Ruth Hegarty (born 1929, in Mitchell, Queensland) is an Aboriginal Elder and author.
Hegarty is well known for her non-fiction novels that document her personal history as one of the Stolen Generations. Her first book, Is That You, Ruthie?, is based on her experiences in the Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission where she lived until the age of 14. [1] Her second novel, Bittersweet Journey is the story of her early married life, her dealings with the Native Affairs Department, and her work in community politics and Indigenous organisations. [2]
Is That You, Ruthie? won the David Unaipon Award for Unpublished Indigenous Writer at the 1998 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards.
In 2010, Hegarty was a recipient of a prize at the Queensland Greats Awards. [3]
Hegarty and her mother, Ruby, were initially housed together in the dormitories at the Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission. When Hegarty was four years old, they were separated, when Ruby was sent away to work. [1] They only had intermittent contact from that time onwards.
At the settlement, Hegarty formed strong friendships with the other girls in the dormitories. They were constantly supervised, punished and whipped for minor misdemeanours. [4] The girls in the dormatory stayed together for support and for protection. There was no natural justice, just strict discipline and punishment. She states:
We got whipped from babyhood - there was no age, you just got it. And this is what we got whipped with [cat o'nine tails]. It was used in the prison at the time, and they were using it on us as children.
It isn't any different from a prison - it is exactly like it, except that we weren't inmates; we were children, and we'd done nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong at all. [4]
In 1943, Hegarty was sent away from the Cherbourg settlement to work as a domestic servant. Travelling to her new job, at the age of 14, she travelled alone for the first time in her life. She did not know the people she was travelling to work for and she felt very isolated and vulnerable.
In the 1960s, after accessing her records from Cherbourg, when she found that many of the letters she had written to her friends at the mission had not been delivered, Hegerty organised a reunion of the girls she grew up with at Cherbourg. [1]
Ruth married Joe Hegarty, whom she had known since childhood, and has a family of eight children. [5]
For more than 30 years, Hegarty has volunteered on community projects in the areas of youth and aged services. In 1998, she was awarded the Premier's Award for Queensland Seniors Year for her services to the community. [6] She is a founding member of Koobara Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Resource Centre.
In the 2007 Senate enquiry in Stolen Wages, [7] Hegerty was a member of the Queensland Stolen Wages Working Group.
Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award and nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, 1965 and 1967.
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a 2002 Australian drama film directed and produced by Phillip Noyce based on the 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It is loosely based on a true story concerning the author's mother Molly Craig, aunt Daisy Kadibil and cousin Gracie, who escaped from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, Western Australia, to return to their Aboriginal families, after being placed there in 1931. The film follows the Aboriginal girls as they walk for nine weeks along 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong, while being pursued by white law enforcement authorities and an Aboriginal tracker. The film illustrates the official child removal policy that existed in Australia between approximately 1905 and 1967. Its victims now are called the "Stolen Generations".
Oodgeroo Noonuccal ( UUD-gə-roo NOO-nə-kəl; born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, later Kath Walker was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.
Doris Pilkington Garimara, also known as Doris Pilkington, was an Aboriginal Australian author.
The Queensland Premier's Literary Awards were an Australian suite of literary awards inaugurated in 1999 and disestablished in 2012. It was one of the most generous suites of literary awards within Australia, with $225,000 in prize money across 14 categories with prizes up to $25,000 in some categories. The awards upon their establishment incorporated a number of pre-existing awards including the Steele Rudd Award for the best Australian collection of new short fiction and the David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writing.
Jerry Jerome was born at Jimbour Homestead, near Dalby.
Ruby Langford Ginibi was an acclaimed Bundjalung author, historian and lecturer on Aboriginal history, culture and politics.
Herbert Morsley Wharton is an Indigenous Australian former stockman turned writer. Wharton began publishing poetry and yarn-like novels in his fifties, for which he is now recognised internationally.
Judith Beveridge is a contemporary Australian poet, editor and academic. She is a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.
Samuel Wagan Watson is a contemporary Indigenous Australian poet.
Cherbourg, formerly known as Barambah, Barambah Aboriginal Settlement and Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement, is a rural town and locality in the Aboriginal Shire of Cherbourg, Queensland, Australia.
Judith Catherine Rodriguez was an Australian poet. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.
Kathryn Lomer is an Australian novelist, young adult novelist, short story writer and poet. She has also written for screen, with one short film credit to date.
Jacqueline Gail "Jackie" Huggins is an Aboriginal Australian author, historian, academic and advocate for the rights of Indigenous Australians. She is a Bidjara/Pitjara, Birri Gubba and Juru woman from Queensland.
Briony Stewart is an Australian writer and illustrator of children's books.
Kate Howarth is an Aboriginal Australian writer whose memoir Ten Hail Marys was published by the University of Queensland Press in 2010. The sequel, Settling Day, was published in 2015.
Jennifer Mills is an Australian novelist, short story writer and poet.
Molly Kelly was an Australian Martu Aboriginal woman, known for her escape from the Moore River Native Settlement in 1931 and subsequent 1,600 km (990 mi) trek home with her half-sister Daisy Kadibil and cousin Gracie Cross. She was a member of the Stolen Generations, who were part-white, part-Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families by the Australian government. Her story was the inspiration for the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence and the film Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Kieran Finnane is a journalist and writer based in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. She is one of the founding journalists of Alice Springs News and has written non-fiction books.
Aunty Jean Phillips is an Indigenous Australian elder and has been a senior Aboriginal Christian leader for over 60 years. She was born on the Aboriginal mission of Cherbourg, Queensland and later she served as an Aboriginal missionary herself with the Aborigines Inland Mission (AIM).
