Sophie

d. 23/2/1950

Sophie was an Aboriginal child. She was accidentally killed on the 23rd February 1950. Police Constable Clair Bottroff came from Tarcoola to investigate her death. He wrote about his trip in a letter to his parents. He wrote:

I was expecting to submit a report on the child’s death to the Coroner and fix everything up on the spot. But when I arrived I found him ‘black out’ drunk, and the only other white man near there that night (the post master) was not much better.

I got the story of what happened mostly from the women folk. It happens that a black woman and her baby daughter about a year old went under a roof of an old dugout to get out of the heat. It is possible that the woman pulled against one of the posts supporting the roof, causing it to fall on her and the baby. She was half covered up with earth etc but was not injured: but the baby was struck on the head by a large stone and killed. The parents of the child left the vicinity as soon as the accident had happened as it is their custom, and I did not even see them.

The temperature in that dugout on Saturday as 110 degrees. I don’t know what it might have been outside.