Sealing Together What Was Torn Apart

Lorna Fejo’s earliest memories were of life in a Warumungu bush camp near Tennat Creek in northern Australia in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She remembered the feeling of love in her family and community and the joy of traditional dances around the campfire. And she remembered the day, at the age of about four, when Australian government officials raided the camp to remove her and the other children. Lorna remembered her mother clinging to the sides of the truck she and her siblings had been thrown into, weeping as her children were taken away.

As many as a third of Aboriginal children in that era were taken from their families as part of government assimilation programs. Lorna and her siblings were initially held at a government school but were then separated and parceled off to the care of different churches after the policy changed. At age 16 Lorna left the Methodist mission she’d been sent to and found work in Darwin. She found her brother but learned that their mother had died years before, still worrying about her lost children.

Though Aboriginal family roots were widely treated as a source of shame in that era, Lorna never forgot her love for her family. In 1973, when she joined the Church, she was excited about its emphasis on family history. After being given a four-generation chart, she traveled over 700 kilometers (430 miles) to the Elliott, Australia, area to visit with Aboriginal elders to understand and record her ancestry.

Lorna Fejo shows Elder Bruce C. Hafen the Australian Achiever Award she received in 2000 for her work with the Strong Women, Strong Babies, Strong Culture program.

Shortly after joining the Church, Lorna was working in the kitchen of a local hospital when she was selected to help the hospital more effectively communicate available health services to the indigenous community. In 1993 Lorna founded the Strong Women, Strong Babies, Strong Culture program to help Aboriginal communities gain better access to prenatal care.

Aboriginal people across Australia also found connection, hope, and healing through the restored gospel. In 1994 Lorna’s daughter Christine Fejo King organized a weeklong gathering at the Sydney temple for Aboriginal Latter-day Saints to share experiences and seal generations together. Lorna dedicated her life to serving in her community. Their experiences, in turn, helped bring greater healing and forgiveness to the nation. In 2008, while preparing to give a landmark speech apologizing for government policies that had torn apart Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met with Lorna Fejo and listened to her story. He then chose to share her experience with the nation in his speech. When Rudd asked Fejo what message she would want shared as he spoke about Australia’s “stolen generations,” she emphasized a simple truth. “Families—keeping them together is very important,” she said. “It’s a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations.”