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Torn Apart in This Life, United for Eternity in the Next
I was vacuuming the house on what began as a typical day. Without warning, a vision opened to me. I saw an Aboriginal woman standing in front of me. Three small children were clinging to her dress as they wept. The mother wept also as a man in a blue uniform came into view and began pulling the children away from her. The mother and her children were screaming and crying, and then suddenly, they disappeared. I began to cry uncontrollably at the scene that I had just beheld. I immediately told my husband what had happened, and he said, “Check your family history.”
In the early 1900’s, the Government’s assimilation policy meant that thousands of indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. With their sacred family ties completely severed, these children later became known as the “Stolen” or “Lost Generations.” I researched my family history and found one of the children from the vision. She was now an elderly woman. I discovered that she had in fact been taken from her mother, along with her brother and sister, as a result of the assimilation policy. My heart ached for her as it did for all my people who were “lost” in the spirit world.
I was born to a young Aboriginal girl, who lived in the dormitory system. Many indigenous children suffered terribly in the system, so my birth mother chose to give me to a young member family. This family eventually adopted me and instilled in me their love of the gospel and their passion for genealogy. The fact that I was placed in a family who were so passionate about family history and temple work was no accident. The vision I had that day was one of many similar spiritual experiences. Visions, dreams and undeniable impressions of my people have followed me my entire life as the Lord has prepared me for my sacred mission: to find the lost generations and take their names to the temple.
In 2002 I organized a workshop to help Aboriginal people find their families. One of the many tragic consequences of the assimilation policy is the fact that Aboriginal histories were passed down orally; once those family ties are severed, it is near impossible to connect them again.
I was expecting about 60 people at this workshop and was excited to help them in this difficult work. Only four turned up. This was a huge blow. Doing this work was hard and at times it felt like no progress was being made. One of the keynote speakers was a woman named Mrs. Howell who had spent decades researching and recording indigenous family history. She shared my passion for the lost generations and would help indigenous Australians find their families at every opportunity. She could see how upset I was and came over to comfort me. She told me that she had a gift for me, her original list of approximately 3,000 indigenous families, and their records. This was the only list in Australia and she was giving it to me. She made me promise to do all I could to help my people with their genealogy. I spent the next 15 years actively keeping that promise and making use of that list and files that went with it. This miracle was one of countless miracles I encountered on my journey.
In 2016, after Mrs. Howell had passed away, I called her husband about the files as I was working with yet another Aboriginal family on their genealogy. I was shocked to discover that he had donated four trailer loads of the files to the local university, who had passed it on to the local library. I knew that neither organisation had any idea how sacred these files were and was terrified of what might become of them. I set out with my aunty to track them down. They were being kept in a dark basement in the library, as this was not a family history library and they didn’t have much use for the files.
My father, who was from Lismore, knew the landscape and the history of the area and warned me that flooding was imminent. The months that followed were filled with regular phone calls to the library, desperate warnings of flooding and a plea to remove the files from the basement and into the care of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tropical Cyclone Debbie hit in March 2017. Parts of the town were submerged under 11.6 metres of murky floodwaters. The basement and first floor of the Lismore Library were completely submerged under water.
As the flood waters rose, I waited, helpless. I prayed desperately for Heavenly Father to protect the files. It took three weeks for me to get through to the library.
I felt sick as I asked the librarian about the files. She reassured me that all the files had been pulled from the basement and thrown onto the second floor just moments before the flood waters had entered the basement. When I heard those words the relief in my heart was immense. Perhaps the intensity of my relief was because it was not only my relief that I was feeling, but the relief of thousands of individuals desperate to be found.
The indigenous family files have now been digitized and are currently in paper form and on memory sticks. Once the tribal elders have cleared any privacy concerns and given permission, the public will have access.
Australia’s indigenous people on the other side wait with hope that hidden treasures of family history that were thought lost or forgotten, will be found, preserved, protected and shared with our people. We all need to act now and ask the elders of our culture to share their knowledge before it is too late. I have seen countless miracles on my journey into the past. This is God’s work, he wants us to succeed and he will help us if we do all we can. Awaken the heritage within you.