A painful silence: The family secret my grandparents took to their graves

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandfather. He had Indigenous heritage; a secret he and my grandmother took to their graves.

My intrepid cousin, tracing the family tree, discovered he was the descendant of a Ngunnawal woman known as Nananya Mary, and uncovered photos of his grandmother and a second cousin who died at Pozieres in the First World War, both of Indigenous descent.

My grandfather, William.Credit:

The news was a shock. Not so much the fact of it – my mother and aunt had wondered about their father’s background over the years. But the depth of the silence about it was painful.

My grandmother was a storyteller. When I was little, I spent many hours listening to her spin yarns (and probably plenty of tall tales) about her French-Canadian sea captain grandfather on one side and Scottish heritage on the other; stories of Maori spearings, goldfield exploits, a family crest, assassins and Viking forebears. Stirring stuff.

From my grandfather: hardly a word. His voice was muted, and mediated by my grandmother who told my mother and me some things – but not many.

Here’s a sketch: We knew that when he was courting her, he had told her he was a mechanic (he was a shearer) and that his mother was dead (she was very much alive). We knew that he had grown up in grinding poverty in Binalong near Yass on the Southern Tablelands of NSW. We knew his mother had left him when he was a boy, but he did not lose touch with her completely because later he took his stunned bride to visit her.

My grandfather’s grandmother, Sarah Jane Bush, formerly Lewis.

We knew that as a new husband, he had sometimes been rough, unpredictable and absent without explanation. But later he settled down and worked hard to provide for his three children. I knew he brought my grandmother a cup of tea in bed every morning. They were married for 56 years.

We certainly did not know that his mother had Indigenous heritage and an extended Indigenous family, though we knew that she very much favoured one granddaughter (my mother), the one with the fair hair and skin, while treating her darker-haired older sister harshly.

Private Thomas Amos Lewis, a descendant of Nananya Mary. He was killed in action in 1916.

Intellectually, I understand the silence and my grandparents’ choices. I do not consider myself Indigenous, but I keenly feel the loss of the stories I will never know about my grandfather’s life, people and heritage.

They may not have been neat, comfortable stories – the little I do know suggests trauma, shame and imperfect characters. But there may also have been stories of resilience, bravery and love, providing a richer and truer picture of our family’s connection to this country and a fuller understanding of the nation we live in. Stories closer to home than the beautiful tales of Vikings and Scottish liegemen my grandmother was so fond of. Stories for adults, not children.

What stories are we as a nation going to miss out on if we do not seize the opportunity to establish a constitutionally enshrined Voice to parliament?

In voting yes, we gain a truer understanding of our country; a chance to hear regularly from those who have been too easily dismissed and to build a firm platform for ideas about how to improve their lives to the benefit of the entire nation.

Some of what we may hear we may not like, but the invitation simply is to listen. The Voice can give no legislative effect to its recommendations. The power lies with the government and the parliament.

It will be a sign of maturity and cause for celebration if we can create a uniquely Australian place that welcomes these voices, and delivers the message that we want them to speak loudly and proudly. And if we do not? I fear the silencing signal that sends.

At a recent social gathering I was telling my grandfather’s story and one listener with links to Indigenous Australia said that even today Indigenous parents who have children who could present as non-Indigenous will consider not alerting school bodies to their heritage out of concern for how their children will be treated.

I have an image of my grandpa in his later years, sitting in his chair, listening to the cricket, a small transistor radio grasped in his large, gnarled shearer’s hand, keeping his stories to himself, silenced his whole life by the weight of what was thought acceptable and worthwhile. We can no longer be a nation that encourages lifetimes of silence.

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