May O'Brien
, 1933 - 2020
May Lorna O’ Brien was descended from the Wongutha people of the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. May was born to an Aboriginal mother and a non-Aboriginal father on Wongatha/Maduwongga traditional land, on Edjudina sheep and cattle station. In her early life on the station she often had to hide from government officials when they came to remove Aboriginal children from their families. At the age of six she was taken with her sister to the Mount Margaret Mission in West Australia. May describes the Mount Margaret Mission as a “a good place”, where she felt safe, and protected from being removed to the dreaded Moore River Settlement in W.A. to where children were taken away and never seen again. Taught by missionaries, May found learning was exciting, despite her sadness that her parents rarely visited their daughters. From an early age she aspired to be a teacher. May was sponsored by the Methodist Church in Kalgoorlie to attend Perth High School and went on to become the first Aboriginal woman in West Australia to earn a tertiary qualification and W.A.’s first Aboriginal teacher. She was a teacher for twenty five years, after which she worked for the Aboriginal Education Branch.
May L. O’Brien is recognised as an ambassador for Indigenous learning, having instigated the establishment of Aboriginal committees on education throughout W.A. She was awarded a British Empire Medal for her inspiring work as an educator. She is also known as an author of the Badudu series of children’s books and the Bawoo series of traditional teaching stories in bi-lingual text. The Legend of the Seven Sisters is dedicated “to the children of the original descendants of the Wongutha people who came from over the Eastern Goldfields to live at Mount Margaret Mission in Western Australia”.
Source:
Wynne, Emma, The Early life of May O’Brien, Radio Interview recorded by Bill Bunbury, 2006, ABC Local Radio (accessed: July 12, 2022).
Bio prepared by Margaret Bromley, University of New England, brom_ken@bigpond.net.au
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