Doris Ronnenberg: Grandmother, board member, role model

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Although, it seems Doris Ronnenberg feels uncomfortable with the title role model, her life experiences and the contribution she has made to Native community declare her to be nothing less.

At 57 years of age, this Saulteau-Cree, born and raised in an isolated community in northern B.C., part of Treaty 8 has had her share of hardship, but she never dwells on it. Life would be so unproductive then. With one of her grandmothers as the midwife, Ronnenberg was born in a tipi on a trap-line. Although born an only child, Ronnenberg has a very strong sense of family commitment.

Now a resident of Edmonton, Ronnenberg gives credit to her strength, vision and her belief in "service to your community" to her grandmother who raised her from the age of six months.

From her childhood in what she calls a "cohesive community," Ronnenberg learned about family and community life and people living together as one, be they Metis, Native or other. The categories and labels around today weren't part of Ronnenberg's childhood, and she wishes that life could be like that now.

"We were all family, different families but no categorization, you were just one family, Saulteau people, Cree people, Beaver people, but just one people. We didn't have the different categorizations, people inter-married and still lived near their families, grand parents and all."

Ronnenberg has no respect for the labels given to people.

"Some are Treaty Indians, some are status Indians, some are Inuit, others are Metis, but in my mind, we are all Aboriginal people."

Ronnenberg has taken exception to the government classifying her a non-Native.

"To look at me you see an Indian woman and they're classing me as a non-Indian woman."

As a non-status but identifying Native, Ronnenberg attended school until Grade 8 where she was living in Fort St. John, when her mother decided to move to the Yukon and Ronnenberg was sent to a Catholic boarding school where she was taught discipline.

"It tried to Christianize me but it didn't succeed."

After she completed her education and got married in 1956, Ronnenberg went on to have four beautiful children. Producing her children and seeing her six grandchildren born and the continuation of life and her family is the greatest personal highlight of her life.

Family is very important to Ronnenberg.

"Working as families, strengthening the family, and accepting ourselves as parts of families: that has always been part of my philosophy, the way I look at life. It can be a problem, though, as not everyone has the same outlook."

In between marriage and having children, Ronnenberg has always worked, either to help the family survive financially or to further the rights of her people. Whether it be secretarial or book-keeping work, or working in a chocolate factory (she assures me that you get sick of eating them).

It wasn't until 1972 that her political career began by accident when she attended the first meeting looking at the issue surrounding the non-status Indians in B.C. From a meeting where she wanted to just add support to the rights of Native people, she ended up walking out with the title of Secretary/Treasurer of the organization known as the British Columbia Association of Non-Status Indians (later renamed the United Native Nations). The work Ronnenberg did with this organization included developing a drop-in centre and many community activities for children.

In 1974 Ronnenberg moved to Vancouver and was made director of the provincial organization of Health and Welfare. While there she was proud to be part of a joint project with the B.C. Association of Non-Status Indians working on finding homes for Native children.

From that role she moved to the Indian Homemakers of B.C. which was a Native Women's organization that worked in the areas of child care, fetal alcohol syndrome and on an education program informing the community of the health problems of Native children.

In 1984 when the Native Council of Canada (Albeta) came into being, Ronnenberg entered yet another phase of her political life where she devoted her energies to representing non-Indian families. During her time with the organization and still today, she focuses on the rights of non-registered Indian people. "Fighting for change" is Ronnenberg's trademark.

Sitting on committees and boards, and chairing meetings is nothing foreign to Ronnenberg, and in some capacity she has been involved with the Native Women's Association of Canada, boards for the Indian Homemakers, Corporate Issues Association and Justice councils in B.C.

Her greatest achievements include sitting on the board of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. She says it was an achievement to win the respect of the male leaders who also sit around the board room table.

"It was a struggle (for them to accept me as a leader) because they tend to think of you as a woman and grandmother rather than anything else."

With these political achievements alone, it's amazing that Ronnenberg doesn't see herself as a role model, but she is quick to point out the guiding force her grandmother was for her, and other women from her own community, because of their strength and their ability ao always look after the children, even during times of poverty.

It's relieving to know that Ronnenberg, like many others who hold down stressful positions, also finds time to relax whenever possible.

Even the most hardy should be warned that suggesting that Ronnenberg "can't " do something is calling a challenge to her, a challenge that motivates her into proving them wrong. In years to come, she hopes to retire, but realizes that with Indigenous peoples there really is no such thing as retiring, because there's always another project, challenge, problem to solve.

"I don't view where I am today as anything really that great, because it's gradual, and we do the work as best we can, and we can get somewhere, but even that somewhere is a long ways from where we have to go. Because tere's always work to be done, there's always inequalities, there's always people suffering, there's always something to do next."

At the end of a long tiring day of meetings and paper work, Ronnenberg, mother, grandmother, political activist, role model and Elder, finishes this interview with her view of who she is.

"We are only here for a short time and during that time we do the best we can and in my case it happens to be leadership and trying to change government policy. But I'm only in a long chain of leadership, doing my bit for the time I'm here.