Aboriginal+History+Personal+Stories

= Personal Stories from Elders in Melbourne: = Many people were taken during the stolen generations. Some were just that bit luckier and scarcely avoided it. Below are some stories of members who were affected by the Stolen Generations.

Aunty Ivy:
“It was in Bruthen where they come there and my dad, thank god he was working in Bruthen at the time. And my sister, Phyllis, she were there and we'd just come from swimming, a real hot day it was, and my three cousins and got up the thing, see this flash car there talking to our step-mum and dad and we were sort of wondering what was going on, so we walked up and they said that, oh, you haven't got a decent place to live in or anything, so they were going to take us and put us in the homes and my step-mother said, she said you're not taking them until their father come home because he was coming home for lunch. My dad come there and he said to the welfare, he said you're not touching my children, he said. He said be over my dead body, he said, because I'm working to keep them and that's all that saved us from going. But they took the three cousins, they took them because they had no one - they had no leg to stand on because their parents wasn't there. Their parents wasn't - one was dead, the mother was dead, and the father was still in Dimboola. So that's how I was saved from going to the homes, through my father, that's why I loved him very, very dearly.”

Uncle Colin:
"I always say, the Stolen Generation was forever and ever a going on thing because they bought, how sad it was when they’d bring people, matured people from other countries and put them on other reserves, how cruel that was because at Cummera they bought people from other missions like Warrengesda and ah, Coranderrk and them places and a lot of them never ever went back to see their families, they died and were buried at Cummera but that’s how the old people was, they knew about that but they protected them people that come there, they treated them as their own and they welcomed them there, and when some of our people were taken from here probably and put at other reserves the same thing was, they has that strong bond, that they knew the people were forced there, they didn’t go there on their own accord, they were forced there and that’s why our, the Yorta Yorta people down at Cummeragunja looked after them and treated them as their own and respected them and they, and the people that was brought there respected our people for doing that. I think that it was a very strong understanding bond that they had among themselves from different areas. "

Many thanks to the Koorie Heritage Trust for these stories

Back to Homepage