Wing Kum Foy

Story

My Father, Wing Kum Foy later known as William Foy, immigrated from Canton to Brisbane arriving on the steamship ‘Changsha’ with his brother Wan Che Cheong.

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From his Certificate of Registration his addresses were;-

c/- 92 Albert St Brisbane

cnr Boundary & Vulture St West End

Breakfast Ck William St c/- Chee Jong

Laidley Gunns Paddock

Newmarket c/- Charlie Yet Suey

From an early age I remember the farm at Dawson\’s Parade Grovely and later years

75 Griffith St Everton Pk Brisbane.

We used to visit Lai Kees Store in Albert St for goods and socializing with other Chinese. On these occasions my sister & I enjoyed visiting the Botanical Gardens in Alice St. to see the animals, the monkeys I remember well. For many years Lai Kees was the meeting place on Cemetery Day, when a pig would be roasting on the Spit and a grand feast was enjoyed. Qing Ming ( Cemetery Day) was the time we visited Toowong to tidy the graves of ancestors, leave flowers food & wine and burn incense. The food practice was banned by Council in later years.

My Aunt Hilda, told me of Dad in his store at West End. How popular he was and always a gentleman.

Breakfast Ck.- My Mother was a Chee Jong. Her father managed the Joss House in Albion when they were children.

Laidley Ð I have no memories.

Newmarket- There were market gardens along the creek. Charlie and wife Georgina had a farm later at Ekibin about 1940 where I visited. Georgina was a European and a fine lady.

There was a move to Wellington Pt for a short while on Moilands property. A nice new house on high blocks, but water was too far for convenience to the farm. I attended school, taken by Maisie Kelso- Jackson who settled in Annerley and died in 2007 about 90 years of age.

Grovely I remember well. My father and Mother and other Chinese worked the flats along the Kedron Brook. This is now a large Football Club. I was about 3 years and can still see the first house by Dawson Parade. The dirt floor kitchen and open fireplace, the maidenhair fern by the tank at the backdoor and the blacksnake with a red belly. When Shirley arrived we were in the second house on higher ground. Still a dirt floor kitchen but a stove and bedrooms a few steps higher. There was nice wardrobe where the Christmas gifts were hidden towards Christmas. Gran would have visited from the city. Charlie Foon had the third house, lower down. It was larger, on two levels, lower for storing vegetables and making tomato cases and bags, & about 6 steps higher the kitchen and bedroom. This was in the Depression Years and everyone worked very hard. Water was carried from the holes positioned in the garden, on a yoke across their shoulders. Vegetables, the same way. There was pump on the creek bank, a great place for the choko vines to creep. They even employed two Mitchelton boys (Jack Smith & Bunny Parker) for a time @ ten shillings a week. Mum once reprimanded me telling me we should never downgrade the garden as it kept us going during the Depression. Every year in February, The garden would be flooded by the Monsoonal rain. A lot of silt would be left, but also plenty of sand which meant restarting the whole process again. There was no Social Service help in those days.

About 1927 we moved over the hill where the folk started a new farm on four acres and a new house of four rooms. Keith arrived in 1928. It was a nice position but poor land despite the many loads of fresh blood poured into it from the Melrose abbatoirs along Samford Road. The folk soldiered on and finally moved to 75 Griffith St Everton Park where a farm was started across the road – successful until ill-health overcame my Father. This is near Brookside, where in the early days Jack Lee and other Europeans, Lynch & Browns had market gardens. George Lee farmed further along in Pullen Road.

Over the years the three children progressed and married. I left school at 13 years and worked in Aunt Ruby’s fruit shop opposite South Brisbane Station, now the Entertainment Centre. Then as a domestic and finally after a stint at night school and Technical college became a Sugar Chemist working in the mills seasonally. I am now 86. Shirley joined Aunt Jess and became an excellent dressmaker. She married and moved to Sydney and is still there now aged 82. Keith became a fine Cabinet Maker. Married Netta Burns and has 3 children & 6 grandchildren He is 78.

Dad died in 1963. Mum in1980. They are buried At Toowong and rest in a lovely position in Portion 28 overlooking the city. For a young lad of 21, coming to a new country, he did very well, rearing 3 children and giving us a simple, carefree life for which we are very grateful. Mum worked extremely hard until the last ten years of her life, which she proclaimed her best years.

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