Hello and welcome. I’m Julie-Anne Jones, the author of Cootamundra Girl and a book of poetry called Creation Speaks. I invite you to explore the world of words with me, crafted into stories and poems about the human condition and the art of living. C.S. Lewis said, ‘To say nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that is the whole art and joy of words.’
I’d like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the lands now called Australia, the elders both past, present and emerging. Most notably, to honour the Bundjalung people, Adelaide Wenberg’s mob, and the Dharawal people from Wollongong, where we both live.
Surviving the Stolen Generation
Adelaide Wenberg’s first memory at six, is of a fateful train trip she undertook from Central station in Sydney to Cootamundra with her sisters. Her brothers were sent to Kinchela Boys Home and her younger sisters to Bomaderry Children’s Home. Adelaide endured ten, gruelling years at Cootamundra Girls Home.
After a few brief stints in the country, Adelaide is sent to work as a Domestic at Double Bay in Sydney, working for a woman for forty-three years. Surprisingly, she grows to love and respect her employer and reconnects with some of the girls from the Home, who work as Domestics nearby. However, reconnecting with some of her siblings and a few brief encounters with her father are a mixed blessing. Sadly, her mother has already passed away and two of her siblings died in the government homes.
At fifty-nine, Adelaide moves to Wollongong in NSW to start a new life. She develops an art for writing poetry, painting and public speaking. Some of her poems are included in the biography. In 2018, Adelaide takes a life changing trip to Maclean, where she reconnects with her Aboriginal family: a ‘coming home’ experience she will never forget.
Author
About
Adelaide Wenberg is an Aboriginal woman, living in suburban Wollongong. She is a poet, an artist, a survivor of the Stolen Generation and a public speaker, generously sharing her fascinating and harrowing story in a myriad of forums: Community Centres; Schools; Multi-Cultural Women’s Celebrations; Early Learning Centres and Churches. Unsurprisingly, she is fiercely independent, after spending the first fifty-nine years of her life either living in a government home run by white folk or working for them in their homes as a ‘domestic.’ Adelaide also loves to read and tend her garden; another place in which to be creative.
By Tracey Kirkland
It’s hard to imagine how someone survives being forcibly taken from their family, separated from language and culture, and foist into an unknown and seemingly hostile environment. Even more, how they can make sense of where they belong. For Adelaide Wenberg, a survivor of the Stolen Generation, it is an all-too-common story of loss, neglect and abuse. Cootamundra Girl is her moving biography, tracing her journey through institutionalisation and service as Adelaide draws on what she knows to survive, that is her humour, quick wit and a sharp tongue. But, in the darkness, there is light, with Adelaide eventually finding joy and comfort in a family far from her own, where she learned to love herself. Now, through her story, she is able to reconnect with those she lost along the way.
