Survivor is a word thrown around fairly lightly, but in the case of German migrant Frauke Bolten-Boshammer, you can't help but feel she's earned the title 10 times over.

Frauke has been many things in her life — a mother, farmer, immigrant, widow, diamond dealer and now author.

"Today I am thankful because of what happened in my life, I could handle. Sometimes it's very hard to accept what happened," she said.

Her life began just after the war in Germany. Her father, a farmer, was struggling to cope; a fact compounded by her mother's death from cancer when Frauke was two.

Tough love was the go-to coping mechanism and conditions were arduous. Even as a child she was expected to work in the fields and bring in crops in brutal and often freezing conditions.

Despite love being limited in her childhood, she eventually grew up and married a farmer named Friedrich — a dreamer with a wanderlust spirit that couldn't hold him in Germany.

It saw them move to what was then Rhodesia to farm, but that was still not quite adventurous enough.

Frauke's children Fritz and Margret in a field of soybeans in Kununurra. ( Supplied )

Moving to rural Australia

When a tiny town in northern West Australia came to his attention, Friedrich jumped at the chance to pioneer in an area where a huge man-made dam had just been built and riches were promised.

But for Frauke and her four babies, Kununurra was far from an instant fit.

Flying over when they first arrived, she was scathing of her assessment.

"I thought, 'Not an intelligent person can live here'. And I have eaten my thoughts so often because I have met so many highly educated, very nice and studied people here in Kununurra," she said.

"I just thought, it's so isolated. How can you live here?"

The family gathers at the old Kununurra Hospital, following the birth of Maria. ( Supplied )

They were the only German family in a tiny town in far northern Australia, which had few facilities.

For her husband Friedrich, there were other demons at play too.

"It is different to Germany. He was a very good farmer in Germany, he tried to find a good manager but nobody wanted to come to Kununurra, honestly," she said.

Grief and tragedy as pressure builds on farming family

His perceived lack of success became crippling, until it came to a head one night.

"I woke up and I checked straight away the guns and they were all there. So I thought no, it's fine. He's just getting up and sitting in his office and doing his book work, because by then the money side wasn't good either and I went back to sleep," Frauke said.

Friedrich in a family photo back in Germany, his widow Frauke has published a book about their lives before and after his death. ( Supplied )

"At 5:00am I woke up again and looked for him and then I found him. He must have hidden another gun somewhere.

"And I didn't know what my future was. I really did not know."

Widowed with four children and a 1,000-hectare farm to run, she thought often about moving back to Germany.

But at the heart of it she didn't want people to unfairly judge her husband for a sickness that he had little control over.

She also didn't want to give in and so harvested Frederick's last crop and ultimately held on to the farm, still in the family today.

She also grieved. Deeply and without reservation.

"You need to grieve deep... I think so many people do that wrong these days," she said.

New life and love for widowed woman

The wedding of Frauke and her second husband Robert. ( Supplied )

When a young strapping farmer wanted to borrow some gear, it would put into motion a wonderful love affair — fulfilling Frauke's desire to remarry one day.

Robert Boshammer and Frauke had a baby girl, completing their family.

Despite her busy life, Frauke had her own dreams to run a business and right on their doorstep was a diamond mine.

An uncut Argyle pink diamond, which is found in north Western Australia. ( Rio Tinto )

"It was at one stage the biggest diamond mine in the world — not for gem stones, but also industrial stones," she said.

"That always fascinated me. They have the pink diamonds in intense colour and only Argyle in the whole world has these."

From the deep red earth in some of the most remote landscapes in Australia comes the beautiful and rare Kimberley diamonds, created more than 1.6 billions years ago.

The Argyle diamond mine is the largest producer in the world by volume and the only one produces pink diamonds, which continue to increase in value as mining draws to an end in 2020.

Her backyard business grew into a high-end diamond store, attracting famous clients from the film world like Nicole Kidman and Baz Lurhmann.

But Frauke's life took another tragic turn.

Another loss 15 years on from husband's suicide

While on holidays in Perth, Frauke and Robert received a worrying phone call from back home — Frauke's fourth child Peter had not been seen in 36 hours.

"In the morning we got a phone call that Peter [her son] was missing and I didn't like that phone call. But we were positive and we wanted to be positive," she said.

A search team involving the police, SES and scores of volunteers had been scouring the Kununurra countryside for the missing 20-year-old by the time Frauke and Robert had returned.

"His whole football team was there and [people] from the farm — everybody who had time to look for him," Frauke said.

"The police at first thought he was murdered."

After his body was found floating in a river, an investigate found it was his own demons, like his father's decades earlier, that claimed him.

Frauke's son Peter, pictured here aged 18 in Germany, was a popular yet introverted young man. ( Supplied )

"We still don't know why he did it, we have no clue. He was a very popular young man but introverted, so we have no idea why and that shocks you to the core, to lose a child," she said.

"But we have to be thankful we had him for 20 years. You get the question, are you over it? And no, you never get over it and you don't want to get over it because he is still part of your life forever.

"But you go forward, you move on, what can you do?"

Despite her pain, Peter's death fuelled her latest mission.

Frauke walks through the fields at her family's farm in Kununurra. ( ABC News: Chris Magnay )

New book details sorrows and success

Frauke has just published her autobiography, Diamond in the Dust.

She wants readers to know the role genetics can play in suicide and depression.

"There is a lot of guilt that goes on with suicide and I guess what you'd want people to know is that it doesn't help," she said.

"Talk to them and find some professional [help]. Get them out of their shell."

Frauke Bolten-Boshammer has just published her autobiography 'Diamond in the Dust'. ( ABC News: Chris Magnay )

Frauke is philosophical about what this unrelenting place has taken from her, but also about what Kununurra has given back.

"I always say if I die tomorrow I still had a good life," she said.

"I had two husbands who loved me, I have wonderful kids and I think the grief, especially about Peter, has brought the family [closer] together."

She now has one of the most valuable collections of pink diamonds in the world and at 71, she has no plans of slowing down.

"No, what would I do?" she said laughing.

"I need something to do."