Born and raised at Kangaroo Valley near Nowra, Elsie Campbell (1883-1962) was twenty-seven when she set her mind and hands to making this picture frame in 1910. She crafted it using a technique known as ornamental leather work, also considered a type of ‘fancy work’. Unlike her three older sisters who preferred to embroider floral […]
The first butter factory in Australia was established at Kiama, on the NSW South Coast, in the early 1880s. Until then the trade of dairy products occurred directly between the farmer and buyer. Butter was made in small quantities using centuries-old techniques to separate the cream from cow’s milk and churn it into butter. It […]
Around 120 years ago, this small handkerchief was hemmed and embroidered by a young girl from Ulladulla on the NSW south coast – Ella Mellshimer (1886-1979). Its decorative marks are simple and include the word ‘Jerusalem’, along with a single-humped camel. These symbols reflect that Ella was raised according to the Christian faith, which she […]
In 1886 John Stewart of the farm Mananga, Broughton Creek, carefully arranged and pressed buttercups, lilacs, daisies, grasses and ferns in these bound books to create a herbarium. Then he dipped his pen in an inkwell and inscribed his name inside the front covers and recorded the botanical names of the specimens on each page. […]
In the 1930s Gwen Wiley of Berry patiently cut out the silk fabric, sewed the seams and chain-stitched and embroidered these handkerchief sachets. And it may not have been an accident that she made them in blue. Gwendoline ‘Gwen’ Wiley (1914-1991) was the third daughter of John and Pearl Wiley. She gained her intermediate certificate […]
Doris Hogan of Berry must have known this blue and white earthenware dish was old and quite rare, when she generously donated it to the Berry Historical Society in 1979. But what else did she know? Was it just one of those family household objects that is passed on, found left in the kitchen cupboard […]
In the 1870s, when Berry schoolgirl Helena Kinneally stitched the buttonholes, fancy borders and darning to create this needlework sampler, she probably didn’t know how useful those skills would later be, when she became the mother of ten children. Helena Kinneally (c. 1868-1904) was born in Victoria about 1868. She was the daughter of William […]
Mollymook’s fresh, salty breezes and relaxed atmosphere must have constantly reminded Joy Crewes why she and her husband John had moved there in the early 1950s. These keen amateur golfers had left Sydney behind to manage the Molly Moke Country Club, with its guesthouse and golf course overlooking the town’s popular beach. So, it must […]
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