Debesa: The Story of Frank and Katie Rodriguez by Cindy Solonec

Book Description

Secondhand. Near fine condition.

This extraordinary, heartfelt story chronicles the lives of the Rodriguez family at Debesa Station in the West Kimberley: their livelihood through difficult times, their love of family, place, and culture, and the challenges of day-to-day life on a small sheep station amid huge pastoral properties.

Spanning four generations from the 1880s when the author's maternal great-grandfather, Indian deckhand, Jimmy Casim, met and lived with Nigena woman, Lucy Muninga, on Yeeda Station near Derby, Debesa centres on the unlikely partnership of Cindy's parents: Frank Rodriguez, once a Benedictine novice monk from Spain, and Katie Fraser, who had been a novitiate in a very different sort of abbey - a convent for 'black' women at Beagle Bay Mission, 130 kilometres north of Broome.

Together, Frank and Katie Rodriguez established Debesa, where Cindy and her three siblings grew up with the rich cultural heritage of their Spanish, Nigena and English ancestors. Debesa is a sweeping social history of one family's struggles and triumphs set against the backdrop of the beauty of the West Kimberley. (back cover)

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers, please note that this book may contain descriptions and/or images of people who have passed away.