Cherokee Indian Pauline Hilb was forced to learn English.

Hilb, who was born in 1932, grew up in the Eastern part of Oklahoma in Cherokee territory and was taken to a government school at a young age.

She said the goal of the school was to make Indians learn English and forget their native language.

However, Hilb did not forget the Cherokee language and still remembers some phrases today.

When Hilb was introduced to an audience of 24 at Monday’s lecture titled “Cherokee Stories” she opened her talk with a Cherokee phrase that meant “Hello, how are you” in English.

After attending the government school and when Hilb would speak in Cherokee, her mother Maggie Redbird said it was not perfect.

“My momma said to me, ‘You sound like a white woman trying to speak Indian,'” Hilb said.

Hilb spent nine months out of the year at the government school where she lived in dormitories divided into units. Spending that much time away from home was not always pleasant for Hilb.

“It was very lonely and you’d lay there listening to the trains,” she said.

Although it was a lonely time, Hilb was glad to receive an education and she described how proud her father was when she came home from the school one summer having learned to read.

“I know my father wanted to give me an education,” she said. “I did learn a lot at the government schools.”

Hilb said that government schools, which no longer exist, were the only opportunity for education, but now Indians have a lot more.

Not only did Hilb learn English and other subjects in school, but she also learned about compassion.

Hilb told the story about how the children in the government schools would receive gifts from home and one day a girl received a package of candies.

She said that all the children wanted a piece of the girl’s candy and although Hilb wanted some too, and was offered some, she did not take the candy because it was sent to the little girl from her parents.

“I think she’s a sweetheart,” said Abby Ingram, senior English major. “It’s awesome that people are so generous at such a young age.”

Ingram was one of 24 people who came to listen to Hilb share her stories about growing up as a Cherokee in the United States.

Hilb is the grandmother of graduate student Sara Lambert, who asked her grandma to come speak at Eastern even though Hilb had uncertainties.

“I’m not really a professional speaker. I’m just a grandmother,” Hilb said.

Lambert was glad her grandmother came because there were some stories Hilb told that she never heard before.

“It was exciting,” she said.

Her speech was informal because as Hilb told stories, attendees chimed in with questions, something that director of minority affairs Mona Davenport liked.

“Students today like the inner-personal conversations,” Davenport said.

Hilb did not just tell stories about her time at the government schools, but about her life at home with her family as well.

She said her family was poor, and she grew up in a four bedroom house without electricity and was a ‘little worse than the prairie house.” Hilb never had toys but rather lots of pets because her family farmed.

One of her closest friends as a child was a chicken named Peewee, who she trained to come when she called him. Peewee’s neck was twitching one day and because she thought he had a cold, she gave him an aspirin, but found him dead the next day.

“He was one of my best friends,” Hilb said.

As a child, Hilb would lay on the branch of the apple trees near her home and dream about traveling the United States and owning a station wagon. In 1954, she got her wish.

In that year, Hilb got a job working for a magazine in which she traveled everywhere. She stopped her work in 1962 after getting married and deciding to settle down and have children.

Hilb is happy to see that her children are successful and that she was able to overcome life’s obstacles.

“I feel happy inside that they (her children) are successful,” she said. “You can’t change the world but you can change yourself.”

Attendees applauded Hilb after hearing her stories and Ingram, who is taking a Southwest American literature class, walked away feeling more insightful.

“(There was) a lot of good insight. We (in class) haven’t covered anything about the government schools,” she said. “I saw a poster randomly today and thought I’d stopped by.”