Mrs King is a feisty 89 year old who was born in Broken Hill and is a member of the stolen generations. At the age of 14 she was removed from her family and sent to the Cootamundra Girls Home where she was forced to stay for six years.
During her years at the home a young Lorraine was required to scrub floors and do loads and loads of ironing. Lorraine recalls that there were a number of Aboriginal girls at Cootamundra from all over NSW and that they were only allowed to write letters home once a month.
After spending 6 years at the home she was sent to work with a white family in Sydney.
Lorraine enjoyed her time in Sydney but the family to whom she was assigned did not treat her well so she ran away at the age of 20 to meet up with a brother who at the time was living in Carowra.
During her time in Carowra she earned a living by picking fruit in the district. After a while she was “discovered” as a runaway by police officers when she was actually “up a tree” picking fruit.
Lorraine was too old to be sent back to Cootamundra so the Manager of the Carowra Aboriginal mission gave her the train fare for her trip back to Menindee.
After returning to Menindee Lorraine spent a period of time before travelling to Lake Cargellico where she met and married Richard King in 1952 at the local police station.
Mrs King and Richard had four children, three boys and one daughter. She also had a son and daughter from her second marriage to Bill Williams.
Today Lorraine is the proud matriarch of the King extended family and remembers the days when paddle steamers used to travel the river and punts were used to ferry vehicles, horses and people across the Darling.
Mrs King had no formal education but knows how important a good education is in today’s society.
In spite of her limited schooling and having to live in shanties and tin humpies, Lorraine was determined not to let this experience limit her life choices and for a period of time she worked as the manager of a girl’s hostel in Broken Hill. Even though her eyes shared some of the pain, Mrs King said that no one will ever know what she had to go through as a young woman and she worries about young people in today’s fast world. “The kids have lost respect for their Elders and I feel sad about that”, she lamented.
A keen sportswoman, Lorraine competed as a golfer in the district until she was 73 and only surrendered her driver’s license when she was 85 years old.
Lorraine’s family members, who were present during this interview, nominated Lorraine as their unsung hero simply because she was so special and that she had always been there for them.
