09/06/2026
Some stories are so important they deserve to be shared.
Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s life is not only a story of remarkable achievement—it is also a reminder of a difficult chapter in Australia’s history that continues to have impacts today.
As an Aboriginal child removed from her family at just two years of age, Dr O’Donoghue experienced firsthand the effects of policies that separated children from their families, communities, culture, language, and identity. Despite this, she became one of Australia’s most respected leaders and advocates, dedicating her life to improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
At Developing Ur Life, we recognise that reconciliation is not a destination but an ongoing commitment. Through the development of our Reconciliation Action Plan, we continue to reflect on how we can strengthen cultural safety, deepen our understanding of Australia’s history, and build meaningful relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, communities, and organisations.
Stories such as Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s remind us why this work matters.
They remind us that trauma can span generations, that identity and culture are fundamental to wellbeing, and that healing occurs when people are respected, heard, connected, and empowered.
As we read her story, we are reminded of the strength, resilience, wisdom, and leadership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the responsibility we all share in contributing to a more inclusive and reconciled Australia.
We encourage you to take the time to read and reflect on her remarkable journey.
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De Rose Hill Station. South Australia. August 1932.
A baby girl is born in the remote northwest of South Australia — in country so vast and ancient that the nearest town barely registers on a map. Her mother is a Yankunytjatjara woman named Lily. Her father is an Irish pastoralist named Tom O'Donoghue. He will never acknowledge her. She will never meet him.
Her birth is not registered. She has no official record. She simply exists — belonging entirely to her mother, her sisters, and her country.
She is given a name: Lowitja.
She is two years old when they come for her.
September 1934.
Under the policies of the South Australian Aborigines Protection Board, Lowitja — aged two — is removed from her mother and handed to missionaries at the Colebrook Children's Home in Quorn, in the Flinders Ranges. Her sisters Amy and Violet are taken with her. Her two older siblings are already there.
At Colebrook, the missionaries give her a new name: Lois.
They give her a new birth date: 1 August 1932.
They give her a new birthplace.
The children are forbidden from speaking their own language. They are forbidden from asking about their parents, their families, their country.
She will not see her mother again for thirty years.
What happened to Lowitja was not an accident or an emergency response. It was government policy — systematic, deliberate, enacted across Australia for decades. Aboriginal children were not removed for their protection. They were removed as a project of cultural destruction. The goal was assimilation: to eliminate Aboriginality within a generation or two, by separating children from everything that made them who they were.
The children of Colebrook were the experiment.
Adelaide. 1944–1952.
Lowitja attends primary school, then Unley Girls Technical High School. She earns her Intermediate Leaving Certificate in 1948. At sixteen, she leaves Colebrook and takes work as a domestic servant — because that is what the mission expects. Domestic service. A lifetime of cleaning other people's houses.
Lowitja has other plans.
She begins nurse training at the South Coast District Hospital in Victor Harbor. She completes her certificate in June 1952 — skilled, qualified, ready.
She applies to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The only major teaching hospital in the state.
The hospital writes back.
No.
The reason is her race. The Royal Adelaide does not accept Aboriginal trainees. This is not unusual. It is simply how things are.
The Fight. Early 1950s.
Lowitja is offered a way out. She can sign an official "exemption" — a document that would legally declare her to be not Aboriginal. With that paper signed, the doors open. The hospital accepts her.
She refuses.
"I was determined to find another way," she later says.
She joins the Aborigines' Advancement League. She campaigns. She lobbies politicians. She seeks a direct audience with the Premier of South Australia, Sir Thomas Playford, and puts her case to him face to face.
The Premier of the state listens to a young Aboriginal woman who will not accept no.
He supports her application.
1954. Royal Adelaide Hospital.
The hospital reverses its decision.
Lowitja O'Donoghue begins her nursing training — the first Aboriginal person in the institution's history to do so. She later describes the years that follow as defined by loneliness and racism. No mentors. No role models. No one who has done this before.
She stays for ten years.
By the time she leaves, she has risen to Charge Sister — one of the most senior nursing roles in the hospital.
The Decades That Follow.
She campaigns for the Yes vote in the 1967 Referendum — the vote that finally recognised Aboriginal people as citizens of their own country. She joins the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement. She rises to Regional Director of the SA Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
In 1990, she becomes the inaugural Chairperson of ATSIC — the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission — the most powerful Aboriginal representative body in Australian history. She serves for six years.
In 1992, she stands before the United Nations General Assembly — the first Aboriginal Australian ever to do so — during the launch of the International Year for Indigenous Peoples.
She receives the Order of Australia. Then a Companion of the Order of Australia. Honorary doctorates from universities across the country. A national health research institute carries her name.
On February 13, 2008, she stands beside Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as he delivers Australia's National Apology to the Stolen Generations — a formal acknowledgement by the government of the systematic removal of Aboriginal children.
Lowitja was one of those children.
She is seventy-five years old, standing in the Great Hall of Parliament House, watching her country finally say the words.
February 4, 2024.
Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue passes away in Adelaide, aged 91.
The little girl who was taken at two years old — whose name was replaced, whose birthday was invented, whose language was forbidden — died with her name fully and permanently restored to the world. She had changed it back herself, on her own terms, in her own time.
They tried to erase her before she was old enough to know her own name.
She spent ninety-one years making sure they didn't succeed.
