CARY, Ernest Arthur (1876-1962)
Ern Cary came to the district in the 1890s and was one of the key players in the fledgling Yarra Glen Football Club. He was Captain in 1903 and continued to support the Club in later years as Secretary. He was an all-round sportsman, playing tennis and cricket in the summer and was an equally active member on the committees of sporting clubs in Steels Creek and Yarra Glen and the Steels Creek School Committee.
In 1902 he was living in Bell Street where he opened a bicycle shop and he later became Honorary Treasurer of the Yarra Glen Bicycle Club when it was founded in 1905. In 1903 he married Janet Hubbard, the youngest daughter of William and Elizabeth Hubbard of Steels Creek. In 1905 he was employed as a labourer with the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works and it is reported that the bicycle was his main form of transport. Ernest and Janet moved to Steels Creek and increased their family to four sons and a daughter. Their youngest son, Albert Ernest Cary, died aged 24 in New Guinea during World War II.
Ern Cary was also Secretary of the Horticultural & Flower Growers Association from 1930 for about twenty years and a highly respected Secretary of the Yarra Glen Agricultural & Horticultural Show Society from 1921 until 1950.
