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

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. ^ a b c d e f Petrick, Jose (2005). The history of Alice Springs through street names. Alice Springs, N.T.: J. Petrick. ISBN 0731644379. OCLC 27577058.
  2. ^ a b "Place Names Register". www.ntlis.nt.gov.au. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  3. ^ a b "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. ^ a b c d Chlanda, Erwin (18 September 2013). "The Boys who made the Big Time". Alice Springs News. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  5. ^ a b 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. S2CID 144540079.
  8. ^ "Deaths". Centralian Advocate. 23 March 1983. p. 29.
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