CARNARVON ‘MISSION KIDS’ REUNITED IN IERAMAGADU

BY GERARD MAZZA, SAM WALKER AND MARION CHEEDY

Joyce Drummond. Credit: Conrad MacLean.

Last week, members of the Stolen Generations who were residents of the Carnarvon Mission gathered at a reunion in the Pilbara town of Ieramagadu/Roebourne.

On April 18 and 19, a small group of former ‘Mission Kids’ attended the two-day reunion where they shared stories, viewed old photographs, and did craft activities.

The event was held by Yorgum Healing Services, an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation that offers a Link Up program to support people impacted by the Stolen Generations.

Many Aboriginal people lived at the Gascoyne region’s Carnarvon Mission, run by the Churches of Christ, between 1945 and 1986.

Former Mission resident Joyce Drummond travelled from Tom Price for the reunion and said she enjoyed looking at old photographs.

“It’s good to have a look and have a laugh and try and identify some of my other mates and the ones who were in the mission,” she said.

“We’ve still got the same smiles and just about the same hairdos, but probably a different colour now: from black to grey.”

Ms Drummond, who was born in Carnarvon and has Malgana heritage, was removed from her family as a child and taken to the mission by the Department of Native Welfare because her parents were working on pastoral stations.

“In those days, Welfare would grab you straight away and say, ‘You can’t be out there,’” she said.

“My mum and dad always wanted us to do well at education, and that was the only answer in those days, to put us in the mission, because they were out on the station, right out.”

Local Roebourne residents, former Carnarvon Mission residents and Yorgum Healing staff gathered in Ieramagadu. Credit: Gerard Mazza.

Eileen Rule, born in Port Hedland, also had parents who worked on stations.

Native Welfare flew her and her siblings down to Carnarvon Mission in the 1950s when she was six and a half years old.

“We got there late at night,” she told Ngaarda Media at the reunion. “When I woke up in the morning, I saw nine other beds in the bedroom and all these strange kids who I grew up to love very dearly.”

She described the feeling of being on the mission without her parents as “horrible”.

“Sometimes, you’d be wondering when they’d come and pick you up,” she said. “You knew very well that your parents weren’t well-off people. It’d cost a lot to come down all the way from Port Hedland.”

Despite the difficulties of mission life, including regular fighting between residents, Ms Rule said she had great memories of “caring and sharing” amongst the children in the mission.

“When you left the mission, they were just like brothers and sisters to you,” she said.

“If you could help out, no worries, you would. They’d come home and they could stay over. Ordinary stuff, normal stuff that we all do. We looked after them as family, too.”

Ms Rule returned home to Port Hedland in the mid-1960s and was able to spend time with her parents again.

80-year-old Yindjibarndi elder and Wickham resident Harry Mills also attended the reunion, where he shared his story of being taken from his family as a young child.

He said that when he was taken to Carnarvon Mission, there was one other boy there who knew his first language of Yindjibarndi, but most of the children couldn't understand him.

“When I used to talk blackfella language to them, they can’t understand me,” he said.

“All the others used to tell me, ‘Talk English. We can’t understand your language.’

“I told them, ‘Your father and mother talked blackfella language, so you should be speaking the same way.’”

Ngaarda Media’s Ngarluma broadcaster Sam Walker with Yindjibarndi Elder Harry Mills. Credit: Gerard Mazza.

Yorgum Healing Services has held a similar reunion in Carnarvon before, but held another in Ieramagadu as many former Carnarvon Mission residents now live in the Pilbara region.

Participants in Yorgum’ Link Up program receive individualised support, including family research and counselling. Clients can choose to return back to the country they grew up on before being separated from their family, or return to visit missions where they spent time. Some participants are reunited with living family, while others are supported to undertake graveside reunions.

Yorgum researcher Kayleen Kennedy, who is a member of the Stolen Generations herself, said it is rewarding to see clients undertake their healing journeys.

“[To see] he strength, the resilience of the family, the determination to continue on and to sometimes take that long journey back home, is very emotional,” she said.

“There can be a lot of trauma involved as well.”

Yorgum Healing Services staff, Ngaarda Media team members and reunion attendees, including Eileen Rule (CENTRE). Credit: Gerard Mazza.

A number of local Roebourne residents visited the reunion to learn about Mission Days and the services offered by Yorgum Healing.

Yindjibarndi man and Ieramagadu resident Isaac Guiness said his family had also been impacted by the Stolen Generations, and his grandmother often spoke of her time at the Carnarvon Mission.

Mr Guiness said he felt emotionally moved to attend the reunion and see healing take place.

“It was very touching to see all our old people coming and finding who they really are inside, to connect back to their families,” he said.

“The deep connection that belongs to our people is lost and has been taken away from them. To seem them getting connected back to our people, to their language and their tribe, is healing to us."

If you’d like to know more about the Yorgum Healing Services Link Up program or are interested in becoming a client, call 1800 469 371.