Elfie Shiosaki
Hand on heart
Many Noongar parents wrote letters to Neville, pleading for the return of their children. Some children even wrote to him, pleading to be returned home. These letters restore some humanity to the inhumanity of those periods, a time of stolen children and stolen futures.
One of these histories belongs to my grandmother’s grandfather, Edward Harris. He campaigned for more than a decade, between 1915 and 1926, for the return of his four children, Lyndon, Grace, Connie and my great-grandmother Olive. Harris corresponded with Neville on numerous occasions. Often his emotions linger in his words, or in the handwriting, or in other marks on the page.