AustLit

Fred Reece was born on Bangate Station, near Lightning Ridge and Goodooga. Reece learned Yuwaalaraay as a young man and was a speaker of Ualarai language. His father was a non-Indigenous station employee who worked as a bookkeeper for the Langlow Parkers (q.v.). His mother who belonged to the Muruwari people, passed away on the station in 1927.

Later in Reece's life, Janet Mathews recorded many of his narratives for the then Insitute of Aboriginal Studies. Reece kept busy nearly all his life, by his 80s, he was working as a blacksmith for opal miners at Lightning Ridge.