The Lartelare Family Story has been documented in a VIDEO produced by the South Australian Maritime Museum and Le Fevre High School. Margaret and Kathleen Brodie discuss the Aboriginal social and cultural history of the Port, including the Lartelare matrilineal story handed down to four generations of Aboriginal women.
Please note: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be warned this video may contain images of individuals who have passed away).
“Our great-grandmother [Lartelare (Rebecca Spender)] got moved off [the CSR site near the banks of the Port River] in the 1840s. They basically went through Glanville to the fringe dwelling camps along the coastal line until she got to Colley Reserve, Glenelg and that’s where she gave birth to our grandmother [Laura].
If you’d like to see what Laura Glanville Spender looked like you’ll see in the national referendum picture – the Aboriginal woman with the cloak and the little baby on her back. She walked 200 kilometres to be one of the first Aboriginal women to vote in South Australia” (Margaret and Kathleen Brodie).
Lartelare Park is located at the Port Waterfront development.
As a child, Kaurna Elder Aunty Veronica Brodie [Margaret and Kathleen’s mother], would be taken to the riverbank site where Lartelare was born and Aunty Veronica's grandmother, Laura, would shake her fist at the family's dispossession. In 1995 the advent of Native Title rights and closure of the CSR Sugar Factory on the site gave Aunty Veronica the chance to reclaim her family's history. She lodged a formal claim that led finally to the creation of Lartelare in 2009.
Designed through close consultation with the Brodie family and members of the local community, Lartelare tells vivid stories that resonate across time, place and people. Combining art, history, nature and play, the park aims to keep an important oral tradition alive to create new stories for new generations, and to recognise the birthplace of Lartelare as a significant site for her family, the Port Adelaide Aboriginal community, the Kaurna people and culturally and historically for all Australians’ (https://www.cityofpae.sa.gov.au).
“[To me] Lartelare Park is recognition of Aboriginal people for our families – and educational for young people. I feel like we finally have something solid and concrete that gives us recognition” (Margaret Brodie).