Footprints to the Wimmera

‘Footprints: the journey of Lucy and Percy Pepper’’ is an exhibition by Public Record Office Victoria that uses public and family records to trace the lives of an Aboriginal family in country Victoria in the first half of the twentieth century.

 

Percy & his family, c1912, from the Watkins family

It focuses on the life of Percy Pepper. Missing two fingers following a work accident, Percy with his sick wife Lucy try to make a life for themselves and their seven children, while constantly on the move across Victoria in search of work. Deemed half-castes and thereby precluded from living on Aboriginal missions, the Peppers endured constant hardship.

Original letters, photographs and public records reveal a family plunged into poverty; their attempts to 'make good' and catch a break in white society frequently thwarted.

One of about 40 Aboriginal men who enlisted in the First World War, Percy fought in France where he sustained head wounds in a shell blast. Following his discharge he was one of the few Aboriginal soldiers to secure a soldier settlement block – and with it the hardships faced by many soldier settlers.

The Pepper family's generational story is one of hardship and resilience, of sorrow and loss – and a remarkable parable about the strength of family in the face of adversity.

The exhibition has special significance in the Wimmera, as Percy’s father Nathaniel Pepper had lived on the Ebenezer Mission at Antwerp. 
The ‘Footprints’ exhibition will be on display at the Dimboola Library and Dimb-E Shop in Lloyd street from Thursday 18^th till Tuesday 30^th September. 
An official opening will be held in the R.S.L. Hall in Lloyd Street on Wednesday 17^th September at 7pm. (RSVP to Dimboola Library Ph: 5391 4452 by 12th September)

Family via letters

Archival records can help people connect with their histories, trace the experiences of ancestors and learn about the times and places in which they lived.
Footprints: The journey of Lucy and Percy Pepper reveals the story of Lucy and Percy Pepper and their family. The book reveals through letters and correspondence how they were affected by laws and government policies that defined who was ‘Aboriginal’ and who was not. It chronicles their struggle to keep their extended family together, fight for Australia in World War I, make  good on a soldier settlement block in Gippsland, and survive ill health and poverty.

Lucy with her children - Gwendoline, Phillip, Alice, Sarah, Lena & Sam

This extraordinary story of the fight is told through correspondence between Percy and Lucy Pepper, government officials and Aboriginal administrators. The letters now form a part of the collections of the National Archives of Australia and Public Record Office Victoria, they were gathered together by Simon Flagg when he worked for PROV.
Through telling the story of the Peppers, the book  illustrates many of the issues that Aboriginal families faced in early twentieth-century Victoria.
This is an ebook in epub format and requires a compatible ebook reader application on a portable device (such as iPad, other tablet computer, Kindle or Kobo), or on a laptop or desktop PC, and is available for $9.95 from the Public Records Office
Don't wish to buy the book, just borrow it? then place a Hold on "Footprints"

Percy Pepper was the son of Nathaniel and Louise Pepper. Nathaniel had grown up on the Ebenezer Mission Station at Antwerp, before moving to the Ramahyuck Mission Station in Gippsland.

The headstone of Nathaniel's brother Phillip at Ebenezer