On the day of her mother's funeral, Brisbane jounalist Amelia Oberhardt saw a photo that she had never seen before. It was a photo of her mom holding a baby with a young man standing beside her. What shocked her at that moment was that the baby was not Amelia and the young man was not Amelia's dad. Her friend, who helped organize the photos for the slideshow, thought that the photo was of Amelia's parents and her as a baby. When everybody else saw the photo, they were equally shocked.
"We both sort of at that moment, turned around and stared into the eyes of all the family and friends - their jaws were on the floor," Oberhardt told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations podcast. "Everyone was quite rattled by the photo and I could tell straight away, it wasn't meant to be there."
That day sparked a 12-year search for answers for Oberhardt about her mother's past. What had driven her mum to the alcohol addiction that killed her at just 56? And who was the man and the child in the photo?
Amelia's quest led her to a point in Australia's past that affected not only her mother but thousands of other women as well. Nikita Lee Fletcher of Mamamia takes us to that history and the truth that Amelia had uncovered in this surprising sequence of events that all began with the mysterious photo at her mother's funeral.
(Image credit: Amelia Oberhardt)