27/05/2026
Kathleen Jean Mary WALKER was born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska on 3 November 1920 on North Stradbroke Island to Edward (Ted), an oysterman and his wife Lucy Ruska (nee McCulloch), of the Noonuccal people. Educated at Dunwich State School until she turned thirteen, she left schooling to become a domestic servant on the mainland.
At the age of 21 years (9 months), she enlisted in the Australian Military Forces on 28 July 1942, at the City Recruiting Depot in Brisbane. Her motivation to join up came after 2 of her brothers, Eric and Eddie, went missing in Malaya in April 1942. They had both been captured by the Japanese and as with most prisoners captured in the Asia-Pacific area, ended up at Changi. At her enlistment, her father was nominated as her next of kin and she nominated her permanent address as One Mile, Dunwich, Stradbroke Island.
During her time in the army, serving as a signaller, she met many black American soldiers, along with European Australians. These contacts helped build the base for her later advocacy work for Aboriginal rights. Whilst passionate about fairness, justice and respect, she was at heart a very gentle and peaceful person.
She married a childhood friend, Bruce Raymond Walker, a waterside worker, in late 1943. Walker was descended from the Logan and Albert River peoples near Brisbane. She was discharged from the Australian Women's Army Service in January 1944.
The couple had a son in 1947, Denis Walker but later separated. During her time working for the Cilento family at "Sieano" (on the corner of Villa Street and Ipswich Road, Annerley), she became pregnant with son, Vivian. His father, Raffael Cilento junior, never acknowledged paternity. Much later, Vivian changed his name at the same time as his mother (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), to Kabul Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
The 1960s saw Oodgeroo become heavily involved in civil rights and the Aboriginal activist movement, holding several public positions. She played a key role in the campaign to grant Aboriginal people full citizenship rights in the 1967 referendum.
As a poet, writer, educator, delegate and spokesperson for indigenous causes, she travelled widely internationally. In 1974 she was aboard a British Airways Flight that was hijacked by terrorists campaigning for Palestinian liberation. The hijackers shot a crew member and one passenger and forced the pilots to fly to play to several different African destinations. Oodgeroo somehow kept calm enough to use a blunt pencil and an airline sickbag to write two poems during the 3 day hostage period.
In 1987, in protest of the Australian Government's intention to celebrate the Australian Bicentenary (glossing over what had happened to Indigenous Australian over that period), she returned her 1970 Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and changed her name from Kath Walker to Oodgeroo (paperbark tree) Noonuccal (her people's name).
Oodgeroo Noonuccal died from cancer on 16 September 1993 at (then) Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital, aged 72. She was buried at Moongalba on North Stradbrook Island.
https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/769264
