Silent tears

When she was 12, Auntie Rhonda said she received word that her mother was in town and when the opportunity presented itself she asked a new teacher if she could be excused to go down town to speak to her.

After the initial shock of having her request approved Auntie Rhonda said she wasted little time leaving the mission and running swiftly to the main street of Carnarvon. In town she bumped into her uncle (she called him uncle because her grandmother helped raise him) and asked for directions to her mother.

Rhonda searched everywhere but sadly returned to the mission without finding her mum.

That evening when she was serving the other children their meal she saw through the kitchen window a strange car drive into the mission and instinctively knew it was her mother. When she was summoned to the front door by a supervisor she clasped eyes on her mother and other adult family members for the very first time, including her non-Indigenous stepfather.

As much as she wanted to give her mum, who she said looked exactly like her, a big hug and kiss, all she could bring herself to do was give her a quick peck on the cheek and a tight squeeze of the hand.

Within minutes the reunion was over when an unsympathetic supervisor rudely interrupted and told her to resume her duty of serving dinner.

Auntie Rhonda said she never got to meet her father but heard later in life that he was involved in a motor vehicle accident and instead of calling an ambulance the police left him unattended in jail where he died sometime later.

Sadly Auntie Rhonda also found out as an adult that the man who shared a cell with her father when he died (also a Black Deaths in Custody investigation) was in fact a member of the stolen generation who was at the Carnarvon Aboriginal Mission when she was there.

Auntie Rhonda said she spent three months of her life in total with her mother who moved to Perth to stay with her on and off when she worked there.

When she turned 16 Auntie Rhonda left the mission to take up a hair dressing apprenticeship in Fremantle. The most frustrating thing for her was to learn to tell the time because up until then her whole life was controlled by bells; when to wake up, eat, work, go to church, go to sleep and so on.

On her first day Auntie Rhonda said her boss, who was busy at the time, told her to take a customer’s money and give her change. She said that as soon as she received the money her hands started to tremble and she dropped it because she never held so much money in her life before.

Even today, living in Ipswich, where she lives close to her adult children, Auntie Rhonda said she is still uncomfortable around white people. She said that she instinctively pulls the blinds, turns off the television or radio and tries not to cough or breathe loudly when white people approach her house - and waits quietly for them to leave after not answering their knock on the door.