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Monday, February 27, 2012

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.
DSCF9199 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. 
DSCF9203 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.
DSCF9201The 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. 
DSCF9202  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.
DSCF9204The 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!

1 comment:

June said...

This strikes such a chord Jenny - my kitchen/laundry is being remodelled and I am really looking forward to pushing the buttons again to do the washing! I can also remember our first house where we had an agitator washing machine - and the copper where I burned all the rubbish to heat the water and save on electricity.