The Waitara Mothers and Babies Home was closed and demolished in 1977.

In 1970, Lynda Holden, a young Aboriginal girl, was pregnant with her first child. She visited a doctor in Sydney. He didn’t ask what she wanted to do. He didn’t talk about support services or family help. He scribbled something on a piece of paper.

‘This is where you have to go,’ he said, handing Lynda the address of the Catholic Mothers and Babies Home in Waitara, Sydney. ‘The baby will be adopted out.’ In Lynda’s Aboriginal community ‘adoption’ had a completely different meaning. Lynda believed the people at the Home would help her with her pregnancy, birth and afterwards. As the months went by, however, she began to fear that something wasn’t quite right.

After giving birth the pressure started. ‘You are eighteen, unmarried and Aboriginal. You try to leave here and we will get the Welfare after you,’ they told her. Lynda resisted. They drugged her and took her baby away. Decades later, Lynda searched for her baby and found him. And then she found out about the lies the church had made up about her.

Lynda is the first Indigenous woman to sue the church over forced adoption, win, and tell her story. This is a harrowing story about one woman’s fight for justice for herself and the other women who lost their children to an inhumane system that saw hundreds of women deprived of their babies due to religious bigotry and conservative mores.

This extract describes what happened when Lynda returned to the Home to take her baby back.

I walked into the Home, feeling excited, knowing I was soon to hold my little boy in my arms and take him back to the place I had made home. Once again, I imagined the smiles on my parents faces when I would walk into the house carrying a baby. I imagined my siblings gathering round oohing and aahing over the new addition to the family. High on happiness I made my way up the steps of the Home and through the doors where I was greeted by one of the nuns.

‘I’ve come to get Eugene Daniel back,’ I said.

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ the nun informed me. ‘Eugene Daniel has been sent overseas. You’re too late.’

‘What?’ What do you mean?’

‘He’s gone overseas, to a good home.’

‘Overseas? Overseas? What? What do you mean? He’s not even in this country anymore? Is that what you’re telling me?

I felt sick. Sick with shock, sick with anxiety but in the back of my mind there was a sliver of a thought: This is a mistake. Someone has just made an error. It’ll be sorted out. It’s all right. My chest was thumping, and I felt a bit faint but the thought of it being a mistake kept me upright.

You’re too late. You’re too late. I wasn’t too late. It was impossible. Yes, there has been a mistake.

  • ‘You are at least six months pregnant,’ the doctor said. Burungaja. Pregnant. Burungaja. Our Aboriginal word for having a baby. He looked at me and said, ‘The baby will be adopted out.’ He pushed the note into my hand, saying, ‘This is where you have to go.’ He was the doctor. I was young, naive and did not have the foresight or maturity to even think to challenge or disagree with his instructions. If he said that was where I had to go, then that was where I had to go.

  • High on adrenalin, I made my way up the steps of the Home and knocked on the door, where I was greeted by Mother Superior. ‘I’ve come to get Eugene Daniel back,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ the nun informed me. ‘Eugene Daniel has been sent overseas. You’re too late.’ ‘What?’ What do you mean?’ ‘He’s gone overseas, to a good home.’ I stood for a few seconds, speechless. I felt like my legs were about to give way.

  • The nun tried to shut the door, but I put my weight against it and pushed. She told me to stop. I was wedged between the door jamb and the door panel, pushing and crying. I stood, immobilized, my head spinning. My legs turned to jelly, and I slumped down on the steps. I sat there for a while until I felt like I could stand up. I bashed on the door, screaming. Nobody came to help. I bashed and screamed and sobbed until I couldn’t speak properly.

  • ‘Mum, where’s David?’ ‘Not now, Lynda,’ Dad said. I found out from my relatives. David was never coming home. A childless woman who lived in Narrabri was desperate for an heir had contacted St Patricks. This was done without court orders and was completely illegal. ‘We need a son. You’ve got a lot of children already, and if you kick up a fuss, then we’ll report you to the Welfare,’ Mr King told my parents.

  • After meeting David, I decided to contact Clifford Kavanaugh, his adoptive father. I knew that Clifford had not seen his children since they were small. Clifford was really looking forward to meeting up with his sons, who he hadn’t seen since they were small children. ‘I’m over the moon about this,’ Clifford told me. ‘I want to reconnect with my children. I’ve often wondered what happened to them. There’s had been too much pain in the past, and I want to try and sought some of it out.’

  • I was happy in my marriage, and my family life was good. My career path was going well, but something was eating away inside. It was always there, deep down inside me. Nothing would push it down. Even with a happy, stable marriage and children, it was always there – the black hole that could never be filled. Something was missing, and I knew what it was. I couldn’t push the feelings down anymore. I had to find him. I had to know.

The Inspiration for This is Where You Have to Go

I met Lynda Holden some years ago. Lynda had just successfully sued the Catholic Church for the forced removal of her baby decades ago. Lynda wasn’t thinking about talking publicly about her experience, but as time went by, she decided that getting her story out might encourage other women to come forward and seek redress for the wrongs perpetrated against them. For several years, Lynda and I worked together, talking about what happened in 1970 and going through thousands of pages of legal documents (and quite a few red wines) to get her story down. Lynda wants other women, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to have a voice and, if they choose, to follow her lead in taking action against the institutions that took their children away because they were young and unmarried. Lynda has gone on to be an educator in Law and Midwifery and is a fierce advocate for injustice. I loved writing this book, and I hope, like Lynda, that it inspires others to come forward to redress the wrongs from the past.

An interview with Lynda is coming soon.

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