By Jacqui Lang
Pictures: Paul Green
Her rags-to-riches story captured the attention of the nation 50 years ago. Woman's Day catches up with Joyce Blitner to find out why she turned her back on a life of wealth.
Fifty years ago, sweet-faced Aboriginal schoolgirl Joyce Blitner made national headlines — first for meeting the Queen Mother, then for being "adopted" by an ultra-wealthy Australian couple.
Joyce's incredible rags-to-riches story, entitled "The Aboriginal Cinderella", featured in
Woman's Day in 1958, when she was just 13 years old.
"I was chosen, along with a classmate, a white girl called Raylene Dumigan, to visit the Queen Mother when she toured Australia," recalls Joyce, 63, from the garden outside her modest home in the Northern Territory town of Katherine.
"We were flown to Sydney with a chaperone, had new clothes bought for us and taught to curtsy, then taken to The Lodge in Canberra for this grand function. I was a bit nervous, but she was a really nice old lady. We chatted for about five minutes."
But what followed a few weeks later was to turn Joyce's world on its head.
Half a century on, she still shakes her head at how her quick brush with royalty attracted the attention of a Melbourne couple, Veronica and Eric Tobias, who decided they wanted to adopt her.
"Mr and Mrs Tobias saw an article about me meeting the Queen Mother and they then came to Katherine, wanting to meet me," she explains, flashing the winning smile that features in the 1958
Woman's Day.
"They were about 50 years old and had no kids of their own and they said they wanted to give me some great opportunities. They asked me if I'd like to move to Melbourne with them, and go to school there. I thought this would be wonderful and said 'yes' straight away. My parents thought this could be a good thing for me, so they agreed."
Soon, Joyce found herself living in a mansion in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley. "They had a huge garden, with a gardener, and a TV, which I'd never seen before, as in 1958 TV hadn't yet got to Katherine — and a telephone, and lots of things I hadn't seen before," she recalls.
"The house was so grand, I'd never seen anything like it," Joyce recounts. "Mr and Mrs Tobias asked me to call them 'Aunty' and 'Uncle', but I never did. They were friendly and kind and I liked them very much. They were always wanting to buy me presents — whatever I wanted — but I never wanted anything in the shops."
Soon, Joyce was enrolled at Presbyterian Ladies' College in Burwood. "I was the only Aboriginal girl at the school. But that didn't worry me. I made lots of friends — and learned a lot."
As she relives her time in Melbourne, a dozen or so young family members seated around us chuckle in disbelief. "Gran never talks about this," says one, pointing at the old magazine, featuring a photo of Joyce beside the Rolls-Royce Mr Tobias would drive her about in.
"He tried to teach me to drive in it, but I refused," Joyce giggles. "I told him I'd prefer to learn in the gardener's truck, which I did."
On weekends, she recalls, "Mr and Mrs Tobias would get out the Rolls and take me to different towns around Victoria."
She vividly remembers the time they took her to a restaurant in the town of Shepparton, for lunch.
"We'd parked the Rolls down the hill and the three of us walked into the restaurant. But the manager looked at me and said, 'Sorry, we're full.' They weren't full. I knew it was because of me, because I was black.
"Mr Tobias was furious. He asked me and his wife to wait at the door and he went and got the Rolls and drove up to collect us, so they could see they'd offended someone who could have been a good customer."
Apart from that unpleasant incident, Joyce insists she never experienced discrimination.
"The friends of Mr and Mrs Tobias were very nice to me, and I had my own school friends. I had a wonderful time living with them, but after a while I started to feel really homesick, for Katherine and for my family there. My parents didn't own a telephone, so I was never able to speak to them, and I really missed them."
Though her carers told Joyce they wanted to formerly adopt her, if they raised the topic she would always change the subject.
"One day Mrs Tobias asked me about the future and I told her I missed Mum and Dad and my six brothers and sisters. I could see this really upset her, as she had come to see me as a daughter."
Three years went by, and the couple were in the process of building Joyce her own apartment at one end of their home, complete with sun terrace and grand piano, when one day Joyce woke up feeling so homesick, she knew her time in Melbourne was over.
"I told Mr and Mrs Tobias I wanted to go home to Katherine. I missed my life there too much!" she recalls. "They were very, very upset about this. But they let me go home straight away — and I was so happy!"
When Joyce walked into the home of her astonished parents, there were tears all around, and cries of joy.
"I continued my education in Darwin, 300 kilometres away, but on weekends would move home to stay with Mum and Dad," Joyce says.
"And I'd learned so much about the world thanks to Mr and Mrs Tobias. I could play guitar, I'd read lots of great books, I knew about fine fashion, and I'd met lots of great people."
But sadly, she would never see or hear from her benefactors again.
"I wrote to them a few times, but they never wrote back. They must have been hurt about my decision," she says.
"Later, I heard through a friend that they had both passed away. I was sorry I never saw them again."
"But I'm so glad I came home to Katherine, and my own family. This is where I belong!" she says, waving a hand at her extended family.
Joyce married a local butcher's assistant, David, at just 17, and they had five children — Edward, now 47, Sareena, 46, David, 43, Yasmin, 41 and Sidney, 36. Then, at 30, "I left my husband, and told him I needed to be independent. I worked at various stations as a cook and domestic helper, and David raised the kids without me. I reunited with all the kids when they got a bit older."
Six years ago, she began work as a cook at an aged care community in Katherine. In recent years she's been living with her boyfriend George Mudge, 56, a rubbish collector.
"We don't have much money, but we're so happy," she says. "In my spare time I love to play pokies at the local golf club, and just spend time with the family. I have 24 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. And my dad, Ted, is still alive; he's 97. There's always somebody popping over to visit."
Ask her how different her life would be had she chosen to remain in the Melbourne mansion all those years ago, and she rolls her eyes.
"I'd be very rich, that I know. But I wouldn't have the things I care about — these people who make my life special. I made the right decision. My life is perfect just as it is!"
For more of our diamond anniversary stories, see this week's
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