Pat Kopusar on Boarding in Perth in the 1950s

 

Native Welfare approached Mum. I went home from school one day and there was this white lady sitting in the tent with Mum. She told me who she was and this lady asked me did I want to go to school and they'd buy all my books and provide all my school clothes and they'd buy me shoes, I'd have shoes for school. By that time I'd moved into high school. I was lucky my big sister who lived in Perth had sent me this pair of shoes, so I had shoes to go, but they were a little bit big for me. I was embarrassed about it by then. So as soon as they said they'd buy me the school books and buy me the school uniform and I would be able to study and stuff like that, I said yes I'd go. 

 

I used to come top in the class, you know, I always beat the rest of the kids. Mum was really proud of me because, "Mmm," she'd say, "yes." The magistrate's daughter was in the same class with me, so that meant I was beating her. So my poor old mother, she was just so happy and pleased and proud. No matter where we came from, we still had the brains to excel. So that's why they asked me. So I came down and I had nothing. Then I got down to Alvan House in Mount Lawley. It was on the corner of Queens Crescent and Alvan Street. It was right opposite Bishop Hale's – he was a bishop, he was the Bishop of the North West. That's what Mum told me. I loved living there because they had a lot of Aboriginal girls there. They came from all around the South West. The lady in charge was good really. I didn't like her because when I came down she embarrassed me. Everybody – the big sisters would pass things down. So I had a case and I put everything they passed down [in it], but they didn't fit me. Instead of her understanding, she used to lift it up and say, "Well this is not much good is it?" and all that. So I didn't like her. But I loved being with all the other girls and I loved having all my school books. 

 

We had big rooms, like we'd have say four in one room and maybe four in another room and then there might be two in a small room. I don't know how many rooms, there must have been about five or six bedrooms and a big hallway and a front room and we'd have music there. There was a piano. One of the girls wanted to learn to play the piano, so she got the opportunity to learn to play the piano. There was another hostel over in West Perth and that was called McDonald House and that was boys who were brought down from the country for schooling as well, the same as us. We could invite them across for Saturday afternoon to play tennis. We'd have to get the tennis court, a big yard, we'd have to mow the lawn. We did all the work ourselves, which was fair enough. So we did the garden one week and around the big verandah one week before we went to school. Then if we wanted somebody to come over, like those boys to play tennis, that's what it was. They could come over and play tennis and we'd join them and we'd listen to music and then at a certain time they'd pack up and go home. That was good. 

 

I didn't know what to think about Perth because it was just so different. Different because I was used to the bush. I'd never been to Perth and I certainly hadn't been living with any white people, with a woman, a white woman, whatever she was; a carer. We had good food, we did all the cooking. Every task that was done in the house one of us girls did it. We had a young lady who was an Aboriginal cook. She was learning to be a chef, so we helped her in the kitchen, sometimes there'd be two of us and we'd do the washing up, so she wouldn't have to do the washing up. So it was really good you know; it was a good set-up really. I just didn't like the lady. We would take our lunch, so we always had our lunch and we made great friends with all the girls that had come from other places. 

 

They sent me to Girdlestone High School. I had the school uniform. We had to wear black stockings and lace-up shoes, with white blouses and ties. I did very well; I was top of the class down there too. I loved Girdlestone. It was a rickety old building, but it was lovely. It was completely all females, all the teachers, some were young, some were older. The headmistress was older. She was lovely too, they were all beautiful people. I played hockey, I loved hockey. I did English and bookkeeping, typing, shorthand and history. I can't remember the other lessons.  I loved history and sport. I was captain, I became head prefect of the school for my skills. I could do the school work; I used to come top of the class. All the girls thought we were wonderful; they'd want to hold our hand. We were like celebrities, you know. They were just so friendly and nice to us. We just didn't expect it, didn't expect it, you know, because we'd come from small towns where you were just like – no identity really, at all, some of the school kids would remember you from some class or somewhere.

 

My English teacher, she was a little old English lady. She just knew so much history and she was just so wise and so smart and she was so short. She was a lovely woman. I couldn't say anything about the teachers, they were lovely. So I did two years at that school, but I wanted to go home, and this is another reason why didn't like Alvan House, because they didn't really want me to go home because they knew conditions were hard and stuff like that.  But I wanted to go home and help my mother because she had no money.  So they organised a job down here for me.  In those days you just did what you were told when authorities – people like Native Welfare – because they were in charge of us.  They were the legal guardians of me, my Mum and Dad weren't.  Those days the Native Welfare – the Commissioner – he was my legal guardian.  So I ended up going for an interview to this place in Stirling Street.  That was called Graham Modes.  The owner of the shop or the factory was Graham Manoy, he was Jewish.  There was a little office up the top and down the bottom there was a little work place.  They did dresses, there was all these dressmakers, about four to five women, females, and a young girl like me she was, but she was training to do this dressmaking, but I used to do all the bookkeeping.

 

After I'd had this interview and I got the job I went back to see my mum and they booked me into the Girls' Friendly Society down in Adelaide Terrace.  That was good too.  There was a little old lady there who used to look after us, she was little and old - but she was in charge.  It was a two-storey place and they had little cubicles, just like that where you could have a single bed and over the other side – you could put your foot and rest on it, sitting on the bed – you could put your case there and your clothes in it there.  So it was just that little cubicle.  But it was fine, yes, I was brought up in a tent, so nothing was flash.  I wasn't worried about that.  It was really good.  The girls were lovely, all of the girls, not one wasn't friendly. Italians, Greeks I think. A lot of English.  

 

We attended a ball.  Tthe women in charge of Alvan House made the dresses.  I should have liked her, you know.  Her and her friend, I don't know, she made all those silk taffeta dresses.  We went to – it must have been the Governor's House.  It was in St George's Terrace.  It was a big building in land, with a big high fence still.  There was a big ballroom and I think just about every nationality was there; young people. So that was really good, we liked that. 

 

They sent us back home for the breaks you know – school breaks. May, I suppose, I can't remember, but two or three breaks and then Christmas time. Mum was always somewhere else.  They'd laugh because they were always giving me a ticket to go home on the train, but sometimes it would be Geraldton, sometimes it would be Meekatharra, sometimes it would be Magnet, sometimes it would be somewhere else.

 

Pat Kopusar interviewed by Heather Campbell, 2012

OH 201204 | City of Perth Cultural Collections