Yoorrook Justice Commission: Family shares unspeakable trauma of Stolen Generations

The children of a Kerrupjmara woman who was forced into slave labour at an orphanage have shared the harrowing trauma inflicted upon their family.

Donna, Tina and Joanne Wright stand with Yoorrook commissioners outside a Lake Condah Mission home. Picture: Brianna Young/Yoorrook Justice Commission

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains names of dead people.

An adored family home that was once decorated with wattles and ferns every Christmas now stands as a painful reminder of the unspeakable horrors inflicted upon First Nations people and the Stolen Generations.

A family of the Kerrupjmara clan has shared the legacy of “terror” inflicted upon several generations of their family by the forced removal of their mother and two of her siblings from the Lake Condah Mission in Victoria nearly 70 years ago.

At just nine years old, Eunice Wright, later mother to Donna, Tina, Joanne and Sonny, “was forcibly stolen from her land, family, culture, lore and country” and taken to Ballarat Orphanage.

Donna, Joanne and Tina Wright, daughters of Jimmy and Eunice Wright (nee Foster). Picture: Brianna Young/Yoorrook Justice Commission

Her father Monty tragically “did not survive his children being taken from him”, with many questions around the circumstances and treatment of his death left unanswered to this day.

Her mother Lyall subsequently moved off the mission and away from the old dormitory, heartbroken and unable to live in the empty house that was once “the family’s happy place”.

Eunice’s eldest daughter, Donna Wright, said her mother and her siblings were “loved and happy and cared for” when Heywood police put them in jail cells before taking them to the orphanage.

“They’ve come from here, safe and loved and happy, into that environment where they’re just treated not even humanely,” Donna told the Yoorrook Justice Commission on Wednesday.

“This system now starts changing their identity … not only traumatised them but it’s the cruelty.”

Donna and her sisters Tina and Joanne recounted their mother’s stories of “slave labour” at the orphanage, where she was put straight to work making the beds and looking after the orphanage’s babies at night.

“Mum was a little child herself, having to look after babies and kids,” Donna said.

The Wright family recounted stories of horrible punishments. Picture: Brianna Young/Yoorrook Justice Commission

The sisters had been told stories of horrible punishments inflicted upon their mother, such as being forced to scrub floors after a failed escape attempt and having her head “rammed into a steel coat hook” for losing a ribbon in her hair.

Their uncle Ronnie, who was three years younger than Eunice, once returned from the farm on which he worked with a broken jaw after he was struck by the farmer.

No medical records were kept of any of these incidents when the family later investigated.

On the day that Eunice and her siblings were stolen by police in 1954, their father Monty Foster was working in Yambuk, while their mother Lyall was in hospital being treated for tuberculosis.

The grief of having his children taken away drove Monty to an emotional breakdown. He was witnessed dancing in the street and taken to a psychiatric ward before ending up in Kew Mental Hospital.

“He was devastated and never recovered,” Donna said.

Despite regularly visiting her husband, Lyall was not notified of Monty’s death in 1959.

To add to her grief, she was told that Monty had already been buried in a pauper’s grave without a ceremony.

Donna, Tina and Joanne Wright stand with Yoorrook commissioners outside the Lake Condah Mission home where the sisters’ mother grew up. Picture: Brianna Young/Yoorrook Justice Commission

“He was just left in that hospital basically to rot and not treated like a human,” Donna said.

“We know he died of malnutrition and bed sores.

“There was no investigation into the circumstances (around his death).”

While Lyall was too shocked and grief-stricken to move Monty’s remains, Eunice and her partner later took out a loan in 1992 to repatriate Monty at Lake Condah Mission cemetery.

The family was devastated to find that upon retrieval, the body of the beloved wood-splitting father and grandfather had been “mutilated”.

“Once they removed him from the box they saw he was sawed, mutilated … before being buried in a pauper’s grave,” Tina said.

“He was grieving for his children, he was a parent who did not survive his children being taken from him, that’s what caused him to be unwell – the system,” Donna said.

“The system that cares for people who are unwell – that’s how they treated him.”

Donna reflected on how the “beautiful photos” of their families were foreshadowed by the heartbreak and devastation inflicted upon them.

“We want to celebrate and honour our family and share that amazing story of their resilience and courage and strength regardless,” she said.

“Our sovereignty is the key to our longevity.

“We need systems that support us, not deny or exclude us.”

From March 1, Yoorrook commissioners will hear from First Peoples, including parents whose children have been removed, carers, and members of the Stolen Generations as part of their inquiry into the child protection system.