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Aged 95, Kevin Waters is the last surviving Gomeroi man born at the Old Toomelah Aboriginal mission. His life’s purpose now is to ensure his family remains connected to a culture they were once forced to forget.
Ron Waters throws a bag in the back of a LandCruiser before taking a call from his elderly father.
“We’re just loading up here now, and about to head down to you,” he says, with his phone on speaker.
“And grab my coffee,” a voice crackles back.
“And grab you a coffee on the way, yeah,” Ron replies.
Ron taps the phone, looks up and smiles.
“He’s ready to go, he’s ready to head to Toomelah,” Ron says.
This is a special day for the family. The Waters diaspora is gathering in St George, their hometown in south-west Queensland, readying themselves for a trip back through the country that has shaped their story.
They’re Gomeroi people, traditional owners of a huge expanse of land that overlaps Queensland and New South Wales.
Of Ron Waters’ 10 siblings, six have travelled to accompany their 95-year-old father, Kevin Waters, back to his country.
He’s one of the oldest elders in the district.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following story contains images of people who have died.
Kevin Waters soaks in the morning sun in a chair alongside his outdoor laundry. It’s a good vantage point to clock anyone who drives in.
His grandson Brendan soon pulls up in the Cruiser and delivers the cuppa.
“This is for you — two well-rounded sugars,” he says.
The banter begins.
“We couldn’t have picked a better day,” Brendan says.
“Nice and cool,” Kevin agrees.
Brendan’s now in his 40s and married, with two adult children. He’s worked hard, and still does, but this is what life is really about — being back out in St George around this family, and especially his Pop.
“It’s hard to get him to ourselves because you know what it’s like with big families,” he says.
“The stories just seem to flow when we get out on country.”
It’s not long before a pack of former rugby league halfbacks are gathered in the backyard. And there, amongst them, is Kevin, the “ball of muscle” himself, the original. A nickname older than most here.
One of Kevin’s middle sons, Lloyd says he was “only” a hooker, but still a ball player.
With his Akubra on, emu feathers tucked into the band, Kevin wheels himself to the car.
“Today we begin a return journey, to my old home grounds,” Kevin says as he buckles in.
The destination he’s taking them to is only a two-hour drive away, but it will deepen their connection to a story that began thousands of years ago: their story.
And he’s eager to get going.
The Cruiser backs out of the driveway.
“Meet you at the first pub,” Kevin shouts to the others through the window.
Nindigully
As instructed, they meet at the first pub. It’s the famous Nindigully Pub, and it’s part of the family’s history.
After leaving an Aboriginal mission in the 1930s, Kevin’s father brought his family of 10 to this tiny township.
Kevin recalls living in the “shed” his father built in the bush for them.
“We lived down near the river,” Kevin says. “We had hessian divisions for the rooms.”
In the following years, the family upgraded to a house. What’s left of it still stands in the middle of a paddock.
A “white” family used to live in it. But they left when their two sons who had gone to war never came home.
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“It was more comfortable, good wooden floor and all that,” Kevin says of the house.
“It had a good open front verandah.
“Mum always had a nice flower garden.”
Euraba
Then they’re back on the road heading south-east into New South Wales.
A couple of other cars join the convoy, with one of the younger elders from the area helping as a guide
The next stop is Euraba, one of the old Aboriginal reserves where the Waters family lived, near the tiny town of Boomi.
It looks like another part of the stock route next to the main road.
But it holds special significance for the family because it was here, on the banks of the nearby Whalan Creek, that Kevin’s father Don was born.
The convoy pulls up, and as everyone casts their eyes about, it’s clear no-one’s quite sure where the settlement used to be.
“See if you can see some old house stumps or rubbish of some sort,” Kevin instructs from the car.
Everyone gets out and starts walking around, eyes scanning the ground.
Bits of metal and glass have survived more than a century of weather.
There’s enthusiastic speculation about the story behind every object they find.
Euraba was a government-run reserve established in 1883, where Aboriginal people were forced to live.
An article in the national archives reports that approximately 51 people lived at the reserve in 1911.
“A number lived in roughly built huts,” it reads.
“The remainder slept in rudely constructed bush houses.”
Five of Kevin’s siblings were also born here, all delivered by Aboriginal midwives.
“Our grandmother, Mary Moody, or Annie Lang were the leading midwives back in our young days,” Kevin recalls with clarity.
As graziers and farmers expanded across Gomeroi land, families like the Waters were forced to live on reserves and missions, which were run by the church.
In 1927, Euraba was deemed unsuitable and the families were moved on.
Old Toomelah
The Waters convoy turns off the road into a private farm and drives between fallow paddocks. This high-value land, produces millions of dollars of grain and cotton annually for those who farm here now.
The vehicles turn right, drive through a gate, and come to a stop at a fenced-off area scattered with trees.
“Oh yeah, that’s it,” Kevin says.
Brendan pulls on the hand brake.
“That’s him, that’s all it is,” he says.
Kevin leads a procession line of his family through the long grass to a cemetery not far inside the fence.
“If you feel something heavy on your ankle, it’s only a big old king brown,” Kevin jokes dryly.
Another of his grandsons, Joey, asks about the headstones.
“King ‘Bungo’ Cubby is buried here,” Kevin says. His real name was Charles Cubby.
“And his wife was called the Queen, too.”
Among Aboriginal communities, some people were given breastplates and singled out as “kings” by white pastoralists, to assist in obtaining cooperation from local Aboriginal people.
“The white man trying to plant the importance of a king and queen onto Aboriginal people,” Kevin explains.
Kevin parks his walker on the edge of a cleared patch and sketches out a mud map, explaining where the old houses used to be.
His sons and grandsons gather sticks and sandalwood leaves for a smoking ceremony.
Advice is offered on the best way to get the small fire started.
Ron piles on the oily sandalwood leaves, creating a thick, fragrant, cloud of smoke.
Everyone goes quiet.
They wash themselves in smoke.
Kevin looks on as the mood shifts.
His grandson Brendan stands in the smoke, in a state of reflection and peace.
Kevin has fond childhood memories of growing up at Old Toomelah. Still, even as a kid, he also recalls the tension between the families and the non-Aboriginal managers of the mission.
“The government plan of the day was to try and break down the Aboriginal culture, especially the language,” Kevin says.
He remembers the old people sitting around smoking a pipe and drinking tea, talking in the “old lingo”.
“And then they’d see the schoolteachers coming, and someone would whisper, ‘Missionary coming’, and then they’d start talking in English,” he recalls.
It was a reality that never sat well with Kevin’s parents, Don and Grace.
“My father, I don’t know if it was the English blood in him, but he hated the control of the government over their lives,” Kevin says.
So the family piled into some old trucks and drove north into Queensland, to Nindigully.
Toomelah today
Within 10 years, the Aboriginal families at Old Toomelah were moved again.
This time to a site on the Macintyre River, south-east of Goondiwindi, that’s still called Toomelah.
Kevin and his family had already set out on their own and moved to Nindigully. But they remained deeply connected to Toomelah.
On the nearby river flats stands a giant old river gum with a big scar on the side of it.
“She’s a goodun, aye, unbelievable,” Kevin says to one of the local elders.
In 1938, Kevin’s great-grandfather, Charlie Dennison, and his sons cut a bark canoe from this same tree.
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There’s a video that anthropologist Norman Tindale recorded at the time.
In it, Charlie uses old stone wedges and an axe to remove a large piece of bark.
There’s a demonstration of the canoe on the river at the end.
Kevin’s children and grandchildren take turns photographing the scar tree — a living relic connecting them to generations of their forebears.
This towering gum tree has outlived their ancestors and may well outlive them.
The rounded scar made from Charlie’s axe seems to hold a part of the old man.
To a whitefella, it’s a mark on a tree. To the Gomeroi, it’s a living link to an ancient culture deep within.
Kevin wheels his walker over to the tree. He reaches out and rests his hand on the scar.
His head is down, and he becomes emotional.
“Thank you, thank you Grandad,” he says through tears.
Kevin grabs his walker and slowly makes his way back to the car. His son Gavin walks with him and pats him on the back.
“You right, ball of muscle?” he says to his dad.
The Waters family has been connected to this land for tens of thousands of years, and there’s something ongoing and powerful about places like this.
“When I touched it, I could feel it, and that’s why I just broke,” Kevin says.
“I could feel it, right through my very being, my great-grandfather.”
It’s not the first time Brendan Waters has visited the scar tree. But this time, there’s a different energy among the family group.
“It was pretty special seeing the emotion with old Pop, and having the whole mob here,” he says.
“It’s good to connect, you gotta take that time to get away from the noise.”
As the Waters family gradually packs up and heads off, there’s a sense that Kevin’s desire for the younger generations of his family to connect more deeply with this country has not been lost on anyone.
They might be driving away, but they’re not really leaving.
Credits
- Reporting, video and digital production: Nathan Morris
- Story editor: Rachel Kelly
