| Louise's Story |
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The last edition of Aurora featured Louise Campbell’s account of the Apology to the Stolen Generations in Canberra. Here is Louise’s story… Louise was born on an Aboriginal mission at Bowraville on the NSW north coast. She identified with her mother’s Gumbaingirr people, and her father belonged to the Dhungutti tribe near Kempsey. Louise aged 4, two younger sisters still in nappies, and two older brothers were taken away “by the welfare in a big black car, with a nursing sister and the police”.
Louise was only 5 when she ran away for the first time with her two little sisters. “I was trying to protect them. I knew that I was in an alien area.” She didn’t get far of course, and assumed naively that all three stolen girls would be fostered together, but each went to a different family. “That was the policy, separation, to break up families.”It would be some thirty years before all eleven siblings were reunited. “I went to a foster family with a Hungarian father and an Australian mother. He spoke very little English but I learned a bit of Hungarian to communicate with him. They were Catholics and so I continued to learn about the faith. They welcomed me into their home as if I was part of the family.” However, when Louise was about 11 she “felt I was no longer needed in the family. I went to a children’s home in Glebe. It still stands today - I always shiver when I go past. Atrocious things happened to young people there….” Little did she know that, at the same time, Louise’s brother Richard was in a home just down the road. “Even though we seemed far away, we were close.” Soon, however, Louise was moved to a “home for wayward girls. Some of those girls were very violent and came from broken homes. You had to protect yourself…” After almost a year, a family with five children fostered Louise: “They had two girls and three boys and wanted to make it even. I was lucky they chose me! “So here I was, in a strange land again…but they really welcomed me, really loved me.” For Louise, being part of the church all that time was a thread running through a life filled with change and instability. “It was my only connection with my family and childhood on the mission, where I had learnt bible stories and attended church. I always maintained my churchgoing because I needed some sort of strength to keep me going. People look to something – my strength was the church.” Louise’s father rang one day when she was in fifth form at St Joseph’s College Lochinvar. “I was happy where I was and his call confused me. Many pictures flashed through my mind as I spoke to him and I had an identity crisis. I ran away. “Devastated, I caught the bus into Maitland from Cessnock, then the train to Sydney because, I thought, ‘all black fellas go to Sydney’. I was completely alone on Central Station, with a big, big port. “From out of nowhere came the late Fr Dilley, who had taught me Ancient History at Lochinvar. He said, ‘Louise, everyone’s been looking for you! You’ve got to come home with me, we miss you.’” While Louise’s life has contained much change and disruption, what is remarkable is her ability to restore relationships – with her foster families and her biological family. Eventually she was ready to take up her father’s invitation: “When you’re ready to come home, this is where we are.” When Louise began to explore her Aboriginal heritage, she saw connections between the stories she had learned at church, and the stories told her by her mother and other female relatives. Even after she and her siblings had been taken away, “Our stories were told to the children through the years – we weren’t forgotten.” After returning to the koori community, Louise was taken to her sacred sites so that she would understand “who we are, where we’re connected and the stories that relate to women’s business. “As an Aboriginal Catholic, you can express your understanding about the environment, bringing out the fact that Aboriginal people have been stewards of creation for thousands of years. … And you have to listen. In koori ways, listening is the greatest tool, because that’s where respect comes from.” Louise knows what it means to forgive. “People ask me why I’m not angry. It takes a lot of emotion, time and energy. You’ve got to start again and get out there!” She also believes she has learned to deal effectively with change. “It’s a cleansing, and cleansing’s always a good thing. That’s the Aboriginal way of thinking.” Whatever further change awaits, Louise believes that she is accompanied by Jesus, who said, “I am with you always, even until the end of time.” “If I died tomorrow,” Louise says, “I could say I had a great life!” Tracey Edstein Reproduced with permission from April 2008 edition of Aurora, magazine of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle |
Years later, her cousin recalled, “You came into the house – an old
fibro shack on the mission – and said, ‘We’re going. We love you and
we’ll see ya soon.’ ”
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