2011 - Theses - Flinders University

Forbes became the exile, living beyond the edges of the community, but those who knew saidthat wasn’t true, that Mrs. Forbes lived at the heart of the original Nepabunna community,from the days before the store and the church became the centre of things. She ‘was quitehappy to live by herself’, in the life she had chosen, and been accepted into, over twentyyears ago. 229 Amongst the ruins of that first Nepabunna settlement, hers was the only fire stillburning, sending its thin plume of smoke into the air, marking that older time. To theyoungsters of the community she had become ‘the old lady who lived over the hill’.But now Darrell was telling me she was moved from that place, and installed insteadunder the eye of the missionaries. I took the information in slowly as Darrell continued toreminisce about the kangaroo tails his family brought to her on their permitted visits, cookingthe tails in the ashes the way she liked. I tried to picture Mrs Forbes in sickness, and in acorrugated iron house by the church and mission buildings, out of sight of the creek, awayfrom the piles of stones that had been her neighbours homes, and too far away to heargrowling in the teddy bear tree.UAM Archives, Melbourne, 2003Bill Hathaway used a typewriter, bless him, and organized his weekly reports to PastorSamuels under familiar headings: Store, Medical, General, Mine, School, Church Building,Personal. Little was said of Mrs Forbes. It was slow going as I skimmed the typeface, until‘Forbes’ leapt off the page. There it was. One Friday, early in November 1955, Mrs. Forbesdidn’t come to the store at all. Brother Hathaway wrote to Pastor Samuels:The only serious case this week is old Mrs. Forbes. She has been ill for some time on andoff with dysentery and under the Flying Doctor has made good progress. When she did notcome to the store as usual on Friday my wife went over to see if she was all right andfound her in a state of semi-collapse on her bed. She was unable to walk and in a very161