Following the Spirit of the Yirdah Bird

Carol Pettersens Story

A story of the courage and determination of one woman to combat the tyranny of the White Australia Policy and survive.

Welcome to my story

This book is part of my journey of personal reconciliation, a journey of healing in many aspects of my life. It has taken me through stages of anger at government policies, sadness of society, elation of the reality and actualisation of a dream and then the final acceptance of my place in society. For me, this story places our family where we belong in the pages of the history of our people and our Country, our place and our land.

Our sister Roni Gray Forrest has emerged as our family historian, and to her we owe much of the material that I have called upon to support the telling of the wider story of my family.