Mercia Butler

Mercia Butler (24 December 1933 – 29 September 1990) was an Alawa woman born at Ngukurr in the Northern Territory and she spent much of her early life at various missions and institutions around the region including the Channel Island Leprosarium. She is a member of the Stolen Generations.

Butler went on to become a Catholic nun and part of the Indigenous order which was formed and based in Papua New Guinea. She later became a health worker in the Northern Territory after she left the order.

Biography

Butler was born at the Roper River Mission at, what is now known as, Ngukurr and was the youngest of five children born to Barnabas (also known as Gabarla) and Norah Roberts. Butler was originally named Mercy and it is unknown why her name was changed. Two of her brothers were Phillip Waipuldanya Roberts and Silas Ngulati Roberts.

Butler was then taken to the Bathurst Island Mission where she was told her family at Ngukurr did not want her. She never saw her mother again and Norah, who left the leprosarium after the Bombing of Darwin died elsewhere shortly afterwards and the family were never able to find her grave. She then spent the duration of the war and lived on a farm in Carrieton. and after the war she was returned to Pirlangimpi. While there she undertook a three-year maternal and child course and spent the next few years at isolation mission centres throughout the mountains. There she acted as a midwife and taught mothers how to better feed their children. In 1969, while employed by the hospital, Butler was sent to Daly River, alongside a nurse, to assist in the care of quadruplets that had been born to Mabel Mein-Bel at the hospital and then sent home to their community. This multiple birth garnered national attention in the media.

Some time later Butler visited her mothers family at Ngukurr and there married an Alawa man Herbert Butler who was a linesman based in Alice Springs. They moved together there were Butler had one child, a son called Richard. There Butler was able to undertake training as an enrolled nurse, nurses aid, and worked at the Alice Springs Hospital for a time before transferring to work in community health to be able to work more closely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients.

When Butler became unwell she was sent to Adelaide for treatment, accompanied by her husband, and died there on 29 September 1990.