Emma Jane Callaghan (28 February 1884 - 31 December 1979) was an Australian Aboriginal midwife, Indigenous rights/ activist supporter, nurse and Indigenous Culture Recorder.
Early life
Emma Foot was born a younger twin to Kathleen Sims of the Tharawal people and Willam Foot in La Perouse, New South Wales. At age thirteen although barely educated herself, Callaghan became a teacher within an Aboriginal settlement in Bellbrook, New South Wales.
Teaching and caring career
Emma lived on this settlement for twenty-five years alongside Retta Long helping with childbirth, birth registration, and the ill.
She was proficient in needlework and was also a translator of the Dhanggati language, the tongue of her first husband, Athol Callaghan's tribe, working with biblical tales. Her new home in Armidale was later visited by Ellen Kent Hughes. In the same year as her second husband, Henry James Cook's death, she met Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. She died in Randwick, New South Wales, aged 95.
Commemoration
In 1985 Callaghan's home was preserved by the State government.
In November 2023 it was announced that Callaghan was one of eight women chosen to be commemorated in the second round of blue plaques sponsored by the Government of New South Wales alongside, among others, Kathleen Butler, godmother of Sydney Harbour Bridge; Susan Katherina Schardt; Dorothy Drain, one of Australia's first female war correspondents; writer Charmian Clift; Pearl Mary Gibbs, an Aboriginal rights movement activist; and charity worker Grace Emily Munro.
References
- "Life Summary - Emma Jane Callaghan - Indigenous Australia". ia.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
- "An Australian heroine". Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982). 24 April 1968. p. 7. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
- ^ Kelly, Shay Ann. "Callaghan, Emma Jane (1884–1979)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
- Power, Julie (19 November 2023). "The 'clever girl' who helped build the Harbour Bridge". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
- Plaques, Blue (20 November 2023). "New round of Blue Plaques recognises the stories of NSW". Blue Plaques. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
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