Some people may find content on this website distressing.
Read more
New South Wales - Archival Item
Yoonthalla Close interviewed by Anne Monsour in the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants oral history project [sound recording] ( - )
- Location
-
Yoonthalla Close interviewed by Anne Monsour in the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants oral history project [sound recording] is an oral history interview held by the National Library of Australia. In the interview, Yoonthalla Close discusses her identity as a Wiradjuri woman; her early memories and family background; her father and the Stolen Generation; her parents' marriage; her siblings; deafness in her family; play, games and toys; food and cooking; schooling; being told stories by her father; her father's employments; WW2; her relationship with her mother; punishments and abuse; illness; being sent to Far West Children's Home, Manly, N.S.W.; her siblings being removed and separated from each other; journeying to Sydney Children's Court; The Nest (Arncliffe Girls Home); routine and chores; food and hunger; punishments and abuse; reporting abuse; the treatment of Aboriginal children and attitudes towards Aboriginal culture; having a thirst to learn; attending Bexley High School; teaching herself to write; returning home for six weeks; being sent to Bidura Children's Home, Glebe; reporting abuses to staff at Bidura; staff at Bidura; being sent to Parramatta Girls' Training School; being physically examined upon entering the Home; hard work; illness and hospitalisation; sewing and chores; starting nursing training; being removed from Parramatta by her father; nursing conditions; her first pay; friends and social life; relationships, marriage and children.
Read More
Less
Access Conditions
Open for research, personal copies and public use.
Records
Close discusses the ongoing psychological impact of her experiences in her family and in care; the adoption of a child; her relationship with her daughters and the impact of her life experiences on them; her feelings about her mother; her name; survival and resilience; accidents and injury in her family; her desire to help others; a Forgotten Australians function in Sydney (2009); playing lawn bowls; journalism; career options for women; her feelings about misogyny in the workplace; spending time on Palm Island, Qld. With footballers; moving to Mackay; founding Friends of the Blind, Mackay; undertaking University study and her Ph.D.; awards and scholarships; Chairing the Disability Council of Queensland; organising Disability Action Week, CQU Mackay; advising the Minister for Disability Services, Qld.; tutoring; finding employment for Indigenous people with a disability; memories of telling her life story for first time; organising Disability Action Week in Rockhampton Gardens (2005); working for CARE (2008-2009); working for the Centre for Australian Indigenous Knowledges; moving to Toowoomba; the Queensland floods; the acknowledgement of Forgotten Australians; her feelings about racism, identity and belonging; not wanting to see her personal files; the impact of institutionalisation on children; the Salvation Army; the role of Aboriginal customary law; learning, acceptance and healing; her family's and her own religious and spiritual beliefs.
- Contact
-
Please contact a Librarian at Reader Services, National Library of Australia:
Postal address: National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT 2600
Phone: (02) 6262 1266
Website: http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian/
We do not currently have any records linked to this organisation, but records may exist.
The Find & Connect Support Service can help people who lived in orphanages and children's institutions look for their records.
We do not currently have any photographs linked to this entry. If you know of any additional photographs, please contact us.
The Find & Connect Support Service can help people who lived in orphanages and children's institutions look for their records.
Find out what these words mean
