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Two female members of the Tarrant Family of Windale, c1940. Believed to be Phoebe Tarrant (nee King) and her daughter Annie (standing).
Photo Ref: 4890
PHOEBE KING TARRANT 1878-1945 Phoebe Tarrant was born in 1878 to James and Nancy Ann King. Nancy's maiden name was Ferguson which was years later given to her granddaughter. The Kings came to N.S.W. from Victoria and the family owned large land holdings in N.S.W. especially in the Boggabri area. They also owned a large section of land in the Violet Town (Tingira Heights) area. Phoebe's father died in 1879 at Snake Creek, Lake Macquarie (thought to be the present Tingira Heights) and her mother passed away at Violet Town in 1917. Two months after Phoebe's mother had passed away she married John Job Tarrant and at the time she was a chambermaid at the Charlestown Hotel. In 1918 she gave birth to Annie and in addition to raising her daughter, helped Jobie around the farm. Jobie gave up his job in the mines and worked his orchard with Phoebe at his side. They also had many hens laying eggs around the orchard under the trees. Phoebe was a familiar sight along the highway in her horse and cart on her way to the markets with fruit and eggs. During the years of the Great Depression, Phoebe sold blocks of land to supplement their small income. Her elder brother James Jnr. who lived on Ruddges Farm came to live with her around 1934, but he did not live for very long before he passed away. Phoebe lived a very simple life in the old farmhouse which never in its lifetime had electricity connected to it. She never had a radio, nor did she buy newspapers and the world passed by Phoebe and Jobie. This was demonstrated one day in 1943, when she asked Mrs Walker if the war was still going on (World War II). Phoebe passed away at 67 years of age in August,1945 and was buried at Belmont Cemetery, beside her parents. Source: Saxby, Max The history of Windale: a surprise township, 1990.
This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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