My Inspirations Artist – M Henry European  Name Margaret Jean Chatfield Based: Cairns D O B -  18 / 02 / 53 Born: Normanton Portrait of Margaret Henry Portrait of Margaret Henry   My inspirations for me painting comes from both my mother and her aunt who were adopted as little children, both had a very hard working life on a cattle property for 34 yrs of their life, loved their adopted parents dearly but kept their dreaming stories alive by having each other to the end of their lives. Passing on to their life stories to their children. A need I feel to keep their stories.

I need to talk about my mother’s life first as they are my reasons for painting in the first place. My clan group is that of the “Kurtijar People” of which we are the tradional owners of Delta Downs.  My grandmother was taken off Delta Downs Station ( Morr Morr Station ) in 1918 which was my grandmother’s birthplace and where she lived all her life until she was taken away, my aunt Lilly was born in 1917 just below the homestead of Delta Downs in a hollow log which I believe still is there today, the property owners of Lotus Vale came in 1918 and took my grandmother to go and work as kitchen hand at Lotus Vale Station, my mother Alma Henry was born in 1919 on the banks of the Smithburne River , birthplace being a hollow log as well, most aboriginal women in those days made it tradition by using hollow logs to give birth. My grandmother name is Jessie Edwards and my  grandfather is  Bill Buckland and his  birthplace was Donors Hills Station. 

As small little girls, my mother being two and aunt was four at the time witnessed the drowning of their mother on the banks of the Smithburne River just below the homestead. My grandmother walked out onto a tree limb which layed in the river to pull her line out of the water, she tripped  and fell in an unable to swim became tangled in the weeds that were very thick and drowned from struggling to get free. The property owners then adopted those two little girls and their lives changed dramatically, firstly they lost their culture, were flogged if they dare speak language. 

So it was a new world for them, they now had an adopted brother and two sisters the same age, unfortunately they were not allowed to go to school as they got older they had too work from a very young age, scalping dingoes, killing pigs for their snouts , eagles so they would be handed to council of which never received payment, that went to the  property owners. As time went on and they became women in their thirties still being very dedicated to their step mother who still worked the property as an old woman, loving her for caring for them all these years, her family moving away much earlier to marry but those two grown women  just stayed by her side no matter what. 

Both women knew all there was to know about property life,  they  could do anything they asked them to do. Eventually they did marry in their late thirties and then moved to Normanton feeling very guilty for leaving their step mother behind but felt they had to have a life, as it was now or never, so both moved together. Both of these wonderful women never once held any animosity towards their step parents for the beltings with a whip which was a regular thing only loved then dearly, at the end of the day they were the ones by the step parents side if they needed help and not the blood children and that was to the very end, they did secretly have their dreaming stories of hunting and gathering with their parents but didn’t dare utter a word to anyone but only to each other and then to us as we got older.

In 1952 my Mother married my father Leslie Wilson Henry a World War II  Veteran moving to Normanton to live, my parents had three children of which I am the eldest, plus my two brothers Leslie John and Trevor William.
 

 
I lived in Normanton for most of my life, completed my schooling there, married there, then came my four beautiful children who all schooled in Normanton, then moving to Cairns to better their education. 

My family now all grown up, have moved on with their lives, but continue to inspire me today to continue painting, keeping my mother and aunts stories alive of our homelands and helping  others on their journey