King Family - Foster parents to the Allbeury children

Another item from the collection of Alma Glover (ongoing thanks)

Transcription

HENRY HERBERT & MARY KING of Bellvue Terrace, Rae Street, North Fitzroy.  Foster parents to the orphaned children of JOHN GEORGE & HARRIET ANN ALLBEURY, of Spencer St a& 62 Montague St, South Melbourne, September 1988.

Henry was a Carriage Painter by trade & according to Auntie Doris, they were really wonderful people; the children of James & Evelyn (nee Allbeury) STREITBERG called them Grandma and Grandpa & I think in their latter years they may have lived in SUDBURY, the family fame at Darnum.  At least the rumour has it that one or other of them, or may-be both, died there of food poisoning (I shall work on that part of the story at some later date.) I don't know if they had a family of their own, but I have not heard of any.

Auntie Doris remembers them from when she lived there as a child, with her parents and brothers and sisters at Shoobra Rd, Elsternwick, before they moved to the farm at Darnum; probably about 1909.  The house at Shoobra Rd was an ideal family home & seemed to hold countless beds as well as having a large verstibule where family meals were held at a long table, but on formal meal occasions the children were sent to bed (1).  No work was done on a Sunday, all meals being prepared, plus hair being washed and curled in "rags" (to be slept in) on Saturday so that the Sabbath could be devoted entirely to worship and rest.  Grandpa King was a very good living christian Anglican.  He always walked to Church, resplendent in his top hat and three piece suit; very dapper with his walking cane & a floral button-hole, especially of Daphne when it was in season.  When baby Herbert was christened they all had to walk to church, decked out in their finery - even Granma Evelyn had to walk with the baby.

There were stables at the back of the 2 story house, & & a large area of sand for the Phaeton to be prepared for Church, or other journeys, for the women & children mostly rode to Sunday worship in style in this beautiful horse-drawn vehicle, but Henry Herbert King ALWAYS walked to his Sunday worship, rain, hail or shine.  On wet days he merely added an out-size black brolly to his accessories and strode off purposefully church-wards. Afternoons following the Sunday church ritual were mostly devoted to Bible reading & prayer & and of course it was not uncommon to ding little corkscrew curly head nodding off to sleep before the allotted time for their customry after-noon nap, & so they were borne up-stairs on a lovingly warm & safe shoulder & popped under the bed-covers to sleep.