Blencowe, Ian --- "Stirrings: Colebrook Home Memorial" [1998] IndigLawB 76; (1998) 4(15) Indigenous Law Bulletin 18

• Colebrook Home Memorial
• Reference

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Colebrook Home Memorial

by Ian Blencowe

A memorial commemorating members of the StolenGeneration who were taken to Colebrook Training Home in the Adelaide Hills was unveiled recently by Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue, former ATSIC Chairperson and herself a former Colebrook Home child. Thousands of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, including many of the original Colebrook Home children gathered at the site of the old Home on 31 May 1998 to celebrate the unveiling of the memorial, which was designed and created by artists Sylvio Apponyi, Sheree Rankine, Kunyi McInerney and Jane Pole.

Called `Fountain of Tears', the monument acknowledges the many Aboriginal children who were taken from their families under government policies of the time. The two metre tall black granite sculpture is carved with the faces of Aboriginal parents, and is situated in the centre of a rocky pool. An empty coolamon (baby carrier) fills with water, which then runs down over their faces.

Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue said of the memorial, 'We are recognising the tears shed by the mothers, and there begins the healing.' Mr Mike Brown, a member of the local Blackwood Reconciliation Group, said that the memorial was more than men and women in stone and bronze; 'It's a living memorial - a memorial to new relationships between us as Australians.'

The Fountain of Tears is the first stage of an ongoing memorial project planned by the Colebrook Tji Tji Tjuta Dreaming Committee, with assistance from the Blackwood Reconciliation Group.

Later stages of the project will include information plaques and carved stones, leading the way to a wilytja shelter of red desert earth housing historical information and photographs of the `Stolen Generation' from across Australia. There will also be a campfire story-telling area. Bronze sculptures of three Colebrook children huddled together and a figure of the Grieving Mother, in recognition of the mothers whose children were taken away, will also form part of the next stage of the project. The aim of the memorial is to provide an artistically-appealing and dignified place of reflection for all Australians when considering the history of the forced removal of Aboriginal children.

To support the memorial project and ongoing research into Colebrook Home, the South Australian Museum is publishing a book by Ian Blencowe called Many Children of Colebrook Home: A Brief History of Colebrook Training Home from Oodnadatta, Quorn to Eden Hills, but this could be anywhere in Australia.

The book will be launched at the South Australian Museum in late October. Contact Ian Blencowe on [phone].

Ian Blencowe is Curatorial Officer in the Department of Anthropology at the South Australian Museum. Ian's mother lived at Colebrook Home with Ian's brother and sister. She was sent to Colebrook from Gerard Aboriginal Community in the Riverland region of South Australia to work as a domestic.

Reference

Walking Together, newsletter of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.