Wannyi Clan | Born 1980
Kelly Barclay
My name is Kelly Barclay, I grew up as a Wannyi women from the North Gunnalunja Region of
the Waanyi in the Lower Gulf of Carpentaria, my skin name is Nangalama and I’m a proud
mother to one daughter and one son.
WHO I AM: I was raised in Doomadgee, North West Qld, as Kelly Barclay after being taken
there by my first mum Natalie Barclay. I was then looked after by Waanyi, Garrawa and
Gangalidda families, the Ned, Aplin, Barclay families. Old mum Iris and old pa Christmas Ned,
their daughter and son-in-law, my mum and Dad Elma and Russell (Mookie) Aplin.
MY HISTORY: However my story starts in the Northern Territory, I was born in Darwin as Kelly
Baker to an Aboriginal woman Mary-Anne Baker and white father, David Patterson. I’ve never
met either of them, my mother has since died and I am yet to meet my father. I was never
aware of this fact until I was 15yrs old, when I was contacted by a family friend from Mataranka
NT and invited to my mother’s funeral. It wasn’t until I was 24 yrs old before my aunty and two
uncles tracked me down in Doomadgee and I was able to visit them. A year later I found out I
had one other sibling, my big brother Edward Baker, he found me in 2005 through our Baker
family and I travelled to Alice Springs to meet him for the first time that same year. I am so
grateful that I did, because part of me is now gone because he died in 2019.
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