meaning "paperbark tree" and Noonuccal (also spelt Nunukul) being her people's name. Personal life and family Noonuccal was born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska on 3 November 1920 on North Stradbroke Island. She attended Dunwich State School and then became a domestic servant. On 8 May 1943 she married childhood friend and Brisbane waterside worker Bruce Walker at the Methodist Church, West End, Brisbane. The couple had one son Denis, but they later separated. She worked for Raphael and Phyllis Cilento and had a second son, Vivian Charles Walker, with the Cilentos' son Raphael junior, born in Brisbane in 1953. In 1970 Vivian won the first Aboriginal scholarship to attend the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and worked in the performing and visual arts. He lived and worked abroad for many years before returning to Australia, where his talent was fostered by the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust, which was established in 1988. In 1988 he adopted the Indigenous name Kabul Oodgeroo Noonuccal, kabul meaning carpet snake, and in the same year co-authored The Rainbow Serpent with his mother, for Expo 88. In March 1990 he directed the world premiere of Munjong, by Richard Walley, at the Victorian Arts Centre. He died on 20 February 1991. Oodgeroo Noonuccal died from cancer on 16 September 1993 at the Repatriation General Hospital at Greenslopes, Brisbane, aged 72 years and was buried at Moongalba on North Stradbroke Island. In culture A play has been written by Sam Watson entitled Oodgeroo: Bloodline to Country, based on Oodgeroo Noonuccal's real-life experience as an Aboriginal woman on board a flight hijacked by Palestinian terrorists on her way home from a committee meeting in Nigeria for the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture Noonuccal's poetry has been set to music by numerous composers, including Christopher Gordon, Clare Maclean, Stephen Leek, Andrew Ford, Paul Stanhope, Mary Mageau, and Joseph Twist. Recognition Oodgeroo won several literary awards, including the Mary Gilmore Medal (1970), the Jessie Litchfield Award (1975), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Award. She received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Macquarie University for her contribution to Australian literature in 1988. She was also made an honorary Doctor of the University by Griffith University in 1989, and was awarded a further honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 1991 by Monash University. In 1992, Oodgeroo Noonuccal received an honorary Doctorate from the Faculty of Education Queensland University