Ada Gaden

Ada married Hazel Frederick Gaden in 1920 they travelled by boat to Darwin, to a live at Kopalgo homestead built by her father in 1880's. Here she raised five of her seven children and followed her husband Hazel on his buffalo shooting trails throughout the Alligator River region. Ada and her children moved to Darwin so the children could be educated and in 1942 during the Second World War they suffered the turmoil of evacuation and returned to the Territory as soon as the military authorities allowed them. She was always helping her Aboriginal and European friends and seldom a day went by that there was not somebody enjoying Ada's hospitality at their home where St John's College now stands. Ada never set time limits for her visitors and she on occasions assisted with marriage ceremonies held at the house where some of the mission girls were married in her garden and she made the wedding frock, provide a wedding cake and assist in organising a church wedding with a reception when the girls asked. Their house was used as a base for receiving medical treatment by visiting Aborigines from the bush when they were in Darwin and Ada with her knowledge of Aboriginal language picked up during her buffalo shooting days helped provide a communication link between medical practitioners and their patients.Pionee