Relinquished, Returned, Rejected

By Jackee Ashwin

On Monday, October 28, 1974, author Jackee Ashwin was with heavy heart and belly, no money for a bus ride and a long walk across town with suitcase in hand. She was heading for her final checkup with the doctor, forty weeks pregnant, swollen ankles, swollen fingers, and a waddle of which any duck would be proud. It was the day her son came into the world, and it would prove to be one of the saddest of her life.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, thousands of newborn children in Australia were taken from their mothers simply because the women werent married. The children were placed in other families, the women ridiculed and shamed. In Relinquished, Returned, Rejected, Ashwin tells her personal story of hiding the shame of her teenage pregnancy, the adoption, and the guilt that accompanied her throughout her life.

Spanning forty yearsfrom the foothills of Ben Lomond in Tasmania, an island state of Australia, to Cairns, Far North Queenslandthis memoir shares Ashwins heartbreaking story of losing her son to adoption as part of the stolen white generation and the joys of holding him in her arms as a thirty-eight-year-old man. The years in between found her dealing with still birth, a marriage breakdown, and mental resilience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781452531724

Jackee Ashwin

JACKEE ASHWIN lives in Brisbane. This is her debut book.

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RELINQUISHED,

RETURNED,

REJECTED

Jackee Ashwin

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Copyright © 2015 Jackee Ashwin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-3171-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-3172-4 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 11/04/2015

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgements

Part 1

Chapter 1   1955 - 1974

Chapter 2   The Pregnancy

Chapter 3   The Following Years

Chapter 4   Success

Chapter 5   Getting On With It

Chapter 6   A New Beginning

Chapter 7   Meeting a Soul Mate

Chapter 8   Online Support Group

Chapter 9   Arrival of Adoption Papers

Part 2: Returned

Chapter 10   20 June 2012

Chapter 11   Early Days

Chapter 12   First Meeting

Chapter 13   Day One

Chapter 14   Day Three, 1974 Revisited

Chapter 15   The Days Ahead

Chapter 16   September to November 2012

Chapter 17   My Son’s Visit

Chapter 18   2012 Christmas

Chapter 19   Moving House January 2013

Chapter 20   March 2013

Chapter 21   Home

Chapter 22   September - December 2013

Chapter 23   Arrival of Grand Daughter

Chapter 24   Early 2014

Chapter 25   Sydney June 2014

Part 3: Rejected

Chapter 26   Return Home

Chapter 27   On the Road to Rejection

Chapter 28   Moving Forward

Chapter 29   Days of Decisions

Chapter 30   Decision Made

Chapter 31   The Parcel

Chapter 32   Being an Adoptee

Chapter 33   Twelve Months On

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to every birth mother; birth father and baby who were sadly part of the stolen white generation between 1950 and 1980.

PREFACE

Monday 28th October 1974 loomed with heavy heart and belly, no money for a bus ride and a long walk across town with suitcase in hand. I was heading for my final checkup with the doctor, 40 weeks pregnant, swollen ankles, swollen fingers and a waddle of which any duck would be proud.

It was the day my son came into the world and would prove to be one of the saddest of my life. On this day, my son was to be given to another mother, another father, raised in another family and not by my choosing. Adoption authorities were about to step in, final papers were to be signed and apparently I was going to be better off and, more importantly, so too the baby because it deserved a better life. I was a single mother with very little say in how my life was to pan out.

In this era babies were torn from their mothers’ arms, a tale of terrible heartbreak society tried to forget, hundreds of thousands of mothers forced to give up their babies because they weren’t married. In 2012, in Australia, justice in the form of an apology finally eventuated. It did little to amend broken hearts, repair our souls or undo the crime committed. We are mothers of the stolen white generation; we were shamed, ridiculed and portrayed as naughty girls. The choice was never ours.

The cruellest heart ache any mother can feel is watching her baby being wheeled away to a hidden part of a hospital, the resonating sound of a wailing child being traversed along a cold corridor away from the warmth of its mother’s womb and invisible cord that links a mother and child for all eternity.

As so called relinquishing mothers we were marginalised by respectable society determined to stigmatise illegitimacy, our guilt stayed with us for all time.

This is my story

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Charmaine Williamson who helped me to find my son, and, who sadly passed without finding her own son.

Isabell Collins (an Adoptee) who helped me understand the other side of the coin.

Kerry Jessup, my very valued editor.

My husband who inspired me to write my story.

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

1955 - 1974

My life leading up to 1974 was not that of a young girl growing up in a normal loving family environment, quite the opposite. For reasons still unknown to me today in 2015, back in 1955 as a three week old baby girl, I first left home. I, along with my sister who was two at the time, were given to the neighbours who were living on the farm next door. Mum and Dad A took us under their wings, fed and clothed us along with their five daughters who were already in their late teens and early twenties.

My parents and two elder siblings were living on the next property situated in the foot hills of Ben Lomond, a popular snow-skiing attraction in the north of Tasmania.

Living long term with the non-biological family impacted greatly on my ability to have any kind of close relationship with my biological parents; it was always distanced and even awkward to some degree. The biological parental bond was never apparent. Looking back to those early years, it was as though I had two families, one side that were loving, kind and caring, the other I was somewhat distanced from. Leaving home so early meant I never grew up with any of my nine brothers and my other younger sister.

I do, however, consider myself lucky. My childhood was special and our second Mum and Dad A doted on both my sister and me. We were loved and always had beautiful home cooked meals. My family consisted of their daughters who, when they married and had their own children, would visit nearly every weekend. When their grandchildren came along, my sister and I felt like we were the big sisters and played endless games with them on the front lawn of their home. We were never known to this extended family as anything except Jack (me) and Bill (my sister). Our real names were very rarely spoken. I have no idea why this was so but that is just how it was. Coincidentally, if I caught up with any of that family today they would still call me Jackee.

Sadly, Dad A lost his sight in one eye due to a car accident. He was driving a Model T Ford and ran off the road. I was too young to remember the accident but he underwent surgery and the eye was removed and replaced with a glass replica. Over time, he lost sight in the remaining eye, meaning his days were downgraded from an active farmer to that of listening to the radio, and sitting for endless hours. As a young girl, my only chore was to escort him on a daily walk, and I became his eyes, telling him all I could see. I did this for many years; we would complete our three-mile return trek down the hill to see his sister, who lived at the back of a Bakery shop. After a cup of tea and a thick slice of warm bread straight from the oven, smothered in butter and jam, we would turn and head for home. He was a beautiful, gentle and caring soul; I still miss him dearly.

During these early years, I saw very little of my biological family because travel wasn’t as accessible as it is today. Dad A had sold his car after the accident, and wherever we ventured, we walked. My sister and I relied on our biological family visiting us, which was fairly infrequently.

As I reached my early teens, my biological family had relocated from the farm and was living in the city. I was attending high school in the midlands. During these high school years, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, I absolutely loved school, had a thirst for learning and hardly missed a day. I played competitive sport and most lunch breaks would see me training for either the midlands softball or netball clashes with other high schools. I held records in various running races for a few years after I left school, and for three years in a row was the senior girl cross-country champion.

Each Saturday, during winter in 1971 and in my final year 1972, I travelled to the city, participating in the rostered inter-high school netball. I can still remember, during those mornings at the netball courts, both before and after the game, I would look back towards the city, because just over the hill, no more than three kilometres away, were all my siblings. I was so close and yet so far. They never ventured over that hill to see me or to watch me play sport.

At the end of school term during my high school days and able to travel alone, I would catch the bus to visit the home of my bio-family for a short while. I enjoyed the summer holidays immensely, games with brothers and swimming at our favourite spot for hours on end. Towards the end of the holidays, I would be back on the bus, home to a much quieter life. Mum and Dad A were well into their seventies by this stage and thinking back to that time, it was quite a lonely existence for me. I was mid-teens and living with an elderly couple. The two homes and the two lifestyles were so vastly different.

In 1970, my sister left school, left our midland home and moved to live and work in the city. I was number four in a family of thirteen now living on my own. At the time I didn’t realise the impact this separation would have on me in years to come.

Scholastically I was very gifted and had a thirst for continual learning and I feel sure that because of the quiet evenings spent in the company of an elderly couple, I put more effort into study as there was very little to distract me. Mum and Dad A didn’t have a television. The only noise in the house happened each Saturday night when I would tune the old white radio to a particular station. We would listen to old-time music and the announcers calling the gypsy tap, progressive barn dance, the waltz and many more.

Not growing up and bonding closely with siblings during my early childhood, still impacts on my life. I remain somewhat distanced from them and prefer solitude to family gatherings, a sad reality. I get homesick for my island home and the distinctiveness of the island, of seeing familiar things and friends, but not so much for family. Sad but true and when I do visit, I rarely visit all my family.

CHAPTER 2

THE PREGNANCY

During my final year at school, I was one of four students from our school who won a scholarship to attend college that focused more for those wanting to pursue management and office work as a career. The scholarship was for attendance during 1973, which required me to move from the country to the city. At the end of the final secondary school year in 1972, I left my solitude and country life to become a city girl, moved and returned to the bio family fold.

For eight months I lived with my biological family and attended college during the day. I found the distraction at night over bearing and needed to retreat to the bedroom to find peace and quiet to do any study. Being home was very different for me; suddenly I had to be part of the washing-up team and the ironing team, help with meals and household chores every Saturday. This had all been done for me when I was growing up. I missed Mum and Dad A, missed the quiet life and more. I very much missed being spoilt like an only child. I suddenly had to participate in a family setting. This phase of my life was very foreign to me, in addition to me learning how to be part of a large family. It meant that there were siblings a lot younger than me vying for attention.

However, all this back to the fold and family life changed in August 1973. My father decided it was time to move back to the country, stating the younger boys needed space to run and grow and they couldn’t do that in a duplex house in inner city. He was finding being a brickies’ labourer difficult, having arthritis in many bones throughout his body, as the work was very labour intensive. He secured a position easily and the family packed up and moved to a property owned by a Midland grazing family. My father went back to farming, something that was always in his blood, along with his fondness for wide open spaces. The property was positioned between two little townships in the midlands country, about twenty kilometres from where I had grown up. His reasoning also was the boys could follow in his footsteps as they left school. He was right, because one by one that is exactly what they did. This life suited them.

But, for me, how ironic was this? I was now in the city alone again, except for my eldest sister. Two peas back in a pod. My siblings had moved and were attending the same school I had recently left and where I had spent some very lonely times. I felt life was unjust and again felt deserted. Why couldn’t this have happened years prior, even if I stayed with Mum and Dad A? At least I would have had some sort of relationship with my brothers and my other sister who was two-years behind me at school.

Unfortunately, this predicament meant my sister and I needed to find our own accommodation. She was working and I desperately wanted to complete my scholarship. Through the help of a close-family friend, we secured an apartment and we moved our meagre possessions into the empty kitchen. It was a three-roomed apartment and we shared a double bed. Thankfully it was furnished but, linen, towels and personal items needed to be purchased. Financially the situation was difficult and again without support from my parents. With the financial situation pretty grim, it quickly became evident that I had no other choice but to abandon my scholarship and find a job to boost my sister’s pay-packet, assisting the two of us to survive in the city.