want to scare anyone and traumatize anyone. We've been traumatized enough. So when I tell a story, I try and find the most gentle way of doing it, where there's a positive end of the story, there's a positive outcome that people can still know the past, but they can still feel warm and proud of who they are. Sometimes the story you're telling is just here. And a fine example of that is my mother tells us that when she was about a teenager, she told a story to her parents. She said, I remember when my auntie and uncle came from Calgary, they came in a wagon, she told the whole story. And when she's done, her dad said, That's impossible. You weren't even born yet. But where did that story come from? She heard it over and over, and then she owned it. And it was still a story, right? And mom would say, Imagine that. I was telling the story. It wasn't, Mom, it was still your story, and it was still a good story. We learned from that story. So don't ever let people say, that's not true. That's not how you got your name, you know. Because you will have relatives like that. You will have relatives and stuff that want to correct and stuff, because we live in a world like that. But what I'm saying to you is remember it's your story. And you're telling the story to share your culture, you're telling the story to share your identity.

Dick DeRyk 45:45

You're on TikTok.

Grandma Sherry 45:47

Yes, Grandma Sherry underscore 55 TikTok. I have over 200,000 followers.

Dick DeRyk 45:53

How did that start?

Grandma Sherry 45:55

I was cooking in my kitchen, and my oldest granddaughter was there visiting, and I was telling her a story about my grandmother. And she said to me, You know, grandma, you should tell that story and I could record it and put it on TikTok. So I said, Well, what's that? And so she sort of explained and I really didn't understand. And then she said, then as grandchildren, we'll have it, and then we can listen to it. And I said, You mean that when I die you'd have it? And she laughed, yes, kind of like that. So I said, Yes, go ahead and record me. So she recorded me. And I was quite intrigued because not long after, days, she came and said, Grandma, like you've got 10,000 followers. So I said, Well, is that good? So I thought, well, okay, I'm expanding. It was for my grandchildren, but now I'm taking it out there. And that's when I realized I have many, many grandchildren out there. I have, there was a lady, she wrote to me and she said, I'm 74 years old, but I call you Grandma Sherry. I take you as my grandma. Isn't that beautiful?

Dick DeRyk 47:04

When was that? When did you start TikTok?

Grandma Sherry 47:07

In 2023.

Dick DeRyk 47:09

Oh, only like two, three years ago. How often do you do a TikTok?

Grandma Sherry 47:12

Well, you know, how often depends on me because sometimes I get very busy going out and doing things. I still believe in community involvement, but I try to get in there at least two times a week. And when I first started, I tried every day. But that's hard every day. But although it's just, I'm not one that takes a whole hour to tape something. It will come to me like, hmm, I'm gonna do this. I'll put my camera up, I'll do it. And I never knew how to edit. Now I do, but I didn't know how to edit, so I knew that I had, and at first I only had three minutes, which you see, I'm used to that, right? Because I was taught whatever you're gonna say, say it in two minutes, you know. So I'd say it and record it and send it. That's how I grew the channel. And it wasn't long that I had enough followers that I was given 10 minutes. And I think I'm allowed 20 minutes now, but you know what? Old habits die hard. I stick to to 10 minutes. I try and stay underneath. Because I find that on TikTok as well, people will watch. My followers will stop and listen because they know me, right? But new ones, they might listen, but 10 minutes is a long time to listen.

Dick DeRyk 48:25

May I ask how old you are?

Grandma Sherry 48:26

I'm 71 years old.

Dick DeRyk 48:28

So you learned this whole new technology in the last couple of years. Good for you. Was it tough? Were you scared of it?

Grandma Sherry 48:38

No, I wasn't scared of it. A couple of times I did something and erased what I did. But I found out I hadn't erased it. I posted on my stories, and then I get all these comments. So you kind of learn as you go, you know. And then I also learned that people will share and they'll repost it. But I also know that people can steal my content. And I've had many, many people. One person had over 10,000 followers, and she was calling herself a different name, but it was very similar to Grandma Sherry. TikTok. It's a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to tell my stories, and that's what I do. And I found a good way to hook people into my stories is to cook. Cook old-fashioned foods the way I remember my grandmother cooking. And people seem to really want that. I remember when I first started telling my stories, some of my relatives were very worried. Oh, you know, maybe you shouldn't be telling them the way we used to live, you know. And oh my goodness, you can tell them we slept on the floor with old coats. Yes. And that was awful. We didn't know it was awful. We were happy. Our grandmother was laying with us, rubbing our heads and singing to us. And when she used to sing, and we'd be falling asleep, you know, and my grandfather would be able, ah boo ah boo. Those were priceless times. I was not sleeping in a little bed in a great big room all by myself. I was sleeping with my cousins, my siblings, my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle. We were all there, and it was a wonderful time. So I had to sort of pass this through my relatives too, because I don't want my story to harm them in any way. So they all had to come to grips to the fact is that that's how we grew up. But we all, I said that to them, we were not poor. And we were chubby children. We were not starving. And we looked clean, our hair was braided and we looked good. And my grandmother always looked grouch in pictures, though, but remember, she didn't like pictures. She felt that it was wrong, rude of someone to take pictures. So she'd grumble, you know, when the missionaries come and say, We want to take pictures. My grandmother said, Yeah, she chapter. And she'd say they don't understand the way she'd grumble, but she'd sit there.

Dick DeRyk 51:08

And now she is on television on APTN-L, the APTN language channel that broadcasts only in Indigenous languages.

Grandma Sherry 51:19

I have 13 episodes that has been shot here in Yorkton. They came in June of last year. We went to my youngest son Timothy's home, and it was set up like a studio for about a month, and we shot the show. And it wasn't as easy as you would think it was, because it was not done in English. It was all done in my first language of Dakota, which I haven't talked for years and years. And I thought to myself, piece of cake, I used to talk this language. Oh my goodness, it's not that easy. I had a coach that came and worked with me, it was my cousin, which was good because I grew up with her, so we had a good connection. And for an example, when I wanted to say, I'm gonna put my apron on, an apron is called the macoo akughpa. I could not say it. We tried and tried, and then my coach, akughpa. Akahba, a kaku and and like the whole production is going on like can you say this word, you know? So then can we say another word? Well, no, it had to be akughpa. And one day, I got it. And then I'll never forget that word again. But it was hard because I was using, I was using this, I was using sounds, I was twisting this crazy mouth of mine in ways that I had not twisted in many years, and then I realized language is so much more than just speaking. Language is language, and every language is so different. And this past weekend I was watching the halftime show with Bad Bunny, loved it, and it was all done in a language that I did not understand, but I understood what was going on. I could see that there was a story of resilience, and I thought, I get that. I come from good, resilient blood. So I thought, woohoo, Bad Bunny and I, woohoo. And I was dancing, and I think I'm gonna try and learn that song because it's so cool. I've played it over and over, and my kids, just my sons just get, oh mom. So now she likes Bad Bunny. Last year it was the other guy. Last year I was singing that rap song, hey Drake, and I was singing that song. But anyway, now I'm in, but I think that's what drew me to Bad Bunny, was his story. This is a new channel. There's APTN, which we all have, but we also have the APTN- L, and it's the APTN language, just came out. They are doing all First Nations languages, or as many as they can, French included, and Metis, like Michif, and I think I'm the only person doing Dakota right now, but that could change when they find more, and the whole channel is going to be on in different languages. But there will be English underneath or subtitles underneath it. It's on TV, and it's one of those basic channels that you look at. And it's also going to be on YouTube.

Dick DeRyk 54:57

Is the cooking all Indigenous cooking?

Grandma Sherry 55:00

Well, no, you know, not all of it. Some, but you know, I did a lot of the cooking from my youth, and some from when just being a single mom and cooking, you know, and yeah, that kind of thing.

Dick DeRyk 55:17

Because for most of us, the only thing we know about Indigenous cooking is bannock, right?

Grandma Sherry 55:22

Oh, and bannock isn't even Indigenous. That's a funny thing about it.

Dick DeRyk 55:26

But I mean, that's as far as most people know about. So, what would be typical for you as far as your ancestral, your Indigenous cooking? What kind of stuff would you be cooking and would you have grown up on that we have no idea about?

Grandma Sherry 55:46

Wild meat. That's all we had. Deer meat and muskrats, beaver, rabbits, prairie chickens. Like every season there was something. But we had a lot of wild meat. So my grandfather went every day to either hunt, or if he was lucky, a farmer would need him to help so he'd help with whatever they were cleaning, a barn, whatever they were doing. So they would pay my grandfather with food. So then sometimes he'd come home with an old hen or pig's feet, you know. But those were all foods that we loved in a way, you know. Some people call them the throwaway foods or the struggle foods. But remember, our people ate everything.

Dick DeRyk 56:32

What was it like being filmed for a TV show? I mean, that was a brand new experience for you. Was it scripted tightly? Did you kind of have freedom as well?

Grandma Sherry 56:44

I had lots of freedom. I had all the freedom. In fact, I wrote it, you know. They were very, very good. It is Grandma Sherry's kitchen, I made the menus and everything. They gave some direction, you know. But it was hard. I can talk to anyone. I take it as a gift, but when they flipped it and said, but you gotta do it in your native language of Dakota. And remember, I used to speak Dakota fluently as a child, but I haven't talked Dakota for 65 years. So now I have to speak Dakota. It was very difficult that way. Man, I'm telling you, the work I did on just the language part. And they were very wonderful. They came from Saskatoon, so the crew all came. You know, we had two cameramen, a sound man, and then there was kind of a girl that did all the directing thing and placing everything and all that. And then the producer, director. So there's quite a crew. We set up in my son's kitchen. We were there for almost a month, but they were wonderful. They were so good, they were quite happy about it.

Dick DeRyk 57:57

How long does it take to do a half-hour episode?

Grandma Sherry 58:00

It took a whole day. We'd start in the morning at 8:30. They were there at 8 o'clock setting everything up, and then I'd get there and then makeup and hair and all that. And they'd get me all mic'd up. I didn't have to do any of that. They had people doing the work in the background, and then I was there. And it it took a whole day. It took a whole day, and I'd come home but my work wasn't done because I'd get home and I'd have the new script of Dakota Language. My cousin was here. That's the thing.

Dick DeRyk 58:29

Your language coach.

Grandma Sherry 58:32

And then I'm the type that gets up early, and I'd get up in the morning at five and I'd be practicing this.

Dick DeRyk 58:38

But you enjoyed it.

Grandma Sherry 58:40

I loved every minute of it. I loved it.

Dick DeRyk 58:42

Grandma Sherry still goes out and talks to groups by invitation, mostly in Yorkton, because longer trips are getting more challenging. She has held talks at the public library, schools, youth organizations, Indigenous organizations, and various clubs. And she's pleased that in her grandma years, she is being recognized as a storyteller with important messages for today's world and a very personal perspective of history.

Grandma Sherry 59:12

I never ever thought in my lifetime there'd be a time I'd want to be called Grandma Sherry as much as I do now. I love it. I really love being called that.