Mrs Ida Standley was the matron of the Bungalow, a corrugated iron shed on Parsons Street in Alice Springs which was designed to house part Aboriginal women and their children. Standley arrived in Alice Springs from South Australia in 1914 having taught at various stations and schools across the state. Originally appointed to instruct children of European families, she soon expanded her duties to include the education of part Aboriginal children for whom she created a special afternoon class. It was this passion for a more expansive education system that led to her appointment as the matron of The Bungalow.
The Bungalow was built in Alice Springs in 1914 during the prospecting days. As Judy Robinson writes: ‘ A number of disappointed miners, perhaps having no home to which to return and unwilling to face the road back, drifted into the settlement or headed towards other prospecting possibilities and some of them left behind Aboriginal concubines and part-coloured children. Without any means of support or anywhere to live, it was a problem the townspeople solved in the only way possible. They banded together in 1914 and constructed a large tin dwelling behind the Stuart Arms Hotel. As it nearly approximated a bungalow-type residence it was soon referred to as ‘the Bungalow’. Sometimes children were simply left there while their mothers went back to their former lives. This wasn’t as heartless as it would appear. Their part-coloured children were not wanted tribally because they were considered ‘wrong skin’ and as such a threat to generations of careful reproduction. They were a contamination. There were instances of such children being ritually disposed of. [check] ‘The few Aboriginal women who stayed were given employment sweeping floors, attending to hotel laundry and watering local gardens in return for food and clothing…It was a satisfactory solution for all concerned until the children reached their early teens and their proximity to the hotel was deemed inappropriate. Nubile youngsters and boozing bachelors were an obvious recipe for disaster. In 1928 the ‘Bungalow’ was removed to an attractive out-of-town site at Jay Creek some miles west of the town, where it remained for many years.’
Reference: Judy Robinson, Bushman of the Red Heart, Central Queensland University Press, 1999, p 13-14
