Mother of Ten (15 page)

 ‘...I
feel as if there is a whole other parallel life ‘out there’ somewhere, the one
which I didn’t have with my parents, brother and sister.’

 In
a letter sent to Australian members of parliament in 1997, mothers who had
their children taken from them wrote: ‘Our children not only lost the opportunity
to be loved, raised and nurtured by their own mothers, they have also suffered
the loss of their family of origin, their ancestry and heritage. And their
families have lost them.’

It
is either a miracle or testament to their resilience, determination and courage
that Bertie, Audrey and Noel not only survived their childhood experiences but
were able to ignore, put aside or bury the baggage they were surely burdened
with. Each one of my half-siblings has led a productive life, attracted love
and respect, sustained a long term marriage and established a strong family
unit. Other adults who were separated from their parents as children, some of
whom suffered dreadful abuse, have found life extremely difficult.

Lorraine
Rodgers reported that she has been through two marriages and ‘I still need
counselling. I am living in fear, and that is not good for me.’

 Ray
Flett suffers “depression, anxiety, antisocial attitudes, and nightmares, fear
of people, lack of confidence, lack of social skills and a lack of identity. I
have undergone counselling for much of my adult life just so I could cope with
living day to day. I cannot hold a job for long; I cannot form friendships and
have been unable to complete the several educational courses I have started
over the last thirty years. I am currently in such a state that I rarely leave
the house for fear of my reaction to any stimuli.”

Mim
McKey in her submission said, ‘Throughout my teenage and adult years I have
been dogged with many, many illnesses. Too numerous to mention. Now the anxiety
and panic attacks are increasing and I am thinking that maybe they were right
and they should put me away, for I thought I was really going insane. Now I am
currently undergoing counselling which is costing a small fortune, and my
psychologist has assured me that there are many people institutionalised as
children now seeking help, male and female...For you see, we cannot forget. I
cannot forget. The nightmares won’t let me.’

Maree
Giles, in her submission states: ‘The experience at Parramatta Girls' Home has
caused me a lifetime of depression, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, the
inability to trust people, and fear of authority, particularly the police and
social services. But worse than any of this, my fear of living in Australia
forced me to live apart from my mother. I have not lived in Australia since
1971.  I lost my desire to live in my own country, because it let me down
so badly.’

I
wonder if Audrey, who still lives in Houston, Texas, had a sense of being let
down by her country and subconsciously rejected Australia because of it.

It
was Houston where I met her for the first time. In 1999, I travelled with my
niece, Sally, to Texas where we met Audrey, her husband, Edward, and their two
sons, Jamieson and Damien. Although Audrey, like Bertie and Noel, shares a
physical resemblance to her father, I was astonished at how similar her
mannerisms were to Mum’s. For example, the way she moves her hands and the way
she sometimes holds her head. 

We
met again in 2008 when Audrey, Edward and Damien visited Australia. It was
shortly after this trip, in February 2009, that Audrey’s much loved husband
Edward passed away; only five months before the birth of his first
grandchild.  Edward was a gentle man who had the knack of turning
strangers into friends in a matter of seconds. His passing was a painful blow
not only for Audrey and her two sons but also for Sally who shared an instant
rapport with her Uncle Edward.

Both
of Edward’s sons have now produced progeny giving Audrey three grandchildren at
last count. She is enjoying her role as a grandmother immensely and relishes
having two daughters-in-law whom she thinks of as her own daughters.

Ballarat
is much closer to Melbourne than Houston, Texas so there have been several
opportunities for me, and others in the Rowley family, to meet with Noel and
his family. Shirley and Noel are also enjoying being grandparents and so far
have nine grandchildren to love and spoil. Noel maintains strong, long-term
connections with his ‘orphanage family’. In many orphanages children did not
form close friendships with the other inmates. Their living conditions were
such that they lived in fear of what might happen to them next. This usually
meant they were forced to put personal survival above all else. They learned to
distrust others. However, Noel felt a sense of solidarity with the other
children at Ballarat Orphanage. He established firm friendships which have
survived to this day.

Noel
would dearly love to have met his mother but it was not to be. By 1990, with
her health deteriorating, Mum had cut back on her involvement with the
Salvation Army.
H
Over the next few years my
sister, Irene, became her home help. Irene visited her daily, making sure she
had food to eat, helping her with the household chores and with bathing. In
1995, Mum was admitted to the Orbost Hospital. She died as a result of
‘respiratory failure’ on April 17. Her good friend, Cathy, was still by her
side at her funeral five days later as were many others who respected and loved
Mum.

It
was only after her death that I discovered our mother’s secret. I was
flabbergasted to think that Mum had a secret of any kind. Furthermore, it
seemed inconceivable that this woman I knew so well, whose smile was easy on
her face and whose laughter was swiftly stirred, had lived with the pain of
past trauma. Yet a school friend of my two older brothers had seen, even as a
child, the ghosts in her eyes. “There was always sadness behind her smile,” he
told me.

  When
I recovered from the shock of finding out that Mum had had three children
before she married my father, I managed to track down her first born, Bertie,
who was living on Russell Island in Queensland.

During
our telephone conversation he told me that he had not thought about his mother
in years but that one night recently, an image of a woman appeared before
him. He thought it was his mother and when he described her to me it sounded
very much like Mum. We established that the timing of the appearance of the
image was very close to the time of Mum’s death. Perhaps it was an imagined
image and perhaps it was coincidence, but it seemed to give Bertie comfort to
think his mother may have visited him after her death. It is tempting to think
of Mum as a
mrart
offering her first born one last goodbye.

Sometime
after our initial phone contact, I travelled to Queensland to meet Bertie and
Lea in person. I discovered that my half-brother was a handsome man with
gentleness in his blue eyes and a healthy head of silver hair.  Bertie was
not able to give me a great deal of information about his childhood. “I don’t
dwell on the past,” he told me.  He felt unable to talk about his early
life even to Lea with whom he had a strong, loving relationship. He told her he
had ‘locked it away’. 

“I’ve
obviously locked it away for a reason. It must be too painful,” he said to her,
“so it’s better to leave it that way.”

At
three and a half years of age he would have been old enough and aware enough to
feel the full impact of the trauma of being separated from his mother. Children
as young as two feel an overwhelming sense of loss when their mother is taken
from them whether by death or separation. Added to this profound loss was the
trauma of separation from his siblings. Everything that gave young Bertie
security, safety and identity had been snatched away from him. Apart from
intense grief, he would also have experienced feelings of separation and
abandonment, isolation, confusion and self-blame. Throughout his childhood and
probably into adulthood, he must have carried a sense of loneliness and
emptiness deep within.

Bertie
was seriously contemplating taking the step of contacting his mother when he
received my phone call to let him know she had died. It had taken over thirty
years and urging from Lea before he was ready to consider the possibility of
reaching out to Myrtle and then it was too late. It is difficult for anyone who
has not been in the same situation to understand the complex feelings that
might have prevented Bertie from reaching out to his mother.

Perhaps
we get a glimpse into Bertie’s mind through Ray Flett who states: ‘I had
consigned many memories to the farthest recesses of my mind.’ Then, without
warning, at the age of twenty-nine Ray received a phone call: ‘The phone call
was from a person who, after an absence of 26 years, identified herself as and
indeed was my natural mother. This event had a devastating effect on my life.
It bought back all the memories and pain. My confidence deserted me and my life
started to once again disintegrate and I had no one to turn to for help. I was
torn apart by the internal conflict of whom I really was and who I had become.
I tried to fit into both the world I had been educated in and the world that
had been so devastatingly taken from me. I did not know who I had been most
disloyal to, my adopted (sic) mother or my natural mother.’

I
am sure that Bertie, who had been brought up to despise his mother and had been
cared for initially by his grandparents and later by his step-mother and
father, felt torn by divided loyalties.

Sadly,
Bertie is no longer with us. In June 2009 he became very ill and was diagnosed
with esophageal cancer. The cancer spread and attacked his liver. With his
usual consideration and humility, he made Lea promise not to tell Noel and
Shirley who were about to leave with their family for their annual holiday in
Bali. Bertie did not want them to cancel their holiday on his account, which of
course is what they would have done. On their return from Bali, Noel and his
family made the trip to Queensland and were able to visit with Bertie before he
passed away in September that year. He left behind his wife, Lea, and their
five children who have so far produced for their parents: sixteen
grandchildren, ten great grand children and two great, great, grand children.

My
youngest brother Peter also produced another grandchild for Mum but she died
before Kade was born in 1996. Kade is a budding young fisherman in Lakes
Entrance, East Gippsland where he lives with his father. His half-sister is
Tanya, the granddaughter Myrtle mothered and who is now a mother herself with
two boys and a girl. Her cousin Sally has thus far resisted the pull of
marriage and is establishing herself as a Social Worker. Sally’s mother, Irene,
still lives in Orbost and also works in the health sector.

In
September 1998, Kevin’s twin, Georgie, was killed in a road accident, similar
to the accident that killed his brother. Thankfully, this was one loss Mum did
not have to endure.

Mum’s
first husband, Henry Bishop, died only two days after my father. He had lung
cancer, apparently caused by a grain of sand getting into his lungs when he was
serving in the Middle East. By the time he died on January 30, 1965, the cancer
had spread to his brain. The extent to which he and his mother went to in order
to exclude Audrey and Noel from his life is reflected in the death notice which
lists his children but omits to mention Noel. His new wife was apparently not
fully informed about her husband’s first family. I suspect Audrey would not
have been mentioned either had she not established contact with her father in
her adult life.

Agnes
Bishop’s husband, John, was hospitalised in 1971 but refused to allow his wife
to visit him and would not talk to her. He died the same year after surgery.
Agnes Bishop suffered from dementia later in life and passed away ten years
after her husband.

Mum’s
mother, Etti Webb, had remarried in 1939. Her marriage to Ernest Biddell
apparently did not last although I was unable to find a record of a divorce. It
seems that Biddell simply made himself scarce at some point. Etti was still
living in Albury when she passed away in 1970. Mum was unable to attend the
funeral, possibly because of her financial situation. However, her cousin Lily
wrote to her immediately after the service with a full description of the day.

For
me, the unveiling of Mum’s secret has been a strange, sometimes surreal,
experience. For one thing I had to reposition myself in the family. I was no
longer third child. I was now sixth child. At first that felt weird.
Eventually, I came to the realisation that I was both third child and sixth
child. That also feels a little weird but at least it is no longer confusing.

My
sister Irene and I became unsure about how to respond to questions that we once
answered with unswerving confidence; questions like, ‘How many in your family?’
As far as accepting our half-siblings, that was never an issue for us. They are
Mum’s children and that means they are our family and that is all there is to
it. We each experienced deep regret that we had not had the opportunity to grow
up with them. It is impossible to have the same sense of connection with
siblings you meet for the first time as adults as those you lived with, played
with, fought with, cried with and laughed with day after day, year after year.

My
youngest brother’s reaction was more complex than ours. In the typical fashion
of an Australian country male, he does not freely share his emotions and feelings
and so has not spoken about it. However, I believe Peter was initially in
denial about Mum and her first three children. I think it took him some time to
come to terms with the truth.

As
far as I know, my two older brothers, Bobby and Maxie, are not aware of Mum’s
secret as they have not been in touch with the family for many years despite
our efforts to find them on several occasions. Their life-journeys have taken
them far away and they have not yet found the track back home.