German Missionaries in Australia

Saint Francis Xavier Mission for ‘half-caste’ children was an initiative of the Perth Archbishop Redmond Prendiville. It opened during World War II, when the Germans were under intensive scrutiny, and was supervised by a Board appointed by the Archbishop. ¹ Fr Scherzinger as rector arrived January 1944 and the first staff were three Brothers from Tardun, Paul Müller, Paul Ratajski (1944-48) and Richard Besenfelder and some Sisters from Broome.² Br. Hubert Beldermann, about whom little is recorded, also spent a period at Wandering during his service, mainly at Tardun from before World War II to 1970.

They were assisted by 24 Italian prisoners of war to help with clearing and building construction, and – a north-Italian specialty - preparing granite for the convent and orphanage. A 9,600-acre reserve 10 miles north of Wandering was declared and roads, bridges and culverts were constructed. The Pontificial Mission Aid Society provided financial aid to erect a temporary monastery, and acquire a pedigree stud of cattle. The boys were to be trained in woodwork, metalwork, plumbing, blacksmithing ‘and kindred crafts’.³ The first Aboriginal boy to arrive at the mission was Jack Jalgalli in March 1944, but it took some time to populate the dormitories.

In early 1946 Fr. Scherzinger was posted to Derby and Fr. Leo Hornung, now released from wartime banishment to the south, became rector at Wandering. By 1949 the fully staffed mission boasted three fully functioning kitchens, an orphanage, a convent, and a monastery, but there were hardly any students - altogether 14 people on the mission. This embarrassment was remedied with the transfer of 25 girls from Moore River settlement in November 1949.

The land around Narogin belonged to fringe-dwelling people Tindale referred to as Willmen, but the mission was focused on mixed-descent children from a wide catchment area. Br. Ratajski and Br. Hanke developed leprosy while working at Wandering mission and subsequently all Sisters were required to undergo six-monthly leprosy checks. The sisters taught reading, spelling, writing and singing. But they objected to being placed in charge of cooking for the whole mission staff. Sister Gertrude at Broome wrote to Father Stinton in 1949 pointing out that this had not been part of the agreement

‘Perhaps it would be better to get another community for Wandering. There is plenty of scope for the Sisters’ activities up in the Kimberleys and if Doctor Cook insists we are willing to withdraw from the south’.⁴

The recalcitrant St. John of God sisters were replaced by Italian Ursuline sisters who had just been deported from China. Arriving in Fremantle March 1953, only one of them could speak English. They were desperately unhappy at the mission and longed to join the Fremantle Italian community. They left within a year. A government school teacher, Mrs. Nancarrow, also resigned after only a few months at the mission stating tersely that ‘I am no longer able to respect the authority’.⁵

The Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, from a German Pallottine community, who had already been active at Tardun, replaced them in July 1953 and fared little better. When Sr Mary Aegidis took over the Wandering school attended by twenty children spread over four grades, she found that Fr Wellems had taken all the books, pads, reference and library books. Only desks were left in the school. After a few months of this non-cooperation Sr Aegidis took sick and another untrained teacher was sent to replace her, Sr Annunciata.⁶

In 1959 another state government teacher was sent, Mr. Keith Chesson, as principal of the tiny school. This introduced a situation where salaried employees worked alongside unpaid staff. Nailon writes that in a negotiation with the Archbishop in April 1960 Fr. Silvester achieved a rise in the fee for priests and brothers at Wandering from £700 to £900 per annum.⁷ Both of these figures sit well within the Australian average income in 1959. The sisters withdrew in 1961 and the convent was closed, requiring the government to send more (male) teachers but in 1963 the sisters agreed to teach the lower grades. In 1960 two government teachers instructed 19 children at the primary school.⁸ The first female government teacher arrived in 1968 with a thick Italian accent.⁹

In 1960 nine children from Wandering attended Boddington Junior high school.¹⁰ But high-achieving children could be removed further away:

any child at Wandering Mission who has outstanding or above academic ability, and is considered by the mission staff and the school teacher to possess sufficient force of character to face new situations, are sent at the completion of their primary schooling to the Pallottine Training Centre Rossmoyne for their secondary education.¹¹

Training at the mission provided ‘mixed farming and domestic work’. The District Officer suggested which ‘good homes’ required girls as domestics, and wanted to know which children had been discharged from school at age 16. Fr. Wellems headed off this intervention by saying that ‘in most cases’ the children had been discharged at their parents’ request. In 1960 three children were sent into employment and two to Rossmoyne.¹²

In 1966 Fr. Wellems went back to Germany ‘for a holiday’ and was replaced in 1967 by Fr. Allan Mithen, the first Australian rector. He introduced stricter policies in dealing with Aboriginal people, many of whom were working on the surrounding farms. There were to be ‘no handouts’, intoxicated adults would be turned away from the mission even if their children were in the school, and parents had to commit their children for permanent schooling, and were not allowed to pick children up when they were ready to move on, or send them in from afar by taxi or by police. ¹³

In 1968 two ‘family home units for native children’ were ceremoniously opened by Archibishop Prendiville. The idea was to allow siblings to stay together, and Nailon writes, somewhat precipitously,

‘These changes in the housing of children at Wandering demonstrated that general attitudes to Aborigines, their education and links to their families were changing. No longer could decisions, however well intentioned, be made on behalf of Aboriginal people.’¹⁴

Gallagher, who was a teacher there, writes that the sisters as ‘cottage mothers’ were unable to control the boys and sent them back to the dormitories, retaining only the girls in the cottages.¹⁵ As the department began to place greater emphasis on foster care the number of children transferred to the mission declined steadily, and removals to the mission ceased in 1973 due to public attitudes that condemned the separation of children from their parents.

Gallagher found his four years at the mission ‘the happiest and most rewarding years my family and I have spent anywhere.’¹⁶

Glenyse Ward’s autobiography Wandering Girl also expresses some positive sentiment about the girls’ relationships with the German Sisters at the mission: ‘the nuns were like real mums’.¹⁷ During her first Christmas off the mission she teamed up with another mission girl and

‘we both cried a bit, longing for the love and warmth we had experienced back in the mission. .... Then all of a sudden we both got the same idea. We’d walk up the hill and see if there were any nuns in town. If there was anyone who would have compassion, it would surely have to be the nuns.’¹⁸