Dorothy Hood (nee Harrison)

- known as Dora December 1895 to March 4, 1967

Dora Hood was a lovely looking, gracious woman who commanded great respect among her community.

Think about her life: relocated many times, living in a community of bark huts with dirt floors and few windows, no services like water or electricity, no transport and miles out of town.

A Wotjabaluk (Wergaia) woman, after losing her first husband, Dora and her children relocated several times, eventually to the Lake Tyers Mission where she met and married Kurnai man, Stuart Hood.

Marrying into the Kurnai culture meant Dora could no longer speak her language or practice her culture: she fully embraced and practised the Kurnai ways.

Stuart fetched Dora and family from Lake Tyers to live in his good-sized, handmade bark hut along the Labertouche Creek at the Jackson’s Track end of the Tonkin family property.

A thriving community sprang up around them, close to timber-felling work. At the centre of it, Dora laid down the rules, supported and taught the women how to prevent their families from being “taken” by white authorities by maintaining high standards of cleanliness across the community, while at the same time respecting traditional culture and the environment.

Having embraced Christianity, she was known as a bit of a Bible-basher, the Bible giving Dora a tangible and “approved code to live by to keep her family safe and together”.

Dora encouraged visiting church ministers who came to the Track for services, including Pastor Doug Nicholls, and in 1959, caught the train to Melbourne to the Billy Graham Christian Crusade.

Ever-watchful Dora’s leadership and strict standards laid the foundation on which the Jackson’s Track community survived for decades.