- Title
- Merriwinga, 'place of dreaming': history and the stories of place
- Creator
- Haskins, Victoria
- Relation
- Locality : Journal of the Australian Centre for Public History Vol. Autumn, p. 7-11
- Relation
- http://www.communication.uts.edu.au/centres/public-history
- Publisher
- University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2002
- Description
- When I was a girl, my great grandmother Ming had always been a little old lady. Born in 1892, she was 75 years old when I was born, a fragile birdlike creature. My memories of her were of her thin fluffy hair, watery eyes, the soft, papery skin of her trembling hands. I remember asking, when I was quite young, why we all called her 'Ming' and being told no-one was exactly certain, but it was presumed a baby-talk name, given her by my father. Apart from this singular aspect of curiosity, I knew nothing about her life. Genteel and faded, like the pastel painted china gathering dust in the gloom of her flat, she was from another world, another time. Years after she'd gone, I discovered a number of startling details about Ming's life. A well-to-do Sydney matron, she had employed, as servants, a succession of four Aboriginal girls taken from their families under a harsh government policy. As a direct consequence of her experiences with these unhappy young women, she had become an outspoken opponent of that policy we call now the 'Stolen Generations'.
- Subject
- stolen generations; Indigenous Australians; adoptions; welfare policy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/931378
- Identifier
- uon:11049
- Identifier
- ISSN:0818-0792
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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