Eileen Cummings has vivid memories of her time as a young girl at Croker Island Mission – where Aboriginal children were kept by the church in the 1940s and 50s after they'd been stolen from their homes.
One memory she's tried to bury stands out.
"We were all playing cricket on the big oval and it was down from the Superintendent's house … he'd watch us all the time," Ms Cummings recalls.
She was bowling when one of the boys threw the makeshift, splintered bat at her, cutting her foot open.
In playful retaliation, she turned around and knocked him with the ball.
Eyeing from afar, the Superintendent had watched the scene play out and called the pair over.
"He said to us 'Colin and Eileen, get here right now' … and he took us down to the storeroom and belted us with an electric cord," Ms Cumming said.
The beating left welts across her hands and legs.
"That was the worst experience I ever had … but other children had worse than me," Ms Cumming said.
Eileen remembers the day she was taken from her family
At just four-and-a-half years old, the Rembarrnga Ngalakan woman was separated from her mother and grandparents for 15 years after being forcibly removed by the government in 1948.
She remembers waving to her mother from the car window, the pieces not yet falling into place that she was being taken from Mainoru Station, in the heart of Arnhem Land, where she'd grown up among a loving family.
With dozens of other children – now known as the Stolen Generations — she was taken to the mission run by the church and the Commonwealth government on Croker Island, north of Darwin.
The forced removal was based on the government's assimilation policies, which claimed the lives of First Nations people would be improved if they became part of white society.
Nationally, it is estimated that as many as one in three Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families under these policies from 1910 to 1970.
"I didn't know where I was going or what was happening to me and those are the things that played a part in the trauma and the unhappiness," Ms Cummings said.
"We were forbidden to speak our language, we got beatings when we did something wrong.
"They were giving us medicines, you know, for different treatments … experimenting on us."
This 'dark period in history' won't be forgotten
All these years later, at age 79, Ms Cummings is among 12 abuse survivors to reach an out-of-court settlement against the Uniting Church and the Commonwealth for physical and sexual abuse suffered at Croker Island Mission.
It follows a $50 million class action settlement with the Commonwealth for descendants of the Stolen Generations in the NT and compensation through a government redress scheme.
Slater and Gordon abuse lawyer Chloe McEwan, who represented the 12 claimants, said they reached a confidential compensation settlement for sexual and physical abuse during the 1940s right through until the late 1960s.
"It's certainly a very dark period in Australia's history and not one that will ever be forgotten," she said.
"These people were taken from their families so long ago as children … and it's been decades and decades of loss and hurt for them so this is such a big moment.
"We hope that by having their difficult experiences shared and their voices heard [it] will bring about some healing."
Finally, Eileen has closure
It's been years of fighting for recognition for the thousands of survivors across Australia who are still alive today.
And while this final legal outcome will never repair a stolen childhood — or reconcile the years of suffering her now deceased mother endured – Ms Cummings said she finally has closure.
"At the beginning I didn't think we had a chance because people often said Croker was one of the best missions in the north, and when you think about it, it really was," she said, recalling that she never went hungry.
"But there were a lot of underlying things that nobody spoke about and I suppose for our closure it was best for us to actually talk about it and get it out in the open.
"The only thing I've always wanted from the government was for them to acknowledge and take responsibility for what they've done to us.
"And in some ways, they've taken responsibility."
Ms Cummings said that after years of suffering in silence, her and the claimants now feel they can move on after also receiving a private apology from the Commonwealth on May 16.
"We weren't looking for monetary gain, we were just looking for something to let us settle," Ms Cummings said.
"And I think we've gotten to that stage now … I'm happy.
"It's finally given us closure."
