In days gone by

The pretty little colonial cottage at the Plains Historical Museum showed the lives of women  in days gone by.  Believed to have been built prior to 1900, and featuring hand made bricks in the chimney, the cottage was moved to the museum in 1978.

1900s cottage

The kitchen would have been the heart of the house with the big black coal range providing heat, cooking the meals, and boiling the water for the household.  Hand made rag rugs provided floor coverings and would have been made from rags and scraps of clothing. 

Colonial kitchen

A hand made quilt graced the double bed and a hooked rug kept the toes warm when getting out of bed on cold winter mornings.

The bedroom

The baby’s cot has a hand made quilt too, and the single bed had beautiful white cotton petticoats, nightgowns and babies dresses, pin tucked and trimmed with pretty lace. 

  The nursery

Wives and mothers always have to contend with the family’s laundry and this cottage came complete with a copper to boil up the clothes, a glass wash board for scrubbing, concrete tubs foe rinsing, and a huge wooden mangle.

The wash house

House work has changed dramatically over the years and these days I imagine that modern woman would not be able to run a house hold without her bevy of labour saving devices.  We do not own a dish-washer, and I’m fine with that, but I could not cope without my washing machine,  or sewing machine either, for that matter!