Bringing Them Home

Given the Apology to the Stolen Generations tomorrow, I thought I would dig out “Bringing Them Home“, the “Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families”.

It’s amazing to think the report is nearly 11 years old. It has taken us a long time as a nation to recognise the pain and suffering the practices of separation caused for so many people.

I thought I would reprint one story here, showing the generational span and devastating effect of the policy.

Jennifer

My grandmother, Rebecca, was born around 1890. She lived with her tribal
people, parents and relations around the Kempsey area. Rebecca was the youngest
of a big family. One day some religious people came, they thought she was a
pretty little girl. She was a full blood aborigine about five years old. Anyway
those people took her to live with them.

Rebecca could not have been looked after too well. At the age of fourteen she
gave birth to my mother Grace and later on Esther, Violet and May. She married
my grandfather Laurie and at the age of twenty-three she died from TB.

Grandfather took the four girls to live with their Aunty and Uncle on their
mother’s side. Grandfather worked and supported the four girls.

Mum said in those days the aboriginals did not drink. She often recalled going
to the river and her Uncle spearing fish and diving for cobbler. Mum had eaten
kangaroo, koala bear, turtles and porcupine. She knew which berries were
edible, we were shown by her how to dig for yams and how to find witchetty
grubs. My mother also spoke in several aboriginal languages she knew as a small
girl. The aboriginals had very strict laws and were decent people. They were
kind and had respectable morals. Even though the girls fretted for their mother
they felt secure with their own people.

Years later Grandfather told my mother a policeman came to his work with papers
to sign. The girls were to be placed in Cootamundra Home where they would be
trained to get a job when they grew up. If grandfather didn’t sign the papers
he would go to jail and never come out, this was around 1915.

My grandfather was told he was to take the four girls by boat to Sydney. The
girls just cried and cried and the relations were wailing just like they did
when Granny Rebecca had died.

In Sydney my mother and Esther were sent by coach to Cootamundra. Violet and
May were sent to the babies’ home at Rockdale. Grace and Esther never saw their
sister Violet again. She died at Waterfall Hospital within two years from TB.

My mother was to wait twenty years before she was to see her baby sister May
again.

Cootamundra in those days was very strict and cruel. The home was overcrowded.
Girls were coming and going all the time. The girls were taught reading,
writing and arithmetic. All the girls had to learn to scrub, launder and cook.

Mum remembered once a girl who did not move too quick. She was tied to the old
bell post and belted continuously. She died that night, still tied to the post,
no girl ever knew what happened to the body or where she was buried.

Aunty Esther was a big girl for her age, so she was sent out as a cook to work
at twelve years of age. Mum being of smaller build was sent out as children’s
nurse at fourteen. She had responsibility for four young children; one only a
baby for 24 hours a day. Mum said they used to put girls ages up if they were
big for their age and send them out to work on properties. Some girls were
belted and sexually abused by their masters and sent to the missions to have
their babies. Some girls just disappeared never to be seen or heard of again.

Eventually after several years Mum was sent to Rose Bay to work. Whilst in
Sydney she met her sister Esther who was working in the Chatswood area. As far
as I know neither Mum or Aunt Esther ever got paid for those hard working years
under the Board.

My mother often recalled the joyous time Aunty May came to Kempsey to see her
sisters and father. The three young women hugged one another and cried with
happiness and sadness for their sister and their mother.

Early one morning in November 1952 …

Early one morning in November 1952 the manager from Burnt Bridge Mission came
to our home with a policeman. I could hear him saying to Mum, `I am taking the
two girls and placing them in Cootamundra Home’. My father was saying, `What
right have you?’. The manager said he can do what he likes, they said my father
had a bad character (I presume they said this as my father associated with
Aboriginal people). They would not let us kiss our father goodbye, I will never
forget the sad look on his face. He was unwell and he worked very hard all his
life as a timber-cutter. That was the last time I saw my father, he died within
two years after.

We were taken to the manager’s house at Burnt Bridge. Next morning we were in
court. I remember the judge saying, `These girls don’t look neglected to me’.
The manager was saying all sorts of things. He wanted us placed in Cootamundra
Home. So we were sent away not knowing that it would be five years before we
came back to Kempsey again.

Mum used to write to us every week. Sometimes it would be 2 months before we
received the letters, of course they were opened and read first. Sometimes
parts would be torn out of the letters by matron or whoever was in charge.

Cootamundra was so different from the North Coast, it was cold and dry. I
missed the tall timbers and all the time I was away there was this loneliness
inside of me. I had often thought of running away but Kate was there and I was
told to always look after her. I had just turned eleven and Kate was still only
seven. I often think now of Cootamundra as a sad place, I think of thousands of
girls who went through that home, some girls that knew what family love was and
others that never knew; they were taken away as babies.

Some of the staff were cruel to the girls. Punishment was caning or belting and
being locked in the box-room or the old morgue. Matron had her pets and so did
some of the staff. I look back now and see we were all herded together like
sheep and each had to defend themselves and if you didn’t you would be picked
on by somebody that didn’t like you, your life would be made a misery. I cannot
say from my memories Cootamundra was a happy place.

In the home on Sundays we often went to two different churches, hymns every
Sunday night. The Seventh Day Adventist and Salvation Army came through the
week. With all the different religions it was very confusing to find out my own
personal and religious beliefs throughout my life.

My mother sent us a new outfit every change of season, we only received one
parcel. The matron kept our clothes and distributed them to her pets. In winter
it was icy cold and for the first time in my life I didn’t have socks to wear
to school.

One day the matron called me to her office.

One day the matron called me to her office. She said it was decided by the
Board that Kate and myself were to go and live with a lady in a private house.
The Board thought we were too `white’ for the home. We were to be used as an
experiment and if everything worked out well, more girls would be sent later on.

We travelled all day long. We didn’t know what place we were going to, all I
knew was we were going further and further away from home. Late afternoon we
stopped at this house in Narromine. There lived Mrs S., her son and at weekends
her husband Lionel.

The twenty months Kate and I spent at Narromine were honestly the worst time of
my childhood life. I often thought I would not survive long enough ever to see
my mother again.

The Scottish woman hated me because I would not call her `Mum’. She told
everyone I was bad.

She made us stay up late sewing, knitting and darning that pillowcase full of
endless socks. Often we weren’t allowed to bed `till after 11 p.m. I was always
late for school, the headmaster used to greet me with `Good afternoon
Jennifer’. Mrs S. did not allow me to do homework, therefore my schoolwork
suffered and myself – a nervous wreck.

When I was thirteen years old Mrs S. called this middle-aged male doctor to the
house and said she wanted an internal examination of me. That was terribly
shameful for me, I will not say anymore. During the time [with her] I was
belted naked repeatedly, whenever she had the urge. She was quite mad. I had to
cook, clean, attend to her customers’ laundry. I was used and humiliated. The
Board knew she was refused anymore white children yet they sent us there.

Near the end of our stay she got Mr F. from Dubbo to visit. She tried to have
me put in Parramatta Girls’ Home. By this time I knew other people had
complained to the Board. Mr F. asked me if I wanted to go to a white home or
back to Cootamundra. So a couple of days later we were back in the Home. It was
hard to believe we had gotten away from that woman.

It wasn’t long after we were back at the Home and Matron called me to her
office. She wanted to know what had happened at Narromine. I told her
everything. She said the experiment did not work and she would write to the
Board for fear they would send more girls out. It did not do any good though
because more than half the girls were fostered out over the next three years.
Some of the girls were sexually abused, belted and called names by their foster
parents. Of course the brainwashing continued about Aboriginals being lazy,
dirty and of low intelligence going nowhere.

In December 1957 our mother finally got us home.

In December 1957 our mother finally got us home. She was the first Aboriginal
to move into a Commission house. My mother died four years later, she suffered
high blood pressure, she was 54 years old. It was fight all the way to survive
because she was born an Aboriginal.

I still can’t see why we were taken away from our home. We were not neglected,
we wore nice clothes, we were not starving. Our father worked hard and provided
for us and we came from a very close and loving family.

I feel our childhood has been taken away from us and it has left a big hole in
our lives.