One day when Dorothy Mary Anne Warburton was in her later years, she was flicking through a magazine on adoption and said to her daughter:
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"My mum didn't want me when I was born. My foster parents didn't love me enough to keep me."
It was a defining moment for her daughter, Cherryl Donovan.
"It was very sad," Cherryl remembers.
First female to live to 100
It wasn't until her mum died and Cherryl decided to create an album in memory of her that she set out to uncover information about her life.
She didn't know in the process, her mum would make history as Western Australia's first female child migrant to Fairbridge, a former farm school in south west WA, to live to 100.
Dorothy was sent from England to work as a domestic worker when she was just a teenager.
"I had very little information about her start to life at the time," Cherryl recalls.
"I didn't even know when she was born.
"I didn't find out until I was in my late 20s that she had been sent out here by her foster parents - it was something she never talked about.
"I knew she had been sent out to Australia - but I didn't know when.
"I knew that she had lived at Fairbridge in Pinjarra on her arrival."
The extended family could not recall ever having seen a birth certificate, there was no record on Dorothy's driver's licence, passport, marriage certificate or in fact her death certificate.
Cherryl contacted the Old Fairbridgians Association and that's when things started falling into place.
The association helped her find out her mum had arrived at the Kingsley Fairbridge Farm School on July 8, 1930 at 12 years old with 23 other children.
They also found out Dorothy was born on September 20, 1918 and was in fact over 100 years old when she died on August 19, 2019.
Only Fairbridge child migrant males had achieved this milestone - George Westlake lived to 101 and Fred Sexton to 100 - making Dorothy the first female.
Just a case and a coat
When Cherryl visited Fairbridge Village in Pinjarra a few months ago, she found a photo of her mum with her case and coat.
"That's all she had," Cherryl thinks back.
"I felt very sad for them because my life was certainly a lot different to hers. There were never any hugs.
"She was quite strict and I can see why now.
"I asked her one day, what was it, and she said 'you had to cope otherwise you knew what would happen'."
Dorothy married in 1947, had three children including Cherryl and moved around between towns including Bridgetown, Harvey and Bunbury.
Plaque placed in memory
Dorothy's plaque was placed on the Southern Memorial Wall, adjacent to Fairbridge Chapel by Cherryl and other family members on January 20. Dorothy was a resident at Fairbridge when construction began on that chapel.
Two in five of more than 1550 child migrants who arrived at Kingsley Fairbridge Farm School in Pinjarra between 1913 and 1961 were women.
In March 1921 the third group of child migrants arrived at Pinjarra, which means next month it will be 100 years since their arrival.
The Association is keen to hear from former child migrants and their families who want to learn of the life of those family members who might have been child migrants and lived at Kingsley Fairbridge Farm School during the period 1913 - 1961. Contact fairbridgewa@gmail.com