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Supplied<\/p>\n
Christina Henderson (right), with siblings Daniel and Elizabeth in Sapotaweyak Cree Nation for the funeral of their sister Agnes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know one of the biggest highlights for her was when APTN aired a hockey game in Cree,\u201d said Henderson\u2019s niece, Crystal Laborero. \u201cI don\u2019t even know who was playing, but to be honest, I don\u2019t think she cared either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henderson loved watching hockey (especially the Jets); listening to music (the Beatles, classic country tunes and Cher ranked highly for her); and reading (Laborero remembered her aunt reading The Prophet, the 1923 book of poetic fables by Kahlil Gibran, as well as Hotel California, about the \u201960s music scene in California).<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d always be looking at my bookshelves and wanted to know what I was reading,\u201d said Laborero, a Winnipeg-based consultant, primarily for Indigenous organizations.<\/p>\n
Henderson spent her adult life in Winnipeg, where she met her husband (the pair would later divorce), and became a homemaker. She had two sons: first Chris and then, 16 years later, Kelly. For a brief time, she worked as a home-care aide, and at one point, went to school to become an esthetician, though she didn\u2019t take up the work professionally. Later in life, she found pleasure in being a grandmother to Chris\u2019s daughter, Sienna.<\/p>\n
Henderson died on Oct. 26, 2025, from complications of pneumonia, after living for several years with worsening memory loss and dementia.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Christina Henderson loved hockey, music and reading.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a breast cancer survivor, as well as being a residential school survivor, but she was very humble and simple; she really liked the simple things,\u201d said Chris Henderson, who is the executive director of the Treaty Land Entitlement Committee of Manitoba.<\/p>\n Earlier in his career, when Chris travelled frequently for conferences, his mom never wanted an elaborate gift \u2014 just a T-shirt from the territory where he\u2019d been. When Chris was young, his family settled in the Wolseley neighbourhood, on Clifton Street. His mom stayed rooted in this house for decades, until her health began to decline.<\/p>\n When the weather was nice, Chris said, one of his mom\u2019s favourite things to do was walk to Polo Park and get lunch at the now-defunct Zellers restaurant, before grabbing a few things at Safeway and heading home.<\/p>\n As a small child, Henderson attended the Roman Catholic-run Pine Creek Residential School in Camperville, and as a teenager, the Assiniboia Residential School in Winnipeg. A 1965-66 yearbook from Assiniboia, available in the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation\u2019s archives, shows a 17-year-old Henderson, who is described as \u201cthe quietest girl in the class.\u201d<\/p>\n Henderson, as well as her sister Elizabeth and brother Daniel, were brought to residential school after their mother died of cancer in her early 30s. (Henderson was the second youngest of nine children.) Henderson was just four years old and Elizabeth six when they entered Pine Creek, said Laborero, who is Elizabeth\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Christina Henderson grew up on Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, on the shore of Lake Winnipegosis.<\/p>\n \u201cThey always had to have my aunt near my mom because she would cry a lot, because they were taken quite young,\u201d Laborero said. \u201cWhen they were taken to residential school, obviously, they didn\u2019t even know: they went to bed, in their bed, and woke up in residential school.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters, Christina and Elizabeth, continued to speak Cree as adults, and talked on the phone almost every day. To Laborero, they were fluent, though she added, \u201cthey wouldn\u2019t call it fluent, because they would say there\u2019s lots of words they\u2019ve lost and can\u2019t say because of being in residential school.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure because they were together (at residential school), they would probably speak Cree when they were alone,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n In its final report,<\/a> published in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission described residential schools as a \u201csystematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages,\u201d citing often severe punishment for children who spoke their own languages. The report contains a passage written by the M\u00e9tis survivor Raphael Ironstand, who, like Henderson and her sister, attended Pine Creek in the 1950s, where he recalled seeing girls with their heads shaved: \u201cEven though they wore scarves and toques to hide their heads, the tears were streaming down their faces. They were so embarrassed, they kept their heads bowed and eyes looking at the floor. It turned out that their crime had been speaking their native dialect to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite being forced into contact with Christianity through residential school, Henderson attended church as an adult. Chris remembers going to evening mass during Christmastime at the St. Kateri Tekakwitha Indigenous Church, a Catholic parish named for a 17th century Mohawk-Algonquin saint, when it was located on Ellice Avenue.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Christina Henderson did not let residential school define who she was.<\/p>\n To Laborero, Henderson was her \u201cyoung, cool aunt,\u201d taking her on trips to Polo Park, letting her try her nice-smelling creams, doing her makeup and bringing her to get her ears pierced as a pre-teen.<\/p>\n \u201cShe always wore jeans, so I wouldn\u2019t say (she was) a \u2018fashionista,\u2019 but when you\u2019re a little Indigenous kid who\u2019s poor, to me, she was glamorous, right? She was beautiful,\u201d Laborero said. \u201cI just always looked up to her.\u201d<\/p>\n Henderson was shy and introverted, Laborero said, but also \u201ccaring and compassionate.\u201d She listened without judgement, didn\u2019t gossip and treasured her family.<\/p>\n Henderson and her sister Elizabeth\u2019s families were incredibly close: Laborero remembers spending every holiday together or just hanging out together and making popcorn. And Henderson was the \u201cfamily historian,\u201d Laborero added, always taking pictures, even letting the kids hold her camera and snap photos themselves.<\/p>\n In 2021, when news surfaced of 215 possible unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, igniting a national reckoning, Henderson would change the channel or turn off the TV, Laborero recalled.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Gladys \u201dTeenie\u201d Cook (bottom left), as she was known then, is shown in a 1965-66 yearbook photo from the Assiniboia Residential School, at age 17.<\/p>\n \u201cShe, out of everybody, never talked about residential school and their childhood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On Sept. 30, 2024, on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Chris took his mom to the former site of the Assiniboia Residential School, which is just off Academy Road in Winnipeg\u2019s River Heights neighbourhood. Her memory was failing at the time and Henderson couldn\u2019t recall why they were there, so Chris reminded her.<\/p>\n At the site, the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group has erected a monument to the more than 1,000 children who attended the institution. Their names are etched into concentric rings of limestone blocks surrounding a ceremonial fire. Henderson\u2019s brick doesn\u2019t include her first name, reading only \u201cGladys Cook.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the different ways her name had been recorded, Henderson had, however, always picked her own.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Christina Henderson, then 76, stands in front of the sign of the former Assiniboia Residential School, off Academy Road, Sept. 30, 2024.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Christina Henderson was a well-loved sister, mom, auntie, and grandmother.<\/p>\n
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