Evelyn Crawford
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I hope many readers of Madonna were able to see the Australian film,
Rabbit Proof Fence. It is a must-see film, about three young Aboriginal
girls making an epic journey, walking for nine weeks to get back to their
own country after being forcibly removed from their families.
This film reminded me in many ways of the story I was preparing for this
issue of Madonna, about Evelyn Crawford, a remarkable Baarkanji woman
from NSW. Evelyn, born under a gumtree, did not know her birth date until
she found it recorded in the stock books of the station. Her family moved
to the government mission when she was about eight.
Then came the time when pale-skinned children were being taken from their
families. Some of the parents escaped from the mission, taking eleven
children with them. Three were very dark and could remain on top of the
cart, while the others—a boy aged 13, a girl 11, Ev about 9, and
five younger ones—were hidden under a false floor. Once safely away
from the mission they walked barefoot in blazing summer heat ninety miles
over eleven days, hiding by day and walking by night until they reached
safety.
Evelyn tells it her way. ‘You know, I never knew how old I was.
I never knew the date or the year. My mum told me I was born in their
tent and she was helped by the old grannies—the Aboriginal midwives.’
It was incredible how she finally found out her age.
One day in 1985, she was going back to Broken Hill from Brewarrina where
she had been working, she passed Rossmore station, just out of Bourke.
Driving into the station, she asked the young fellow who owned the property,
‘Who was the boss around 1930?’ He replied, ‘My grandfather.
They lived in that old house over there. Why?’
‘I was born in a tent under those trees near that tank over there,
me and my sister’, said Ev.
‘Is that so? Come on over to my grandma’s old house and see
if we can find anything. The old station books are still there.’
In the room that had been the station office they found the old station
book, and written on one page it had:
Born to station
calves — 9
lambs — 28
foals — 2
Born to Hannah Black and Jack Mallyer — one girl baby.
There it was on the station ledger as part of the stock. Born on 18 May
1928. So that was the day Evelyn kept as her birthday. People found it
hard to believe she didn’t have a birthday until she was fifty-eight.
Her cousins, aunties and uncles were all in that stock book. The young
owner was quite shocked and offered the book to Evelyn to keep.
That little girl, reared in traditional Aboriginal values, married and
raised seven daughters, six sons and a granddaughter in those same values.
Ev deeply mourned the death of her husband, Gong. No marriage guidance
counsellor could better her advice: ‘Two persons never became better
mates than we were, you know. We yarned as husband and wife, we yarned
as mum and dad, but the most yarns, and the best times, was when we sat
down and talked as mates.’
Becoming a teacher’s aide helped her through that mourning, and
she became an outstanding Aboriginal educator, for which she was awarded
the Order of Australia (OA), and met the Queen at the opening of Darling
Harbour. Elizabeth said to her, ‘Remember, you’re a very special
person’. To which Ev replied, ‘We all are, because there’s
only one of each of us. There’s only one of you, and there’s
only one of me’.
Her wisdom permeates all her words. Writing her memoirs with Chris Walsh
(Over My Tracks, Penguin, 1993), she says, ‘I’m pretty lucky—haven’t
got much money, but with the friends I’ve got, all the respect and
love, and with thinking about all the happenings and people who are all
part of the me who’s here now, I’d be the richest old woman
around’.
Ev’s warmth, humour and wisdom, as a bush woman, wife, mother of
fourteen children, teller of yarns, and educator, as well as her unshakeable
belief that prejudice grows from ignorance, has brought many to a better
understanding of Aboriginal people.
Truly a woman to remember.
