Aunty Marie’s Story

Meet Aunty Marie Pryor, a wife, mother, nana, great nana and a auntie to many.

A Whadjuk yorga, with ancestral ties to Ballardong and Gnaala Karla Boodja, Aunty Marie has lived a life dedicated to giving back to community. She’s also a mission survivor.

Originally from Boorloo, Aunty Marie moved to Canarvon at a young age with her family. Having both her mum and dad with her, she recalls her family not realising the welfare situation at the time, and how children were being taken away from their families.

It was in Carnarvon, both her and her newborn baby brother were taken away.

” I don’t recall the exact event, but I’ll never forget the sounds of my baby brother wailing… it’s a sound that is constantly ringing in my ears”.

After being taken, her bother and her were sent to Bennet House, where they waited for a permanent location at a mission. It was after a couple months they were both moved to Marribank Mission, just near Katanning.

” I grew up at the mission, and we all looked after one another, because we didn’t have our parents there”.

Aunty Marie left the mission in her teen years, where after she relocated to East Perth. She describes East Perth as a scary, but communal place, where everyone looked after one another, despite the poverty they were facing.

She went back to School, finished studying at at Perth Modern, travelled the world  and then decided to start undertaking a Aboriginal Health Public Health course at Marr Mooditj Training college for Aboriginal health workers, providing learning that integrated Aboriginal ways of healing with western medicine. She worked alongside Joan Winch, who took students across the country to rural communities and placed Aboriginal health back in Aboriginal hands through nurses and students.

After finishing up her course, another opportunity to work with mob presented itself to Aunty Marie. The Aboriginal Visitors Scheme (AVS) was established in the 1980s. It was developed as a direct response to the urgent need for support for Aboriginal people in custody, following the findings of the Western Australian Interim Inquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and Aunty Marie put her hand up for a role and got the job.

” I was working with other Aboriginal people, we would visit the men’s prisons, the women’s and the juvenile detention centres, we went to all the prisons. “.

Soon after a long stint as an AVS worker, she decided to put her public health training into use, after deciding she wanted to get back out into the community. Aunty Marie worked countless jobs, doing outreach work and rural work for mob across Western Australia both in clinics, on country and in the streets.

It was as a staff member at Derbal Yerrigan she first became acquainted with Wungening, and would go on to become an Elder in Residence later in life.

” I then started a role at WAALI ( Western Australia Aboriginal Leadership Institute) and I’ve been there ever since. We go out to prisons, we have girls in our leadership program, and for those who have been released we help them connect with their families “

” (Part of the reason) I’m still active today, out on the community helping all our mob, is because it’s up to us elders. Like we are the matriarchs of this country. We have to help the one’s who are struggling. You know what I mean? Not too many mission kids left mission that I went to. I’ve lost my brothers, my sister girls that was in the mission with me.

And I thought to myself, well, keep going and learning more and getting out there and just helping out more. Because like, like, you know, like with the genocide and the welfare, I start, I talk on that. I sit on the panel. I’ve been all around Australia talking about the impact its had on our people. And with all this intergenerational trauma that’s happening, it’s been passed down from the next generation to the next generation.

“So we have to fix that problem. You what I mean?”

Aunty Marie tells us she plans on staying to see the change through with a smile and a laugh. She reminds us of a journey she and so many Aboriginal people have undertaken against their will, but one that, in spite of all, they have conquered and reclaimed as their own. She and many others draw on their life experiences—both what has happened and what needs to change—to continue to advocate for their history, their people, and their community.

Today she continues her advocacy, serving as an Elder on multiple organisations across Boorloo including member of the Langford Aboriginal Association, member of the Cultural Advisory Committee for Ballardong, Wungening and a member of Nannas for Kids at Banksia Hill.

She was also the recipient of the WA’s 2022 NAIDOC THEME award “Get up! Stand up! Show up! for her work with homeless mob in the city.

To see Aunty Marie’s interview head to: LINK