Dear Daughts by Veronica Gorrie

Read this letter from Veronica Gorrie to her daughter Nayuka Gorrie about their pride in their heritage and the ongoing fight for justice.

Hey Daughts

I remember when you were a teenager and we were all seated around the dining table and I asked you to name 3 people you would like to have dinner with and you told me that one of them would be your great grandmother – Linda Edith Turner (nee Gorrie) who was born on Lake Tyers Aboriginal mission (now known as Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust) but this was not possible as Nanny had passed away in 1996 when you were only 6 years old. But if she were alive then, here is what I think a conversation with Nanny would have been like.

Nanny would have told you that she came from a long line of staunch black women. She would have told you that you should be so proud of your Aboriginality because you are a part of the oldest living culture in the world but she would have also told you that for a long time, long before you and I were born, our people were being killed and massacred by the settlers when they arrived and that our people were subjected to massacres, genocide, loss of land, loss of language and widespread dispossession.  

Nanny would have told you that you are a direct descendant of a survivor of a massacre– Charles Hammond and that the massacre site was at Brodbribb River in East Gippsland. 

Charles Hammond was only a young boy about five years old when he was captured. He couldn’t speak the language of the settlers. He did not understand when one of the stockmen asked him for his name, so they named him after a local station owner, Charles Hammond.

Nanny would have told you that she was glad that he survived because if he had not, then her ancestors, my ancestors, your ancestors would not have existed. 

Nanny would have also told you that the white men raped and tortured many of our women and children, and they came with diseases such as polio and tuberculosis which became an epidemic in our communities that wiped out many of our people, including our own family.

Nanny would have told you that when she was 8 years old, she nursed her brothers, sisters, her mother and father whilst they were dying from tuberculosis.  

Nanny would have told you that not long after her parents’ deaths, she was stolen from the mission and taken to Melbourne to a boys and girls home for unwanted children. 

Nanny would have told you that she was forced to live and work in white peoples home and hired as the housekeeper and that many times she ran away from the gubs but was always arrested by police and taken back to the boys and girls home for unwanted children.

She would have told you that this pattern continued until she found out she was pregnant, pregnant with your grandfather John Anthony Gorrie but as soon as she gave birth, welfare took him from her.

She would have told you that she fought long and hard for him, fighting the very same system that stole her and that this fight lasted almost 4 years but she was eventually reunited with her son and they lived back on Lake Tyers mission.

“But the most important thing Nanny would have told you is that our people, my people, your people have never had justice in this country – only injustices but for you to never give up the fight.”