Edith Espie

Edith Espie (1903 – 1983) was a Western Arrernte foster mother and lay social worker in Alice Springs, Australia.[1][2][3]

Biography

Born at Jay Creek, near Alice Springs, Australia, Espie lived at The Bungalow, an institution for Aboriginal children.[4] According to local historian Jay Petrick, Espie was a kind child and helped care for the other children by helping teacher and matron Ida Standley.[1]

A jockey in her teen years, Espie rode, in colours, at the local races. Espie worked variously making pies and pasties for Snow Kenna's Walk-in Picture Show (later known as Pioneer Theatre), was the barmaid at the Stuart Arms Hotel, and did ironing for single men.[1]

Espie had seven children with Victor Lawrence Cook, a labourer from South Australia.[5][6] Espie worked as a housemaid at Huckitta Station, north-east of Alice Springs, from where one of her sons remembered leaving in 1941, aged six, to attend Hartley Street School in Alice Springs.[4] Cook left Espie to start a "new – white – family 'down south'".[4] Her son Bill Espie, to whom she gave birth in a tent outside the town hospital,[4] later received a Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct.[5][3]

In addition to raising her biological children, Espie fostered several children and, according to Petrick, "had a high moral code, stressing the importance of modesty".[1] Gloria Lee, a Chinese-American Alice Springs resident, recalled that Espie took care of her after Lee's mother died.[7]

After suffering from cancer for years, she died on 8 March 1983 and was buried at the Garden Cemetery in Alice Springs.[8][1]

Legacy

Espie Street in Alice Springs is named for her.[1][2]

References
  1. Petrick, Jose (2005). The history of Alice Springs through street names. Alice Springs, N.T.: J. Petrick. ISBN 0731644379. OCLC 27577058.
  2. "Place Names Register". www.ntlis.nt.gov.au. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  3. "Espie Family Event held at Hartley Street School to honour a past student" (PDF). National Trust e-News. National Trust of Australia (NT). August 2017. p. 6. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  4. Chlanda, Erwin (18 September 2013). "The Boys who made the Big Time". Alice Springs News. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  5. Brown, Malcolm (24 October 2011). "Espie, William Leonard (Bill) (1935–2011)". Obituaries Australia: Indigenous Australia. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  6. Cossons, Len (1992). Cossons index of N.T. probates: Annual single series. Winnellie, N.T.: Genealogical Society of Queensland. ISBN 978-0-949124-73-9.
  7. McIntyre-Mills, J.; Ververbrants, Olive (2010). "Political Construction of Identity in Central Australia: Reconstructing Identity Through Narratives and Geneology". Systemic Practice and Action Research. 23 (1): 73–85. doi:10.1007/s11213-009-9144-x. ISSN 1094-429X.
  8. "Deaths". Centralian Advocate. 23 March 1983. p. 29.
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