Level 7

Faith Thomas (née Coulthard) was born in 1933 at Nepabunna mission in the Flinders Ranges. Her mother, Ivy, was Adnyamathanha, and her father was a German migrant. At three months of age, Faith was taken to Colebrook Home in Quorn at her mother’s behest. Faith tells how she was delivered to Sister Hyde in this way: “This’ll now be your child. I haven’t named her. You give her a name.” And so, the kids at the home named her ‘Faith’, which she loved. Her mother continued to visit her every year, and she considers herself fortunate to have grown up there and been afforded the opportunities that followed. At Colebrook, Faith and the other children would fashion their own toys, often playing cricket with makeshift bats from wooden planks and using rocks in place of balls, when they weren’t taking aim at galahs in the trees around the creek.

Faith achieved her Leaving Certificate at Unley Girls Technical School in 1950, and initially trained in commercial art before deciding to go with six others from Colebrook Home to the Royal Adelaide Hospital to pursue nursing. After initially being rejected (“she just stood us up there and told us to get back to Alice Springs and nurse our own people”), she began her training at Murray Bridge Memorial, before she and the other girls moved back to Adelaide to work under that same matron – “and there wasn’t nothing she could do about it!” They became the first Aboriginal nurses in South Australia, and Faith thrived, seeming to fit in naturally and enjoying the work, though it was often hard with long hours.

Before long Faith had been invited to play women’s cricket by another nurse during a shift handover, and after a few club matches was quickly promoted to the State team, and then on to the national team, where she became the first Aboriginal woman to represent Australia on any national sporting team in the 1957 side against New Zealand, and as the opening bowler in the Melbourne Test of the 1958 Ashes Series.

After stints at the RAH and Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital, where she trained in Midwifery, Faith worked as a Nursing Sister at Point McLeay (Raukkan), before moving over to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs as a welfare officer. Here she again faced discrimination as the first Aboriginal public servant in the office, recalling constant pressure to apply for an Exemption Certificate, which she rejected, before leaving the unit and going to University for one year, mainly playing cricket and hockey.

Faith then spent a few years in Alice Springs, in charge of the ‘Native Ward’ at Alice Springs Hospital from 1959, “which was like an old tin garage […] with TB patients around the verandah,” where she also practiced midwifery. Here again her natural sporting ability was demonstrated on the hockey field, where she played for the Pioneers Club (having already played A-Grade in Adelaide).

After Alice Springs, Faith spent a year in remote northern South Australia, in a defining period working as a Medical Patrol Officer out of Amata, covering a broad expanse from Amata, Indulkana and Oodnadatta, as far South as Wintinna Station and Mimili, and including other stations where Aboriginal families were employed or living. Here she describes going out for 10 days at a time, finding a mob, and setting up camp down the hill where they could see her:

“…like knocking on their door. I’d pull up, make my fire, boil my billy, let ‘em prepare themselves. […] And they’d all line up there, the whole lot would line up. You’d think, “oh, God,” you know, particularly if you got there 5:00 at night. It would be 9:00pm before I finished my clinic.”

Faith describes this period as manageable, but obviously in a context of being quite under-resourced – a recurring theme that becomes more contentious throughout her remote and community based roles. She was also a member of the SA Aboriginal Affairs Board until it was disbanded in 1971, and was a warden of the Aboriginal and Historic Relics Unit based at the SA Museum.

Faith worked for the Department of Public Health in the mid-1970s as a Patrol Sister in the North Flinders Ranges, deploying her experiences and expertise to advocate for a stronger community focus to the public health work happening in remote communities, including a strident resignation from the National Health and Medical Research Council in 1974 due to her objections with the Council’s priorities, and inattention to the “necessary requirements in the field,” as she saw them; and a report recommending greater community input to policy development and attention to basic health determinants such as improved water supply and housing.

Faith also instigated family planning education and services in the South Australian Aboriginal Community, responding initially to community demand at Point Pearce and Point McLeay, and securing some funding and community partnership with the family planning clinic at the RAH. From the appreciation she received from women, and her personal satisfaction from the program, Faith sites her family planning work as her most significant.

Throughout her life Faith has maintained a strong passion for sports and health, and was a founding member of the National Aboriginal Sports Foundation, established to “help the up and coming sports kids who had nothing.” She was honoured at the inaugural National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sports Awards in 1986 for ‘contributions to women’s cricket and hockey’, and again in 1999 for ‘outstanding contributions by older persons’. She was named 1988 NAIDOC SA Sportswoman of the Year; Patron of the Prime Minister’s XI versus the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) Chairman’s XI 2001-03; and, as recently as 2016, was appointed inaugural Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Cricket Advisory Committee of South Australia (ACACSA).

Other honours acknowledging Faith’s contributions include a Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, and a Centenary Medal in 2001; a trophy awarded at the 2005 SA Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards ‘in recognition of [her] valuable contribution to the profession’; and the 2007 Premier’s NAIDOC award, for ‘the outstanding achievement and contributions of an extraordinary South Australian whose service and contribution has had the effect of making a significant difference to the lives and welfare of Aboriginal people in South Australia’.

Elsie Jackson is an Adnyamathanha Mathari Elder born in 1946 to Sydney Jackson and Elsie McKenzie, at Nepabunna in the Northern Flinders Ranges. She was the thirteenth of fourteen children, and was strongly influenced by the elders in her family whilst growing up, learning much in particular from her mother’s sisters’ stories and cooking, and also coming into her devout Christian faith through the influential women in her life on the mission.

Elsie attended school at Nepabunna up to age sixteen, and recalls playing rounders a lot with the other children and parents, using broom handles or sticks in place of bats. When she didn’t want to leave the school after completing her own education, Elsie was offered a job as a teacher’s aide, becoming one of the few women in the community to have paid employment at that time, and performing a range of tasks including covering books, mixing milk, fixing fences, groundskeeping and photocopying. In 1967, still at Nepabunna School, Elsie became the first Aboriginal Education Worker in South Australia, becoming ‘Aunty Elsie’ the friend, mentor and counsellor to many children over the years, as well as many parents.

In 1981 Elsie moved to Port Augusta and worked as an Aboriginal Education Worker and Student Support Worker at Port Augusta High School. Here she taught Aboriginal Studies, drove the school bus, and also took any opportunity to create teaching and cultural experiences from her love of cooking – teaching about gathering and preparing bush tucker, cooking damper and kangaroo tail during NAIDOC and Reconciliation Weeks, and later becoming an Outback Community Foodies Ambassador with SA Health in 2008, promoting healthy eating whilst ensuring “traditional foods and cooking are not forgotten.”

Since she was a young woman Elsie had also been very actively involved with her Church, with a full roster of activities and responsibilities over the years, such as this schedule from 1990: Tuesday night Bible study; Wednesday night Rally for the girls – doing activities and playing sport; Thursday night singing; Friday night Youth Rally; the Sunday morning service, Sunday School, and a packed night service with more than 150 people each week!

She was also a dedicated volunteer with the Early Years Parenting Centre at Port Augusta, where she created the Emu Trail Mobile Playgroup based on her story of the father emu looking after their chicks, and was involved in developing the Nunga Yakarti (“Hello children”) group and Ikamanakha, meaning “come and sit down” for Elders with their grandchildren at the Centre. She additionally worked with the Bungala child care centre and the Bubble ‘n’ Squeak Child Development Centre, supporting children and families and sharing culture and Dreaming stories.

As an Adnyamathanha Elder, Aunty Elsie was an important custodian of traditional language and stories, and a sought after consultant for insight into the early mission history of Nepabunna. She contributed to the ‘Flinders Ranges Dreaming’ collection of Adnyamathanha traditional stories with her telling of ‘The Euro and the Kangaroo,’ and ‘How the Moon Got the Mark on His Belly’ with her aunty Annie Coulthard and uncle Walter Coulthard, in 1988; shared stories and historical knowledge in the Aboriginal Studies Course book ‘The Adnyamathanha People’ for secondary students in 1992; and consulted on the ABC’s ‘The Dreaming’ video series in 2004, and the Australian Children's Television Foundation’s ‘Language of Belonging’ education package in 2010.

Aunty Elsie was an enthusiastic sportsperson, particularly in lawn bowls as a member of the Port Augusta bowling club. She won the 2006/07 singles championship, pair’s championship, triples championship and the fours championship, as the only Aboriginal woman registered in the Northern Arrears bowling competition.

Aunty Elsie was awarded 2013 NAIDOC SA Elder of the Year, a Centenary Medal in 2001, and the “Regional Award for living and/or working and actively contributing to the community at a local, regional, state, national and international level” at the 2016 Gladys Elphick Awards. She was a Smoke Free Ambassador, was named Honorary Reconciliation Ambassador in 2009, and has a room named in recognition of her achievements at the Majestic Oasis Apartments.

Aunty Elsie passed away in July 2017. Transcontinental reported:

“Her presence was so heavily felt in the community that over 600 people attended her memorial ceremony.

“The memory of Port Augusta icon Elsie Jackson will live on forever thanks to a new mural under the Joy Baluch AM Bridge. Elsie’s friends and family gathered under the bridge on Monday, December 10, 2018, for the official opening of the mural painted by local artist Craig Ellis.”

George Tongerie was born at Oodnadatta in 1925, and became the first baby to be placed in Colebrook Home at its first location at Oodnadatta, where he was raised by Miss Hyde and the other missionary sisters, relocating with Colebrook to Quorn when he was about 18 months old. George had great memories of Quorn, which he saw as his homeland, attending the local school and church and Sunday School, and wanting to be a stockman, “like most young people in those days.”

After completing his schooling, George worked on a station at Wilmington for five years, then at age seventeen, travelled to Adelaide and joined the Air Force in 1943, after seeking permission from the ‘Protector’. He trained in aircraft mechanics at various bases interstate, before deploying with his squadron to Merauke, New Guinea, and after two years, to Borneo. George was the only Aboriginal person in his squadron, and among the first to join the Air Force. In addition to his duties repairing and maintaining aircraft, George was active in sporting and race meets on his leave days, and rode as a jockey at meets with Australian and American servicemen. His enthusiasm for and involvement in sports, particularly football and racing, persisted throughout his life. For his service George was awarded four medals: the ’39-45 Star, Pacific Star, Service Medal and Air Force Medal.

After the war ended and George returned to Australia a veteran, he met Maude Tongerie (née Arckaringa), his lifelong wife and partner who had also grown up at Colebrook from age nine, a few years younger than George. The couple married and applied for a war service home, moving to Enfield amongst other returned servicemen and their families, into what would become their lifelong family home in Adelaide.

In the 1960s George and Maude both became involved in the Aboriginal Progress Association, holding meetings in the homes of members including Auntie Gladys Elphick, Aileen Cooper, John Moriarty and Vince Copley. From here they formed the Aboriginal Women’s Council, which later became the Aboriginal Council of South Australia and the Aboriginal Community Centre, where many people collaborated in the establishment of other community organisations including the Aboriginal Medical and Child Care Centres, and the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement. George was a founding member of the Aboriginal Community Centre and its inaugural Chairperson in 1978-79, as well as a member of the Council for Education, Planning and Research, and a founding member of the South Australian Aboriginal Education Consultative Committee, then the National Education Committee, in George’s words: “just speaking out for the rights for education for our young people in the education system.”

In the early 1970s George had also accessed further education through the SA Institute of Technology, studying Community Development whilst working as a boilermaker-welder, which he did for twenty three years. He then worked for the Department for Community Welfare, with young people and families in the Port Adelaide area, before being awarded a scholarship to study community development in Fiji in 1979. He and Maude moved there for three months, studying and working with government and community on projects, before George travelled to Port Moresby and worked with young people for a further six months. When he returned, both George and Maude were motivated to continue working in community development, volunteering to transfer to Oodnadatta with the Department to establish “self-help welfare programs” with the local Aboriginal community. Oodnadatta had been abandoned by most non-Aboriginal residents and workers after the Ghan railway line had been rerouted away from the town, and government departments had transferred services to Coober Pedy. They initially went up for three months, finding a community facing serious issues and a lack of resources, and set about establishing programs to provide local employment and training, whilst cleaning up the main street, refurbishing houses and tackling the widespread alcohol dependence and hopelessness that was afflicting the community. Moving back to Oodnadatta also ultimately gave George the opportunity to reconnect with his extended family for the first time, initially through a chance meeting at Coober Pedy.

With support from the Aboriginal Development Commission, George assisted the community to purchase the hotel and the general store, to be run by managers appointed by an Aboriginal Board of Directors of which George was Chairperson. They implemented controls on alcohol purchases and trading hours, as well as transforming the hotel and employing staff in the kitchen to cook meals. George would remain as Chairperson of the Board of Directors for many years, returning to Oodnadatta to attend meetings, and monitoring the administration of the hotel and store.

They also created the Oodnadatta Aboriginal Housing Society, and set up a building training program with TAFE, where one of George and Maude’s sons, Michael, would teach his trade - carpentry and joinery - to local young men who would go on to run those programs for themselves.

In 1983 George was sworn in as a Justice of the Peace (JP), becoming one of only a handful of Aboriginal JP’s across the state, at a ceremony attended by most of the Oodnadatta community. In this capacity, he was often called to sit on the bench when the local court was in operation, and sought to administer the law in a way that benefitted the community, diverting young offenders from the prison system where he could, and emphasising community service and pathways to a better future.

By 1985 they had been living and working in Oodnadatta for five years, and George was named South Australian Aboriginal Person of the Year. George and Maude were both awarded Members of the Order of Australia in 1988, for “contributions to the Aboriginal Community,” and featured in the Australian Bicentennial Authority’s 1988 publication ‘Unsung Heroes &​ Heroines of Australia’ as the “Saviours of Oodnadatta.” Other acknowledgements of the couple’s contributions to the community from this era include the Special Merit Award from the Department for Community Development in 1988, the Equal Opportunity Achievement Award in 1992, and the Silent Achievers Award in 1993.

In the 1990s, now living back in Adelaide, George was appointed South Australia’s Aboriginal Ombudsman, making South Australia the only state to create this office following recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, and providing a service that had a significant impact on Aboriginal deaths in custody. George stayed in this role for decades, in addition to other appointments to the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and the Parole Board of Cavan Training Centre, on which he sat for over twenty years.

George was a member of the board of the Aboriginal Lands Trust from 1983, and its Chairman from 2001; and a Family Ambassador on the State Government Ministerial Advisory Committee from 1995 to 2002.

George also maintained involvement in veteran’s affairs, as the Vice President of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Veterans’ Association established by Prime Minister Paul Keating, and attending Anzac Day events every year. He was outspoken about the treatment of Aboriginal veterans from his era upon their return from war, speaking at the opening of the film ‘Forgotten Soldiers’ about the contributions of First Nations people in the Australian military, and attending a service at the South Australian War Memorial to commemorate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen and women during Reconciliation Week 2008, one day after the South Australian Government announced plans for the first Australian memorial for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander veterans in Adelaide.

George passed away in 2013, and is additionally remembered by those close as a devoted family man, who was always attending sports events and dance classes with the kids and grandkids.

Maude Tongerie (née Arckaringa) was an Arabana Elder born in 1928 near Marla Bore and Anna Creek, to Florrie Arckaringa and a man named Peterson that she never knew. Maude was raised by her grandparents and her mother on stations between Oodnadatta and Anna Creek along the old Ghan train line, with her brother Malcolm, until she was taken to Colebrook Home at Quorn around 1936. She would later move with the mission to Eden Hills due to drought in the far North, until she was sent out to work as a domestic at about age fourteen.

Maude’s soon to be husband George Tongerie also grew up at Colebrook, and after the Second World War ended and he returned home from New Guinea, they were married at the Uniting Church on Pirie St, when Maude was eighteen.

After living in shared housing with people they knew from church for a few years, George and Maude purchased a home in Enfield surrounded by other returned servicemen and their families - the very same house that Maude lives in today, and where George lived with her until he passed away in 2013.

Maude had three sons with George, all of whom went on to complete their qualifying certificates at school and get apprenticeships, in metal work, mechanics and carpentry-joinery.

In the 1950s Maude had been involved in the Aborigines’ Advancement League (AAL), and was part of the small group of Aboriginal activists, who decided to form the Aboriginal Progress Association in 1964, partly due to perceptions that the AAL was too dominated by non-Aboriginal voices. Maude was also involved in the formation of the Aboriginal Women’s Council at this time, attending night meetings whilst George looked after the children, and becoming Vice President, under the leadership of Auntie Gladys Elphick. Maude’s contribution to the Women’s Council (later the Aboriginal Council of South Australia), and the Aboriginal Community Centre that they established, was recognised with a life membership medal to the Community Centre in 1981, the only one to have been issued at that time with the exception of Gladys Elphick.

In the early 1960s Maude also took up the campaign for Constitutional change, travelling around the country in the lead up to the 1967 Referendum as a South Australian representative for the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), and appearing with Charlie Perkins on an ABC referendum panel, as well as working with many others on grassroots organising and fundraising.

Maude and George were both appointed to the board of advisors to the Aboriginal Aged Persons Homes Trust established in 1970, a charitable trust established by the Commonwealth Government to assist with the provision of housing and aged care for Aboriginal people.

In 1973 Maude started working for the Department of Community Welfare (DCW), working with social workers and providing counsel and advocacy for Aboriginal families in the juvenile court system, with a few others including Mona Tur and Bert Clark. After George was awarded a scholarship to pursue further community development training in Fiji, Maude took a hiatus and accompanied him, getting involved in community development projects as well, before returning to Australia and resuming her work with DCW, until moving to Oodnadatta to work with George again on rehabilitating what was at that time a highly dysfunctional and damaged community, partly as a result of the re-routing of the railway line. As Maude recalls, “the town had broken down, there was nothing left.”

They arrived in Oodnadatta as community workers in 1981, confronted with an appalling lack of infrastructure, dilapidated housing without plumbing, and pervasive alcoholism and hopelessness. They set to work immediately, creating an employment program in collaboration with TAFE so that they could train local Aboriginal people in the trades and skills required to fix up the community housing, whilst providing full employment. Maude’s grandson Shane recalls visiting the couple at Oodnadatta and being put to work collecting broken glass bottles and rubbish up and down the main street. Facing intransigence from the department, they generated media attention that saw George and Maude Tongerie and Oodnadatta in every paper in Australia, as well as some international coverage, and ultimately secured the resources they required to reconstruct Oodnadatta as a proud Aboriginal run community. By 1982 the community had purchased the hotel and the general store, with assistance from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Aboriginal Development Commission, curbing the flow of cheap alcohol and transforming the hotel into a vibrant and family friendly community hub, with oversight by an Aboriginal Board of Directors. They had also established the Oodnadatta Aboriginal Housing Society, which now owned and managed twenty one houses in Oodnadatta and Anna Creek with a staff of ten, and Maude organised a ‘homemaker service’, involving women from the community to cook lunchtime meals for the kids, mend quilts and curtains, and create packs of household items for families, as their homes were refurbished. Maude also created a vibrant community garden at the Oodnadatta Community Centre, supplying vegetables to the hotel kitchen and for their lunch program.

In 1983 Maude was appointed to a senior role on the board of the new SA Aboriginal Health Organisation, later to become the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia in 2001, along with Yvonne Agius, then Director of the Aboriginal Community Centre, and Peter Miller of the Far West Aboriginal Progress Association.

Maude and George were both awarded Members of the Order of Australia in 1988, for “contributions to the Aboriginal Community,” and featured in the Australian Bicentennial Authority’s 1988 publication ‘Unsung Heroes &​ Heroines of Australia’ as the “Saviours of Oodnadatta.” Reflecting on their work in Oodnadatta in that book, Maude is quoted: “In the end we feel that we were the privileged two - to be able to work with the people”, and noted the importance of providing the right education and training to local Aboriginal people to empower them to successfully manage their own communities.

Since returning from Oodnadatta to Adelaide for health reasons in 1987, Maude and George have maintained a close relationship to the community, not least due to their lifelong history with the region and family connections. They regularly visited for many years and continued to play a part in the maintenance of the community.

In addition to their contribution to Oodnadatta, Maude’s self-described proudest achievement, she was instrumental in the establishment of several other community services over the years, including the Aboriginal Medical Centre, the Aboriginal Child Care Centre, the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, and the Aboriginal Community College. She was also on the boards of the Australian Aboriginal Education Consultative Committee, and the Family and Community Development Grants Committee, from 1992 to ’93.

Other honours include: being made a Life Member of Nunkuwarrin Yunti in 1980, an Equal Opportunity Achievement Award in 1992, and an International Women’s Day Certificate of Community Service in 1993.

Joyce and Jean are two proud Wangkangurru, Yarluyandi sisters. Their other siblings are Danny, Grace, Jimmy, Harry, Ken, Maude, Jenny, Frances, Bob and Raylene. Their parents are Linda and Frank Crombie. Joyce was born in 1949 in Birdsville (Queensland) and now resides in Longreach. Jean was born in 1956 on Alton Downs Station (South Australia) and now resides in Birdsville.

Joyce and Jean started up their own business called Two Sisters Talking and through this have shared their language, artwork, and culture with many. They have published books, a Wangkangurru dictionary, designed dresses for the runway, done large-scale art installations, as well as numerous art exhibitions. Their goal is to pass on knowledge to the next generation and to inspire others to document their own language, culture, and stories.

Frank (born 1906) and Linda Crombie (born 1925) were married on Pandie Pandie Station (South Australia).

Frank, a Wangkangurru man, worked as a station hand, stockman, and fencer around the Birdsville area. Frank knew his country intimately and shared his knowledge with his family. Linda, a Wangkangurru Yarluyandi woman, worked alongside him on the station. She was the last of the Traditional Owners of that generation. She inherited spiritual healing powers from her father, Jimmy, who was a minparu (Cleverman).

Linda and Frank worked closely with the late linguist Luise Hercus starting from the 1960s to document language and culture. Linda appeared in films speaking language and sharing culture until her passing in 2010. Her children continue her legacy of passing on language, culture, and story.