Ethel King has been caring for others for most of her life, from her childhood as the second-oldest of six children to her 50-plus years living in Mountain Brook surrounded by family.
There isn’t much in this world that is worse than being alone, in Ethel’s eyes. Keeping up with 18 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren, she doesn’t have much time to feel lonely.
In the Beginning
Ethel has always loved the constant buzz of a big family.
“Growing up, we lived in the country – out in Edgefield, South Carolina – and my mother was a former school teacher,” Ethel said. “She stressed education, education, be sure and get your education.”
Though she is quick to say education was not her priority, Ethel did just as her mother said.
“I liked boys and cars and things like that,” Ethel said, but she watched her older sister succeed in nursing and followed in her footsteps.
She attended the nursing school at South Carolina Baptist Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, meeting and marrying Aubrey King Jr., who was working his way through medical school at the hospital.
While in school, one of Ethel’s friends from nursing school who was moving on to earn her bachelor’s at Southwestern University asked Ethel to take over her job.
“I said, no way. She took care of a patient in an iron lung,” Ethel said. “But she told me, ‘No, you’re going to come down to the hospital one weekend and I’ll teach you everything I know about it.’”
When she first started, the patient, a 12-year-old boy from Johnson City, South Carolina, was living full-time in the iron lung because of the effects of polio.
She worked with the boy for a few years until her husband’s career took them to Pennsylvania, but she kept up with the family and visited the boy when she returned home. He was transferred to Johns Hopkins after Ethel moved, where they weaned him off of the iron lung. He then returned home and lived to be 27.
While in Pennsylvania, Aubrey worked as a resident in psychiatry, and Ethel, dubbing herself proficient in the iron lung on her resume, began attending classes at Villanova University to obtain her bachelor’s in nursing.
“I never did finish,” she said. “We lived outside of Philadelphia, so I carpooled to class with three other students and they all smoked.”
Ethel’s husband did not want her exposed to all that cigarette smoke during the drive to and from Philadelphia, and she wasn’t comfortable making the drive – mostly in the evenings – by herself. So, she dropped out.
By then she was on her way to having her hands full taking care of her growing number of children.
Her oldest daughter, Terry, was born two years into the Kings’ marriage, causing Aubrey to switch from psychiatry to internal medicine. As a result, the couple made the move to Richmond, Virginia, and later to Georgia, where Aubrey served as a doctor and captain with the Army at Fort Benning.
From Georgia, the Kings looked into where they might settle next. The chips fell and they moved to Birmingham.
“He ended up joining a big hospital. He was the ninth doctor in a practice of internists with the Simon Williamson Clinic out at Princeton-Baptist Medical Center,” Ethel said.
Building a Family
During their nomadic years and into their first few years in Birmingham, the Kings added to their growing flock regularly.
They had Terry and Patty and Sandy and Chip and Mark. When the youngest of them all, Nancy, was born, Terry was about 11½ years old.
“We had a lot of fun,” Ethel said. “You are never alone. Everybody always had guests coming over and there was always someone to talk to.”
Ethel was raised to be prepared for visitors at any moment; her mother always stressed that one needed always to be dressed and ready to host someone.
It was a far cry from Aubrey’s home life as an only child, with parents who divorced. His childhood home, unlike hers, was not a revolving door for guests.
Ethel said that Aubrey once told her, after 15 or 20 years of marriage, “You know, the reason I wanted six (children) was that I was really jealous of your family,” she said.
The family spent a lot of time at church, both in service to their faith and for the free Wednesday and Sunday night suppers.
At church, Ethel also worked in the nursery for many years, caring for kids during services and then returning home to her six kids and any number of guests who might be visiting.
Both the constant visitors and Ethel kept Aubrey on his toes, she said. She has always found ways to keep a flow of traffic through the house, whether it was family, friends or new acquaintances.
She cited one instance in which she decided on a whim to head over to a baseball game at the Cahaba Heights Athletic Field. It was an adult game and was being covered by a radio station, and Ethel happened to know one of the organizers of the game.
“After the game, I told him, ‘Why don’t you bring all of the guys over to my house and we’ll have ice cream,’” Ethel said.
She proceeded to drive to the store, buy ingredients and make homemade ice cream – flavors such as banana and strawberry – for the whole team and more guests.
Cooking and entertaining an army is a skill Ethel has perfected over the course of her life. She has also cooked chili for 75 when her husband hosted a meal for a group of medical students.
“It’s harder to cook for just two people,” Ethel joked.
Lucky for Ethel, she set herself up for constant companionship by having such a big family. Though Aubrey passed away in 2016, four of her six children live close to home, as do many of her grandchildren. A number of her 27 great-grandchildren live close enough to regularly pop in and visit their “Apple,” a nickname adopted because Ethel is a bit too advanced for the linguistic skills of a toddler.
One of the pluses that comes with having her big family, Ethel said, is that she has “one of everything.” She has a financial adviser, a real estate agent, a builder, an event planner, philanthropists, teachers, musicians and artists, among others.
“People always comment on how industrious our family is,” she said, which would account for the family’s business presence in the Birmingham area.
Just in Cahaba Heights, the King family has made their mark. Ethel started the trend, having previously owned Blue House Antiques for many years. Among her grandchildren, Ashley McMakin and her husband own Ashley Mac’s; Patton Borland owns ArtWear Design LLC; and Barclay Gresham – who lives one street behind Ethel’s home – has an art studio in the neighborhood.
The extended family has also made its mark on the Mountain Brook school system. Nine of her great-grandchildren are either attending Brookwood Forest Elementary School or are entering the school in the fall.
Having such an enormous family that is constantly evolving – moving to Idaho, traveling the world, having kids, adopting kids, getting married, graduating, etc. – keeps Ethel’s mind sharp.
“People always ask me how I keep it all straight and I tell them, I have a calendar, I have a birthday book and things like that,” she said.
Keeping up with the family is a full-time job and one that has been endlessly joyous for Ethel, and her kids as well, she believes.
