FAMILY BOND SECRET TO CATHY'S DREAM
02.11.1996
By TONY KOCH LOVE and a common devotion to the Baha'i faith are bonds which have held Cathy Freeman and her mother Celia Barber together.
Freeman, a silver medallist at the Atlanta Olympics, leaves this month to compete in Japan.
She has been staying with her mother in Brisbane during this most recent break from training and spent time encouraging her mother to tell the story of her own childhood.
"I love my mother very much and she's been a great inspiration to me,'' Freeman said.
"She's always been totally honest with me and at times critical,but I appreciate that now.
"It's really important that people get to know what people like Mum and her generation went through in their upbringing on places like Palm Island.
"It's an important part of Australian history that has never been taught _ about those Aboriginal children who were taken away and forced to live on communities.
"My mother is a very determined lady.''
Freeman said that when she was a little girl, her mother worked as a cleaner to get money to feed the family of five children.
She said her mother would speak about life on Palm Island at an international conference to be held in Toowoomba this month.
"Professor Gracelyn Smallwood organised everything and Mum's getting her material together,'' she said.
Mrs Barber said she left Palm Island when she was 17. She ended up at Woorabinda community outside Rockhampton, where she married champion footballer Norm Freeman.
He was known as ""twinkle toes'' because he was so fast and elusive on the football field.
"Nobody could catch Norm. That's obviously where Cath got her speed from,'' Mrs Barber said.
The couple had five children _ Gavin, Anne-Marie, Cathy, Norman and Garth. Norman died in 1993 of complications resulting from diabetes.
Mrs Barber, a quietly spoken woman, works as an outreach helper at the Wandarrah Neighbourhood Centre at Inala, helping Aborigines.
"There are so many non-Aboriginal people coming in now needing assistance too,'' she said.
"Things are pretty tough for some people, particularly with
unemployment.
"It is sad to see the anger that is being stirred up in Australia over racist remarks by one person.
""Aboriginal people are trying to put their past behind them and become part of society. Anger destroys the soul.''
Mrs Barber also said Aboriginal women had to be encouraged to really become part of society and their children had to gain self-esteem.
"Many thousands of Australians are devoted to securing stronger ties with people of different cultures, and Aboriginality is a really strong culture, she said.
"We all must be encouraged to appreciate and be part of the
multicultural world and share all views.''
Mrs Barber had a parting shot at Prime Minister John Howard who,she said, was "too slow'' in denouncing comments by Independent MP Pauline Hanson.
