OSWEGO — Christine Redstone is home.

After more than 136 years away from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Redstone was laid to rest Thursday, Sept. 10, at Oswego Cemetery, completing the return of three Fort Peck children who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

Her burial came one day after Peter Howe and Richard Morgan were laid to rest at the Fort Peck repatriation cemetery north of Poplar.

For weeks, the words surrounding all three had been the same: they were coming home.

As of Thursday, that journey is over.

Peter is home.

Richard is home.

Christine is home.

Christine’s final journey

Redstone’s funeral services were held Thursday at the Freda Fourstar Center in Frazer, where her family had gathered to welcome home a relative who had been gone since the 19th century.

A tipi was erected inside the gymnasium for her wake.

Christine’s burial box rested on a buffalo robe beneath a star quilt bearing her name. Photographs of Christine were displayed nearby along with family photographs and other items assembled by the Redstone family.

Two Fort Peck Tribal flags stood with her — one the traditional blue and the other orange.

The orange flag had become closely associated with the return of Christine, Peter and Richard through the Orange Flag Project, which began July 22 as a way of keeping the children’s names and approaching homecoming visible across Fort Peck.

Christine’s wake continued Wednesday night before closing for the evening. The doors reopened at 7 a.m. Thursday as relatives and community members returned for the final services.

Following the funeral, Christine’s box was carried from the Freda Fourstar Center and placed in the back of a truck driven by a fifth-generation grandson from the Redstone family.

Then came the final drive.

Compared with the journey Christine was forced to make as a teenager in 1890 — more than 1,600 miles from Fort Peck to Pennsylvania — this one was short.

The procession traveled from Frazer to Oswego Cemetery.

There, a grave and marker were waiting.

Christine Redstone was lowered into the earth and laid to rest among her people.

She was 24 years old when she died at Carlisle on July 19, 1899.

She had waited more than a century to come home.

Peter and Richard came home first

One day earlier, Fort Peck laid Peter Howe and Richard Morgan to rest north of Poplar.

The morning began near the tipis where the two boys had spent their first night back on the reservation.

People had gathered there Tuesday night despite cold temperatures and strong winds. A fire burned as community members sat with Peter and Richard, sang songs, prayed, visited and shared humor.

They were not left alone.

On Wednesday morning, the community gathered again as preparations began for their final procession.

An orange fire truck led the route from the Poplar school toward the repatriation cemetery north of town.

Behind it came runners, horseback riders and a long caravan of vehicles.

The distance was only about a mile and a half.

It took roughly half an hour.

A Fort Peck Journal livestream of the procession ran for approximately 30 minutes as the group slowly made its way through Poplar.

People stood along Highway 2 taking photographs, waving and calling out as Peter and Richard passed.

Whoops and traditional cries could be heard along the route while Indian music played from vehicles in the procession.

Young girls riding in the back of Fort Peck Tribal Historic Preservation Office Director Dyan Youpee’s truck carried an orange Fort Peck Tribal flag for much of the journey.

Near the Airport Addition, the truck moved ahead of the runners and circled through the neighborhood.

The girls then got out.

Holding the orange Fort Peck flag stretched between them, they began walking toward the cemetery.

The runners followed.

The fire truck, horseback riders and the long caravan followed behind them.

After more than a century, Peter Howe and Richard Morgan entered their final resting place surrounded by Fort Peck people.

The community closes their graves

Services were held at the repatriation cemetery as speakers reflected on the boarding school era, the children who never returned and the responsibility of the generations living today to remember them.

Peter and Richard had no known relatives present to claim them in the same way Christine’s Redstone relatives were able to claim her.

The community claimed them instead.

When the services ended, people were invited forward to place dirt into the graves.

Adults went first.

Then schoolchildren wearing orange moved between Peter and Richard’s graves, placing handfuls of earth into each.

More than a century earlier, Native children had been taken from Fort Peck and sent east to Carlisle.

On Wednesday, Fort Peck children helped bury two of them back home.

When everyone had finished, young men stepped forward with shovels and completed the burial.

The graves were filled.

Peter Howe and Richard Morgan were home.

They crossed Big Muddy together

Only a day earlier, all three children had still been traveling together.

On Tuesday, Sept. 8, a long caravan reached Big Muddy Creek at the eastern boundary of the Fort Peck Reservation.

People were waiting near the bridge despite strong winds.

The boxes carrying Peter, Richard and Christine were covered with Fort Peck Tribal flags. Peter and Richard were beneath the traditional blue flag, while Christine was carried beneath an orange Fort Peck flag.

Before the caravan continued, all three were smudged and welcomed onto the reservation.

Then they crossed Big Muddy.

They were home.

The procession continued west on U.S. Highway 2, where orange balloons had been tied along portions of the route.

At the Fort Kipp turnoff, people came out to the highway to greet them. Women dressed in orange shirts, dresses and ribbon skirts waved as the caravan passed.

In Brockton, schoolchildren lined the highway, cheering and waving.

It was a scene separated from Carlisle by more than 130 years of history.

Children had once been taken away from Fort Peck.

Now children were standing beside the road welcoming them back.

The caravan continued through Poplar and on toward Wolf Point, where the remains were taken to Clayton Stevenson Memorial Chapel.

From there, Christine went with her family toward Frazer.

Peter and Richard returned to Poplar.

A feast was held for the children at the Poplar powwow arbor before Peter and Richard were taken to the tipis north of town for the night.

Fort Peck went back for them

Peter Howe, Richard Morgan and Christine Redstone all entered the Carlisle Indian Industrial School on April 15, 1890.

None returned home alive.

Richard died March 25, 1891, less than a year after arriving.

Peter died June 5, 1896.

Christine died July 19, 1899.

Their remains stayed in Pennsylvania for generations.

That changed when a Fort Peck delegation left Montana Aug. 30 to retrieve them.

Peter and Richard were disinterred Sept. 1. Christine followed Sept. 2.

After the first two disinterments, members of the Fort Peck delegation gathered for Inípi at Carlisle Barracks.

“It was a tough day. Families grieved,” Youpee wrote at the time.

But she said the delegation could feel the support being sent from home.

“Families have gathered strength through your community prayers and encouragement,” she wrote. “It doesn’t go unnoticed or unfelt.”

The recovered remains underwent forensic examination to confirm and document them before they were formally transferred to the Fort Peck delegation.

A transfer ceremony was held Sept. 6.

Then the journey west began.

While the delegation was still in Pennsylvania, Youpee described what Fort Peck had carried with it across the country.

“Brought the people with us!” she wrote. “Letting Carlisle, PA know we didn’t come alone.”

They did not return alone, either.

They returned to people waiting at Big Muddy.

They returned to orange balloons along the highway.

They returned to people waiting at Fort Kipp and children waiting in Brockton.

They returned to feasts, tipis, fires, songs and prayers.

They returned to runners and horses.

They returned to relatives.

They returned to people willing to put their own hands into the earth and close their graves.

On Wednesday, Fort Peck buried Peter Howe and Richard Morgan.

On Thursday, the Redstone family buried Christine.

The three children who left Fort Peck together in 1890 are together on their homeland again.

After more than a century, their journey is over.

They are home.