{"id":495,"date":"1998-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1998-05-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanuera.com\/cmwp\/?p=495"},"modified":"1998-05-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1998-05-01T00:00:00","slug":"freedom-fighter-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/?p=495","title":{"rendered":"Freedom fighter #5"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shirley Perry Smith (Mum Shirl) ~ 1924-1998<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

C<\/span>olleen Shirley Perry, tireless community worker, died on 28 April 1998 aged 73. Shirley was born on the Erambie Reserve, Cowra, of Wiradjuri descent. Born into a large family, young Shirley received great spiritual and moral guidance from her parents, Isabell and Joseph Perry, elders and grandparents.<\/p>\n

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Endowed with a prodigious memory and lively wit, she attended the Erambie Mission School, but her education was impaired by epilepsy, at a time when medication for the disease did not exist.<\/p>\n

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She moved with her family to Sydney in the mid 1930s.<\/p>\n

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Not long after the move, one of Shirley\u2019s brothers went to jail. Visiting her brother in jail would start a lifelong and tireless involvement in welfare work.<\/p>\n

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After his release, the NSW consorting laws prevented her brother from maintaining contact with his friends in jail, so Shirley continued the visits on his behalf.<\/p>\n

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Her nickname arose from her habit of replying, “I\u2019m his Mum”, whenever officials queried her relationship with the prisoners.<\/p>\n

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Eventually the authorities recognised the value of her support for prisoners and allowed her access to any prisoner she wished to visit.<\/p>\n

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Her caring continued beyond prisons, with many people with no family or friends in Sydney arriving at Mum Shirl\u2019s Redfern house seeking shelter.<\/p>\n

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By the early 1990s she had reared over 60 children.<\/p>\n

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In 1970, Shirley, along with Ken Brindle and Chicka and Elsa Dixon, were the guiding force behind a group of young Aboriginal men and women who were involved in the Gurindji campaign for land rights.<\/p>\n

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This same group helped to establish the Aboriginal Legal Service in 1971, the Aboriginal Medical Service in 1972, the Aboriginal Black Theatre, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the Aboriginal Children\u2019s Service, the Aboriginal Housing Company and the Detoxification Centre at Wiseman\u2019s Ferry.<\/p>\n

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Mum Shirl is survived by her daughter Beatrice, her sister Harriet and her brother Joe along with her grandchildren, great-grandchildren nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews and great, great nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n

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Source: http:\/\/www.kooriweb.org\/foley\/heroes\/mumshirl2.html<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shirley Perry Smith (Mum Shirl) ~ 1924-1998<\/h3>\n

Colleen Shirley Perry, tireless community worker, died on 28 April 1998 aged 73. Shirley was born on the Erambie Reserve, Cowra, of Wiradjuri descent. Born into a large family, young Shirley received great spiritual and moral guidance from her parents, Isabell and Joseph Perry, elders and grandparents.<\/p>\n

Endowed with a prodigious memory and lively wit, she attended the Erambie Mission School, but her education was impaired by epilepsy, at a time when medication for the disease did not exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mumshirl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}