Margaret Hawke, Ann’s mother, was taken from her parents as a child and placed in the Moore River Native Settlement known as Mogumber.  Both of Margaret’s parents, Ann’s grandparents, had also been taken and put into missions at an early age.  Ann’s grandmother, Polly Cox, was taken from Halls Creek and put into Moola Bulla Station.  Polly was considered to be “full-blood” and therefore “unable to assimilate by white society”. Ann’s grandfather, Joe Hawke, was a “half-caste” and was taken from Broome and put into Beagle Bay Mission.

After growing up at the mission, Margaret’s only options for work as an Aboriginal woman were as a nurse’s assistant or domestic cleaner for western families. Margaret worked as a domestic cleaner for a number of years and during that time birthed five children, of which Ann was the second. It is uncertain who fathered Margaret’s children however, it is believed they were men she worked for.

He spoke of how he would take Margaret to visit Sister Kate’s Children’s Home and watch Ann from a distance. He spoke of the extreme hurt Margaret had experienced living without her children.  On the other side of that fence, Ann was beginning her journey through the welfare system. Sister Kate’s was “a home for quarter-cast children”. The objective of the home was to house Aboriginal children and ready them for adoption by white families. As Ann explains, weekends were significant as this was the ‘show day’ where all the Aboriginal kids were made to stand in an enclosed area where visiting white people would walk around looking at them, deciding which one they wanted to take home. Ann recalls this might have been the only time they had a bath.

Ann was fostered by what she describes as “a good Christian family” and her surname was changed. While they clothed, fed and housed Ann, she knew she wasn’t fully accepted, and they were simply doing their duty to raise Ann as a Christian. Ann understands first-hand that fulfilling material needs is not enough to ensure the social-emotional wellbeing of children. She knows that without love and an understanding of their cultural identity or family connection, a child can feel completely lost and empty.

From a young age, Ann knew she was black and was proud of her Aboriginality. However, Ann was raised to believe that she had to be white to survive – that white people were better than black people.  As much as Ann’s cultural flame burned inside her, it was hard not to internalise the racism around her.

Ann’s eldest brother took his life at the age of 16 while living with his adopted family and sadly, Ann never got the chance to meet him.  Ann’s younger brother was adopted to Salvationists and grew up in Kalgoorlie and never reconnected with family other than Ann.  Ann’s younger sister was adopted by a Dutch family and taken to live in Holland.  She returned to Australia with her adoptive parents and found it challenging to reconnect with her Aboriginal family as she only identified as being Dutch.  Ann’s youngest sister was adopted out to farmers in Katanning and never reconnected with family.

Ann always wondered why her siblings struggled to reconnect with family and discovered that the difference between herself and them, was that she got to spend the first four years of her life bonding and attaching with family.  Without this attachment, Ann’s siblings were never able to achieve the same sense of belonging.