Tom puertollano biography
Tom puertollano biography
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Filipino member of the poly-ethnic Kimberley community who facilitated the Catholic expansion on Dampier Peninsula and features strongly in the Kimberley mission history.
The founder of Lombadina mission.
Background
Thomas Puertollano was born in 1869 in Santa Cruz de Marindoque, son of Victoriano Puertollano and Barbara Pamfilo, grandchild of Gerson Puertollano and Turibia Vallumaris, both born in Santa Cruz.
His father died early and Thomas came to Australia as a 22-year old in 1891 to work in the pearling industry and signed up with Captain Reddel and Filomeno Rodriguez.1 It was just the time when the Catholic Church also arrived in the Kimberley, and revolutionary turmoil swelled the influx of Filipinos to northern Australia through the 1890s.
Both Rodriguez and Puertollano were deeply devoted to Catholicism.
Filomeno (or Francis) Rodriguez was born of a Filipino mother and a Spanish father and supported the growing Fi