In response to his kindness, Roger Bollinger was exposed to an ugly side of history. Like most Americans, Bollinger was blissfully unaware of the painful story of American Indian boarding schools. A civic-minded and concerned citizen, he supports education and cultural understanding. Such sentiments moved him to donate to Haskell Indian Nations University's (Lawrence Kansas) Cultural Center and Museum his family's leather-bound photo album of (then-named) Haskell Institute's very first students in hopes that current students might appreciate it. These are the only known identifiable photos of that first 1884 class. Bollinger knew little about Haskell or Indian boarding schools, but opined that the institute was established to educate Indians in an organized fashion so that they might survive better in the White man's world. He knew nothing of the force that the federal government exercised in separating those early students from their families or of the impact this still has upon many Indian people today. In this article, the author reflects on her own family's boarding school experience.