User:Pelagic/Incubator/Agnes Shea

Aunty Agnes Shea is an elder of the Ngunnawal tribe whose traditional land is around the Yass River, north of modern-day Canberra, the political capital of Australia. She has been prominent in performing welcome to country ceremonies in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and for official functions. A member of the United Ngunnawal Elders' Council and the ACT Heritage Council, she is the subject of a 2016 video documentary, Footprints on our Land.

Early life and education
Agnes Josephine Bulger was born 4 September 1931 at Oak Hill near Yass, New South Wales to mother Josephine Violet Bulger née Freeman (later known as Aunty Violet) and father Edward Walter Vincent Bulger. She identifies as Ngunnawal through her paternal grandmother, though her brother and parents are Wiradjuri.

At Oak Hill she lived in a gunje, which is a type of one-room hut with stringybark walls, galvanised iron roof and heated by an open fire. There was no running water or electricity In 1938, the family was moved to Hollywood Aboriginal Reserve, also called Hollywood Mission, on the other side of Yass. The housing at Hollywood had wooden floors, galvanised iron walls, cement water tanks, and separate bedrooms.

Agnes' father Vincent Bulger died suddenly on Christmas Eve 1939. Her mother Violet was given permission to do domestic work in town, but the family was eventually forced to leave the Reserve and came to live at "a place called Morton Avenue" about five kilometres from town. Agnes was schooled "from first class to third class" at Hollywood, walking to school when the family lived elsewhere, as Aboriginals were not permitted to use the bus service.

Marriage and family
Agnes married in 1947 to Ron (Ronald Joseph) Walker, a professional boxer and labourer who worked on the Burrinjuck Dam. In 1949 she gave birth to her first child, Mary, at Yass Hospital, one of the first three Aboriginal women to do so. The mothers were not permitted to cross a yellow line in the corridor that separated their ward from the white maternity ward and the rest of the hospital.

Ron Walker died in a shearing shed fire in 1952, leaving Agnes with three children. She later married Charles Shea, a non-indigenous man with a contracting business. Though more financially secure, she continued to take domestic work. With Charles she bore four more children.

Agnes' mother Aunty Violet Bulger passed away in 1993 at Red Hill, ACT, aged 92. Her brother Vincent (Vince) Bulger was the first winner of the annual New South Wales Premier's Senior's Achievement Award in 1997 and a founding member of Tumut Shire Aboriginal Liaison Committee. He he was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2007 and died in the same year.

As of 2013, Shea had 14 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. In her later life, she lives at Tuggeranong.

Community and ceremonial work
Shea is a founding member of the United Ngunnawal Elders Council, and was a member of the Advisory Board to ACT Health. She was involved in establishing the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm, originally funded to be a drug and alcohol treatment centre for indigenous people, which runs culturally appropriate prevention, education, lifestyle, and recovery programs.

She is a member of Journey of Healing ACT, an organisation that works toward reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous communities, and supports people who live with the effects of government policies that separated aboriginal children from their families, known as the stolen generations.

She has been active in giving speeches at Welcome to Country ceremonies in Canberra and at official functions, including for the Department of Defence, the University of Canberra and on Australia Day. In 2008, she welcomed the Olympic torch on its travel to Beijing: "I welcome the Olympic torch to Australia in the spirit of peace on behalf of my people, whose history in this place goes back to the beginning of time. May its stay here be one that symbolises good will for all mankind."

Honours and titles
As a tribal elder, Shea is referred to with the honorific "Aunty Agnes" both within and outside her extended kinship group. She was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in January 2004, for "service to Ngunnawal people by contributing to the improvement and development of services for the Indigenous people of the Australian Capital Territory and region". In 2017, she was named "Elder of the Year" at the ACT NAIDOC Awards.

Documentary video
Shea was the subject of a 2016 video documentary Footprints on Our Land, produced by the Tuggeranong Arts Centre and made by filmmaker Pat Fiske with Nevanka McKeon. The film debuted at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre in July 2016, was shown at the Canberra International Film Festival in October–November 2016, and has been broadcast on national television in Australia.