Brenda Matthews was ripped from a loving family twice. But she was born too late to be officially recognised as Stolen Generations

The woman is Brenda Matthews, née Simon, born 1970.

This birth year renders her officially ineligible for being recognised as part of the Stolen Generations: the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act was repealed and the Aboriginal Welfare Board abolished in 1969. She was removed from her family four years later, in 1973.

She describes her mother’s memory of doing the household chores with a friend one day, “a few days” after she took her sick child Karla to the local hospital. “A car pulled up outside and two Welfare Department officers got out.” Her friend asked if they’d come to inspect the house. “Welfare officers were often inspecting Aboriginal homes to check if they were clean, which was often an excuse and a precursor to taking the children.”

But they had arrived “to take the kids”, on mysterious charges of neglect. Local knowledge about collusion between the local hospital matron and the Welfare Department does not escape mention.

After three months in a home, Brenda was fostered by a White family, who had a daughter of a similar age. “She is my younger sister and I love her,” recalls Brenda in the book. They believed they had adopted Brenda, and that a single mother had given her up. Five years later, she was returned home, with almost no transition. “I was ripped from both these families,” she writes later in the book, looking back.

The trauma impacts of these separations can be read through this life story, not least when 18-year-old Brenda tells no one she is pregnant and ends up giving birth alone in her bedroom:

I think deep down inside, I’m scared of this baby being taken from me because I was taken away from my Mum and Dad. I don’t want history to repeat itself.

Baby Keisha enjoys unbroken bonds with her parents and both extended families. Later, she is joined by four brothers, then by four more siblings, through her mother’s marriage to stepfather Mark. By the end of this book, Keisha has two children of her own – who become central to Brenda’s commitment to her story, her families, and a future free from cruel intervention.

Source: Brenda Matthews was ripped from a loving family twice. But she was born too late to be officially recognised as Stolen Generations