Edith Espie
{{Short description|Western Arrernte foster mother}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2019}}Edith Espie (1903 – 1983) was a Western Arrernte foster mother and lay social worker in Alice Springs, Australia.{{Cite book|title=The history of Alice Springs through street names|last=Petrick|first=Jose|publisher=J. Petrick|year=2005|isbn=0731644379|location=Alice Springs, N.T.|oclc=27577058}}{{Unreliable source?|date=January 2021|reason=Self-published. Cites no sources. Has few hard details. Puffy like an obituary with details provided by a family... and half about it is about her children, not her.|certain=yes}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.ntlis.nt.gov.au/placenames/view.jsp?id=6036|title=Place Names Register|website=www.ntlis.nt.gov.au|access-date=2019-10-28}}{{cite news|date=August 2017|title=Espie Family Event held at Hartley Street School to honour a past student|page=6|work=National Trust e-News|publisher=National Trust of Australia (NT)|url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/eNews-201708e-1.pdf|access-date=29 November 2019}}
Biography
Born at Jay Creek, near Alice Springs, Australia, Espie lived at The Bungalow, an institution for Aboriginal children.{{Cite news|last=Chlanda|first=Erwin|date=18 September 2013|title=The Boys who made the Big Time|work=Alice Springs News|url=https://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/2013/09/18/the-boys-who-made-the-big-time/|access-date=2019-10-28}} 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.{{Unreliable source?|date=January 2021|reason=Self-published. Cites no sources. Has few hard details. Puffy like an obituary with details provided by a family... and half about it is about her children, not her.|certain=yes}}
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.
Espie had seven children with Victor Lawrence Cook, a labourer from South Australia.{{Cite web|last=Brown|first=Malcolm|date=24 October 2011|title=Espie, William Leonard (Bill) (1935–2011)|url=http://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/espie-william-leonard-bill-16697|access-date=2019-10-28|website=Obituaries Australia: Indigenous Australia|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University}}{{Cite book|last=Cossons|first=Len|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/26299596|title=Cossons index of N.T. probates: Annual single series|publisher=Genealogical Society of Queensland|year=1992|isbn=978-0-949124-73-9|location=Winnellie, N.T.|language=en}} 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. Cook left Espie to start a "new – white – family 'down south'". Her son Bill Espie, to whom she gave birth in a tent outside the town hospital, later received a Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct.
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". Gloria Lee, a Chinese-American Alice Springs resident, recalled that Espie took care of her after Lee's mother died.{{Cite journal|last1=McIntyre-Mills|first1=J.|last2=Ververbrants|first2=Olive|date=2010|title=Political Construction of Identity in Central Australia: Reconstructing Identity Through Narratives and {{sic|Gene|ology|hide=y}}|journal=Systemic Practice and Action Research|language=en|volume=23|issue=1|pages=73–85|doi=10.1007/s11213-009-9144-x|s2cid=144540079 |issn=1094-429X}}
After suffering from cancer for years, she died on 8 March 1983 and was buried at the Garden Cemetery in Alice Springs.{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=23 March 1983|title=Deaths|page=29|work=Centralian Advocate|url=|access-date=}}