Molly Raymont
**Caution contains images of a person now deceased**
Molly Raymont - Knowledge of Language and Plants
Molly Raymont, who lived to be 102 years old and had a Birthday Card from the Prime Minister to mark the occasion. c.1950
Molly was wrongly accused of opium addiction in 1933 and picked up by the police to be sent to Mona Mona Mission with her husband Jimmy Brown,two of her four children (Emma and Harry) and other members of the tribe.
She, her husband and her son enabled several members of the tribe, including her daughter Emma, to escape from the watch-house and all three were sentenced to two months in jail in Townsville and then sent to Palm Island. Emma, who had been recaptured and sent to Mona Mona petitioned for her parents to join her and, after four years, the family was reunited. Emma married and was released from Mona Mona with her husband. However it was still several more years before Molly was released.
Molly went on to bring up her son's four children when their mother died, work with Prof. Dixon and scientists from the CSIRO to record some of the Ngadjon language and some of the tribe's enormous knowledge of rainforest plants and their uses, and to inspire her own people and many others lucky enough to have known her.
Photo courtesy of the Eacham Historical Society.