How long have you volunteered/worked at Bonegilla Migrant Experience?
Since October 2015
What do you enjoy most about volunteering/working here?
I have a love for social history. I am able to hear people’s stories, learn from them and share my knowledge. At times it can be very emotional and others utterly delightful. Apart from all that, when it is quiet at Bonegilla, it is just a wonderful, peaceful place to be.
What is your favourite story that has been shared with you from an ex-resident?
Probably two – one at each end of the spectrum. The time I gave a woman the usual introduction to the site and sent her off the watch the newsreel in the Beginning Place. A short time later, she rushed back to tell me that she had just seen her parents, who had since passed away, in the newsreel. The other time is about a woman who had been wandering around the site for more than two hours and had finally sat down in the shade, across from the Welcome Centre. It was hot and she sat there for quite some time, so I took a cup of water to her. She said, she finally understood why her father would never allow lamb to be eaten in her home. He passed away when she was 12, and now she was middle-aged. Food, especially ‘boiled mutton’ is a recurring theme amongst the people we meet and talk to.
Do you volunteer elsewhere in the community?
I have volunteered everywhere from several years as a Sea Scout leader when my children were young; six years as president of an Armoured Corps ex-service association, followed by two years as vice-president and 13 years as treasurer; four years as secretary of Wodonga Urban Landcare Network and I still volunteer in Lou Lieberman Park; treasurer of Wodonga Central Probus Club since 2016 and now secretary as well.
