Row by Row

Carol Thompson built a quiet legacy of service on Thursday Island, turning up for her people with steadiness, humility, and a heart for the work. This is her story.

By Tom Hearn

The tide is low on Thursday Island, the sea pulled back just enough to expose the old stones along the shoreline. Carol Thompson sits beneath the shade of a beach almond tree, her feet planted in the sand, the breeze moving softly through the broad leaves above us. She has lived most of her life within walking distance of this beach. Even now, as she enters the final stages of her life and her health deteriorates, she is calm, practical, and fully present.

“I was never in too much of a hurry,” she says. “I always tried to do things properly though; it was how we were brought up”.

Carol tells me when she was a kid she ate her corn row by row. Never rushed. Never skipping ahead. It was a small habit, barely worth noticing at the time, but it became a pattern for her whole adult life. Methodical. Careful. Seeing things through.

Carol Anne McGrath was born on 3 January 1950 on Thursday Island, into a family where self-sufficiency was not an idea but a necessity, and where cultural identity, faith, and community responsibility were quietly lived rather than spoken about. She is Mualgal of the Siganilgal Tribe, with deep ancestral connections through her great-great-grandmother Iaga, her Moa Island lineage, and the long family line that followed.

Her cultural story carries many crossings. Iaga married Sam Geata, a Niue Islander also known as Bozi Savage. Their daughter Flora, later married a Singaporean man who came through the pearling industry as an indentured worker. From those unions came Jumula Aramina, and from her, Clara Eileen Dubbins, Carol’s mother. Each generation carried culture forward while adapting to changing worlds, holding Island identity alongside the realities of church, labour, and colonial systems.

Carol’s totems reflect the forces that shaped her life. Sigai, the flying fish. Waleku, the frilled neck lizard. Sager, the south-east trade winds. Movement, grounding, and endurance.

Her mother, Claire (Dubbins) McGrath, was first and foremost a housewife and great mum, and when her children grew up and left home, her focus turned heavily into volunteer work and she sold many raffle tickets for QATB in front of IBIS and was recognised for this work.  Before this, she was member of the Anglican Ladies Guild. And worked at both Anglican and Catholic Fetes. She later spent seventeen years as President of the Thursday Island Ladies Bowls Club and became a lifetime member.  Hot dog selling, report writing, chair stacking and floor mopping was all simply part of the community work that she performed whilst with different NGOs.

Carol was the only girl between two brothers. She learned early how to hold her own. She climbed trees, scraped knees, beat boys at marbles, and learned how to be observant without demanding attention. Life was full but ordered. Chores came before play. Firewood was chopped and stacked.  Water was pumped by hand ready for the evening shower.  Before the wet season, her father climbed inside the rainwater tank to scrub it clean. By five to five, children were home. Bath, dinner, washing up, bed by 8.30.

At fifteen, before her Junior exam results had even arrived, Carol’s father walked her into the Department of Native Affairs. She was offered a job on the spot. One week’s holiday, then straight to work. It was 5th December 1965. She would go on to work for more than fifty years across government and community organisations.

But it was never the paid work that defined her, although it was this work that assisted with the most part of her life.

It was the volunteering.

Carol’s voluntary work began in 1974 when she 24 years old and her last child was just ten months old. She used the cot in the tuckshop at Thursday Island State School and got on with the job. School fetes. Church fetes. Community events. Then football.

She joined Patrick Mills to help start the Wahmere football team in the late 1970s as their secretary, and in the early 1980s, she was asked by her Postmaster boss to join the Torres Strait Rugby League in an effort to involve more women. Every Saturday, she sold hot dogs at the oval with Treasurer and cousin Eddie Dubbins, then went home to help run the Wahmere barbecue with Maria Mills at their home. She lived next door. The secretarial work came naturally. She was a shorthand typist for years and had to do the minutes.

Community services in 1988 followed with Mura Kosker Sorority Inc. and Ellie Gaffney also drew her into becoming a member of NGOs e.g. Torres Strait Co-Op Society, Port Kennedy Assn Island and Star of the Sea Home for the Aged, where Carol was the secretary when the facility was built. Kailang Dorante asked her to help further the Lena Passi Women’s Shelter. They incorporated the organisation together. Romina Fujii asked her to work alongside her at Port Kennedy Association, where Carol remained from 1988 to 2015 when became very close friends. At its peak, with Romina at the helm and Carol as Vice, Port Kennedy ran seven programs and employed twenty-eight staff. Carol was on management when the hall was built, and on the night of the gala opening however, she was camping on the floor of the shelter office, doing voluntary night shift there.

“I never thought of it as volunteering,” Carol says. “It was just what you did…helping out. Someone had to do it.”

She worked closely with Regional Managers/Regional Directors within the Department, with Ana Bissett at the Island Coordinating Council, and with women who valued her ability to ask difficult questions. Romina Fujii once told her she needed Carol to “keep her honest”. Kailang Dorante said the same. Carol laughs when she repeats it and says she learnt a lot from these women and is proud to have carried on where they left off in. They just basically went full steam ahead.

“I was probably playing devil’s advocate,” she says. “But it helped them see things better and build stronger cases and find solutions to the community’s advantage.”

Carol raised her four children largely on her own. She worked full time, volunteered at night, and still showed up to school events and family responsibilities. Like the women before her, she believed in contributing quietly, without expectation of recognition.

That is why the awards surprised her.

In recent years, Carol received the Mura Kosker Sorority’s Woman of Inspiration Award. She has also received a Regional and Recognition Award for Volunteer Services through DATSIP, and nominated by the Regional Director of the Thursday Island office where she worked at the time, for recognising public servants and their volunteer work within their community.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” she says. “But it was nice to be acknowledged, and if someone says thank you, it’s a sign of appreciation and gives you feedback which in turn encourages you to continue.”

She is quick to deflect attention.

“I don’t come with big aspirations,” she says. “Just filling a need within the community and finding satisfaction in doing so, especially with likeminded driven women.”

She has received quiet thanks too. From women who once stayed at the shelter. From people who remember her sitting with them, listening, strongly encouraging and helping them see another way forward.

After retiring in 2015, Carol was asked by her friend Romina to join the Torres Strait Aged Care Association. When Romina later passed away, Carol stepped into the role of Chair, not for recognition, but to ensure continuity and stability for Elders who relied on the service. Even as we write this story together, Carol is still working closely with the Business Manager, helping guide the organisation through change, always focused on supporting older people to live healthy, dignified and joyful lives. She still believes strongly in encouraging inner strength, self worth and laughter, and in making sure there is still room for fun along the way.

Her life mirrors Thursday Island itself. Layered. Multicultural. Built on relationships. Filipina, Irish, Portugese, English, PNG, South Pacific, Singapore and Torres Strait Islander ancestry woven together. Anglican discipline alongside Catholic ritual. Community shaped not by policy, but by people.

Now, as she prepares for the end of her life, Carol approaches it the same way she approached everything else. Practically. Calmly. Row by row.

“A big hope for me,” she says quietly, “is that I can inspire young women to take up voluntary work. To understand what it gives you, not just what you give.”  

She pauses.

“It feels good to give without expecting anything in return and really rewarding to know when you have been able to help others. And you get to meet so many people and end up with a rather large network, which helps with this type of work”

Sitting beside her on the beach, it becomes clear that Carol’s legacy is not any single organisation or award. It is a way of living. A reminder that a good heart is not just saying – but doing as well and enjoying it along the way. Now, with her health declining and her days quieter, Carol approaches this season of life the same way she approached everything else, practically, calmly, row by row.

For the next generation, her invitation is simple.

Volunteer.
Turn up.
Do the work.
Eat the corn…row by row.