BOTANY: Friday morning, February 12. Following Trig Hill Road to the Anglican historical section at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park. Keith Gordon Douglass, a proud Gamilaroi man, a member of the Stolen Generation and a Forgotten Australian, has invited the SSH to join him for a memorial – the unveiling of a headstone to honour his father, Gordon Laurence Douglass, buried 70 years in an unmarked grave.
In 1951, aged 3, Keith witnessed the sudden death of his father. The intervening years had been a mix of grief, confusion and determination on Keith’s part. He had endured institutional “care”, separation from his Aboriginal mother, Jessie, and younger sister, Suzanne.
“Not only did I lose my father, but I lost my whole family,” Keith said. “I was put into a Church of England home for ‘half-caste’ boys [Millewa, Mulgoa]. I was there until I was 12. I had no visits from anyone. It was always a question of why because I had come from a large family – I had grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins. I know that my sister has been affected very deeply too.”
As a young man, Keith lived for a time with his sister, mother and step-father – in Bombala, Eden, Sydney and Darwin – as well as on the NSW mid-north coast. “I’ve always been nomadic,” Keith said. “I’ve done seasonal work and what have you. I tuna fished for about 25 years. I bought my own fishing vessels and big boats.”
The long process of ordering the headstone entailed Keith’s purchasing the plot at the cemetery. He, too, he explained, will be buried there.
Beneath his father’s name, Keith had the stonemasons inscribe in marble the name of his dear mother, his own name and the names of two sisters – quite recently having learned of an older sister, Carol Ann, who’d survived just a day in 1947. “She was somebody,” Keith said. “So now she has a place too.”
The Rev. Ian Fletcher, a minister from Kensington-Eastlakes Anglican Church, led graveside readings and prayers. Keith gave a short speech acknowledging the pain of family members deceased or absent, and the pain of those who’d failed to protect and comfort him: “My father’s memory was not to be honoured. And yet I would like to believe that his family held true to their family values.”
Keith added: “There are some things I’ll never understand. The White Australia Policy was just so terrible. There was trauma for everyone.
“The first time I saw the headstone I was still in my car,” he continued. “I could see it so clearly. I thought, it’s in place, it’s finished. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t believe it. I slumped over the steering wheel thinking, that’s just beautiful.”
