Imagine their curiosity, in about 1910, when young sister-spinsters Ada Maud (1888-1970) and Ella Mellshimer of Ulladulla learned that a self-heating fuel iron was available. They had grown up doing the ironing the hard way. Ironing had always been exhausting work, and hot. Maud and Ella had seen how their mother Mary smoothed the wrinkles […]
Keyword: Ada Mellshimer
Out of Prunes
With its red indicators left in the positions selected the last time it was used, this early twentieth century grocery reminder card is frozen in time. It seems to be a snapshot of what its owner intended to buy that week at the grocery store, and their choices are clearly marked. And curiously, as written […]
Just Beat It
Imagine the sound of thick, rich cream splashing and slopping against the insides of this glass jar, as one of its owners, Ella or Ada Mellshimer of Ulladulla, wound the handle to move the paddle inside. Nearly every kitchen in Australia had a butter churn in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and this […]