Hetty Perkins

Hetty Perkins (Efn|Various sources give her year of birth between 1895 and 1905, ADB, the most reliable source states 1895 Perkins was the daughter of Burke Perkins (known as Harry), a white miner originally from Broken Hill, New South Wales, and his wife, Nellie Errerreke, an Arrernte woman. Her father was employed on the Central Australia Railway, working on the construction of the line between Alice Springs and Oodnadatta. Perkins was raised in Arltunga, and began working at the hotel there at the age of 14, as a domestic servant. She later moved to "The Garden", a pastoral lease north-west of Arltunga, where the manager was James (Jim) Turner. In 1913, she had a child with Robert Harold (Harry) Lake, a white man who was the General Storekeeper, named Percy Perkins, later named Lake. Percy was a truck driver and is the namesake of the Percy Lake Truck Parking Bay.

In Hetty's time in Arltunga, Hetty and Jim Turner went on to have several children together, with Perkins already having one child born during her time at Arltunga. Turner subsequently offered Perkins part of the property, but she refused, and instead in 1928 left to work at The Bungalow at Jay Creek settlement, as a dormitory supervisor and cook.

Two of Charlie Perkins' children, Rachel and Hetti Perkins, went on to be prominent in arts circles (as a screenwriter and art curator, respectively), while two more of Hetty Perkins' grandchildren were also noteworthy – Patricia Turner was a CEO of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and Neville Perkins was a member of parliament in the Northern Territory. However, the proposal was later abandoned after local opposition.

Her great-granddaughter is actress Madeleine Madden.