Get One While It’s Hot

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 […]

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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 […]

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The House That Jack Found

Kangaroos may have grazed on the sandy dunes and seabirds soared overhead on the day in 1967 when Jack Thompson (1908-1996) explored the Murramarang Point headland, between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay. While strolling, he came across the remains of roughly-made slab huts – the timber parts having long disappeared. Curious, Jack picked up these bricks […]

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Just Beat It

Close up of device which looks like a manual egg beater secured through the lid of a glass jar

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 […]

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Keeping a Steady Rhythm

On the 21st of September 1869, eight members of the Ulladulla Volunteer Corps came together for one of their earliest performances as the town band at the Milton School of Arts Bazaar. One attendee gleefully relayed the day’s proceedings to The Kiama Independent, but they soon became lost for words when describing how well the […]

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Through the Eye of Ella’s Needle

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 […]

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Past Ties

This carefully worked child’s apron was made by the small adept hands of Ada Maud Mellshimer (1888-1970). Ada, who preferred to be called Maud, was the youngest of two girls born to Mary (née Crisp) and George Mellishmer from Ulladulla, on the NSW South Coast. Maude worked the apron when a student at Ulladulla Public […]

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