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She returned to Brocks Creek when she was about eight years old to be company for her older sister Linoy
who had married and moved to Brocks Creek with her husband. It was a lonely existence for a little girl but she
enjoyed the company of her big sister and often spoke of the buggy rides between Darwin and Brocks Creek when
she fall often fall asleep to the clickity clack of the horses hooves and then of being woken and shown different
birds of interest. When she returned to Darwin she eventually attended the Darwin primary school at Frog Hollow.
She enjoyed being allowed to attend school and mixing with other children and often spoke of playing hop scotch
and skipping and that she did not like arithmetic.
One of her school friends was Ernest Charles Yuen (who was known as Charlie) and who was the eldest
son of well-known Darwin merchant Yuen Yet Hing (known as Yet Loong) and his third wife Low See. Essie
and Charlie’s engagement was arranged while they were still at school at the ages of 12 and 14, much to the
amusement of their school friends from whom they endured much teasing. When the Darwin School celebrated its
‘back to’ school celebrations on 14 February 1971 when a Time Capsule was buried, it was with great pride that
Essie proudly carried the flag as the oldest female student together with William Chin Gong as the oldest male
student. She was also called upon to rebury the capsule as the oldest student of the school with Jimmy Soo Lee on
21 August 1982.
Essie and Charlie were married in Darwin on 11 September 1924 in a civil ceremony performed by
Judge D A Roberts. The first of their children arrived in 1925. The first tragedy for Essie was the death of her
second child Percy from pneumonia at the age of only six weeks in 1926. The next children were Vernice, Eddie,
Douglas, Dawn, Pamela and then Glenice. The children were delivered by Mrs Tye with the help of her own
mother in some instances.
For all women during that time life in Darwin was not easy, water had to be carried from the well, cooking was
done on wood stoves, flour had to be ground, there was no electricity so kerosene lanterns or candles were used
for lighting, kerosene irons were used and of course there was the flaming fury. These were difficult years and
money was short. Charlie was a chef who cooked in the European style at the Hotel Darwin and the Victoria Hotel,
while Essie looked after the children and worked at her parents’ bakery known as the Yean Ying Bakery in the old
Chinatown part of Cavenagh Street. They were living in a section of Yet Loong’s premises while building a new
home at the end of Cavenagh Street overlooking the Gardens. They were ready to move in when war was declared.
It was discovered after the war that the new house had taken a direct hit!
On the morning of 20 December 1941 with very little warning, Sergeant McNab and another police officer
advised that all old people, pregnant women and children were to be evacuated. It was a requirement on boarding
that Chinese passengers only had to declare the amount of cash that they were carrying, but this did not apply to the
European passengers. This discrimination was clearly visible when European passengers were given the cabins,
whilst the Chinese were allocated places on the open deck. This was regardless of the fact that Essie (as well as a
few others) was heavily pregnant with her ninth child. She was evacuated with all her children with the exception
of her eldest son Leslie, who was just over 16. Boys over 16 were not allowed to leave. Evacuees were allowed
only 14 kilograms weight of personal belongings. In the frantic panic that followed, they only managed to collect
a few bits of personal clothing while leaving behind all the better clothes and many irreplaceable items such as
photographs etc. Her eldest daughter, Vernice, tells of rushing to wash some clothes and leaving them on the line
to dry! There was always the thought that they would be able to return later and that all their belongings would still
be there. They were shipped out on Zealandia and travelled to Thursday Island and on to Bowen. No concession
was made for Essie on her pregnancy and as with all other Chinese she had to sleep on the open deck together
with a sister-in-law who was also expecting. Travelling with them was her mother-in-law who had small bound
feet. It was extremely difficult for her mother-in-law to walk, especially on the steep stairs of the ship. It was a
horrific journey for one ready to give birth and with six small children. Food consisted mainly of bully beef and
dog biscuits but as a concession on Christmas Day, they were given minced chicken, green peas, bully beef and
the inevitable dog biscuits. There was not a lot of food and one had to queue for everything, food, the bathroom,
the iron etc. During the nights the decks were covered with brown paper to try to make everything as dark as
possible. Everything had to be covered and signs were put up everywhere, such as ‘Sealed Lips—Save Ships’.
This quotation was later put on matchboxes. There were a number of Japanese prisoners in the hold and for that
reason everyone believed that they would not be bombed. At Bowen, passengers disembarked and were taken to
the railway station where they were issued with coupons for a meal. From there, they took the train north to Cairns,
where on 11 January 1942 Essie gave birth to her ninth child, Elaine, with the help of a midwife friend.
The family remained in Cairns for approximately six weeks to allow Essie to regain her strength when they
moved onto Longreach to join her Moo relatives. On arriving in Longreach on 19 February, they were advised
immediately that Darwin had been bombed that day. It was a great shock to her and she tells how she almost
fainted with her legs giving way at the news as her husband Charlie and her eldest son Leslie were still there.
Her husband and son eventually joined the rest of the family in Longreach where they spent a few years and where
her youngest daughter Bobby was born. This was her only child to be born in a hospital. While in Longreach
Essie took in laundry work mainly from American soldiers and this entailed boiling the clothes and using the old
glass washboards. She also baked pies that her two younger sons would carry in a basket and sell during interval
at the local pictures. This was her only source of income as it was during this time that her husband became
increasingly ill. In 1945, the family was forced to move to Sydney because of Charlie’s continued sickness.
He died on 18 April 1946. Essie was widowed at the age of 44 and was left with nine children ranging from two
years to 21 years. That was the next tragic event of her life.
The family spent a few years in a large boarding house in Sydney with many other Chinese evacuees from
Darwin and then managed to purchase a fish and chips shop at Drummoyne with the help of a loan from relatives.