Anniversary of National Apology to Stolen Generations: Aunty Leonie Ebsworth's story

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Today marks the anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. Aunty Leonie Ebsworth was just a toddler when she and her sisters were taken from their parents and sent to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls in the NSW Riverina. For the first time, she has shared her story with the ABC’s Indigenous Affairs team.

Transcript

00:00A lot of things. I was there until I was 16, got out when I was 16, but a lot of things

00:10happened that us girls went through, you know. It's the fact that we lost our family, you

00:18know. I never met my brothers till I was 16, you know. I don't understand why we lost

00:31them. That's what hurts the most. But like the girls all said, they swear at each other,

00:46you know, with the family, ourselves. Had to make a family, you know. Very, very hard.

00:56And was treated very hard too. We'd be scrubbing floors four o'clock in the morning, cooking,

01:05cleaning, five o'clock, go to school, come home, do the same thing every day. Never had

01:13rest or nothing. We wasn't allowed to talk about Aboriginals. We didn't know Aboriginals.

01:21We didn't know their lives. We just knew our life there. Anything come on about Aboriginals,

01:26matron turned the TV off. Or any of our family come to home, she'd make them go. We sort

01:33of grew up with white people. You can't, I don't believe, you can't say no, sorry or anything.

01:43It's, we've been through it, we've done it, you know. Can't come back in years later and say,

01:49sorry girls, you know, they shouldn't have done it in the first place. That's how I feel about it.

01:55With my mum, they talk about, you know, intergenerational trauma, like what she went

02:02through. It's come back on us as well with our upbringing and how we, you know, we can,

02:07it actually is true, intergenerational trauma, you know, it actually, it is.

02:12Looking at this photo and seeing all them girls and what we went through,

02:17I'm telling you the truth, we went through a lot. They make me strong. Yeah. And bless my family.

02:29But these girls are my things, yeah.

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