This ongoing series from Barrie Historical Archive curator Deb Exel shows old photos from the collection and one from the present day, as well as the story behind them.
October is Women’s History Month, the perfect time to remind ourselves of influential ladies in Barrie’s past.
Such as Emma King, who introduced one of our community’s most cherished and memorable children’s programs … we’ll come back to that.
Robert and Sarah King came to Canada from England in the 1850’s when Emma was just three years old. The family first settled in Oro, farming for two years, before Robert opened a bakery on Dunlop Street East, near where the CIBC is located today. Robert King would later be part owner of the Northern Advance newspaper. The King’s had five children: Robert King Jr., Emma’s brother, would become Barrie’s chief of police.
Emma’s first job, at the tender age of 17, was supply teaching at the Central School, covering for a sick staff member. When the teacher fell ill again that same year, Emma filled in and was appointed to her first position as a regular teacher, with an annual salary of $250. Her father, Robert King, was secretary of the school board at that time.
In 1878, three years into her teaching career, Emma took a leave of absence for a month to spend the summer in England with her father, including a side trip to Paris.
Over the next 23 years, Emma taught hundreds of primary aged children at the Central School (later called the Victoria School, when the four Barrie Public Schools were renamed for the royal family) and was the third most senior teacher when she transferred to the West Ward School (Prince of Wales) on Bradford Street. The Central School was later demolished and the new federal building built about 1950, on the former school’s site at the northwest corner of Collier and Owen Streets.
Emma King’s time as a primary school teacher were the ‘happiest years of her life’. Post retirement, she promoted health and wellness, forming the ‘anti-cigarette league’ in the 1920’s, visiting classrooms to speak to students about the evils of smoking.
Besides the joy of teaching, one of Emma’s great passions was music. She belonged to a quartet and was a contralto in her church choir, where her sister Fanny was the organist.
Emma King lived at 13 Poyntz Street. The neighbourhood was convenient to the Central School where she taught and Collier Street Methodist Church, where she sang and served in their Woman’s Missionary Society. Her home was (is!) in an interesting neighbourhood historically as well. Situated on Poyntz Street between Collier and Dunlop Streets, nearby were important houses on Collier Street such as Lally House (no. 118) and the former home of mayor F.E.P. Peppler (no. 113). The Morton-Turnbull mansion, the home of renowned ornithologist, Ewart Lount Brereton and former mayor Donald Ross’ house at 158, 162 and 168 Dunlop Street East, respectively, were just steps away. Several other heritage buildings, a few still standing, but many, many more now demolished, would have been part of the lovely downtown neighbourhood that Emma loved to walk.
This neighbourhood was most definitely full of important houses occupied by important people. And that included Miss Emma King.
Emma King had a long and successful career as a teacher, revered by her colleagues and beloved by her students for her work as an educator and her impact on so many young lives. On the occasion of her retirement in 1917, these words, this tribute, honoured Emma King:
“Her services were never perfunctory, but were always graced with ‘The Ministry of the Added Touch,’ which ministry presented itself long after the ‘scholar’ had passed from her room. Her wise, judicious service to the homes and lives of the children who came under her care left on the minds of her pupils a true conception of what the possibilities of childhood stood for.”
Emma King was the first woman to sit on the Barrie Public Library Board, as the Town representative.
And that teaser about a children’s program? It was Emma King who started the magical tradition of a children’s story hour at the library, inspiring wonder, imagination and a love of reading for so many youngsters. Later taken over by the librarian, story hour would continue to be a special, enchanting time for generations of children.
The Emma King Elementary School at 383 Cundles Road West in Barrie was named for her.
