Auntie Di to launch book about her life
An autobiographic book of Aunty Di O'Brien will be launched at Mingaletta Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation in Umina on July 5.
The book, Daughter of the River Country, is described as a memoir of survival and triumph.
Publisher Ms Benny Agius of Echo Publishing said the book told of how Auntie Di was taken from her aboriginal mother at birth and was raised believing her adoptive Irish mother, Val, was her birth mother.
Val promises Dianne that one day they will take a trip and she will 'tell her a secret', but before they get the chance Val dies.
Abandoned by her adoptive father, Dianne is raped at the age of 15, sentenced to Parramatta Girls Home and later forced to marry her rapist in order to keep her baby.
She goes on to endure horrific domestic violence at the hands of different partners, alcohol addiction and cruel betrayal by those closest to her.
At the age of 36, while raising her six children, Dianne learns she is aboriginal and that her great-grandfather was aboriginal activist William Cooper.
Leaving her traumatic past behind, she becomes a leader in her own right, vowing to help other stolen people like her.
SOURCE:
Social media, 9 Jun 2021
CWA Umina Beach