We reached Hall’s Creek the next day, in time for the interview with Joan Farrington the following morning. She met us in the Council Chambers after the opening of the school extension.
She was extraordinary—tall, broad, and Black. She had a frizzy turban of white hair that sprung from her head like steel wool. She wore a long, red cotton skirt with threads of silver winding through it from waist to hem, and a vivid cobalt blue T-shirt. Her shoes were white runners, lightly dusted with red earth, and she wore them with red-and-white striped socks. Did she plan this outfit for the children at the school? I wondered.
Did she plan this outfit for the children at the school?Joan, as she asked us to call her, had raised her ten children with her husband in Hall’s Creek. She’d served for years
