A Weekend's Reading

Yesterday, I picked up my mail. I have a bit of light reading for the weekend:


In the centre is a wonderful new book by Liza Antrim, showing her collection of family dolls houses from the 18th and 19th centuries. There's lots of information about the makers of the furnishings, much of it discovered by Liza herself. You can order the book from Cider House Press (apparently it's actually being published in February 2012, but some advance copies are available).

I also bought 58 issues of the International Dolls House News! They were listed on ebay recently - a great opportunity to add to my collection, though I haven't yet worked out where I'll keep them! There's lots of great information on vintage and newer miniatures in them, and I've been making an index so I can find relevant issues when I'm doing research for articles.

And yes, that is another issue of the Australian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer, which seems to be just as full of news about fishing, golfing and social events as the first one I bought. This one does feature a dolls house in an advertisement - not an Australian-made dolls house, but one that I've recently acquired, so I'll show the ad and the house in my next post.

(I seem to have got out of the habit of writing blog posts earlier in the year - I had lots of ideas before I went away, and new dolls houses too, but somehow they haven't made it here yet. I hope I'll do more than one post this month, and get back into the habit of posting!)

Gone Fishing .... or Golfing, or ...

No, not me! I have just been very busy with the Dolls Houses Past and Present magazine, working on articles myself (especially one on Pit-a-Pat dolls house furniture, which probably outgrew the definition of 'article'!), as well as loading other people's articles.

The ones who went golfing were 1950s reps and agents for manufacturers of sports goods, toys and canvas goods. This is the cover of the April 1953 issue of The Australian, New Zealand & Southern Equatorial Sportsgoods & Toy & Canvasgoods Retailer, which I was lucky enough to buy on ebay recently:


There are 8 photos of golfing events, as well as 8 of manufacturers and their agents drinking:


and a couple of them fishing:


as well as lots of snippets of news about fishing trips.

Well, this was 1950s Australia!

There are some ads for toys, as well as many for sports goods and some for tents, etc. I guess the market was much smaller than in Germany, which had the trade magazine Das Spielzeug (The Toy), or the UK, where both Games and Toys and The Toy Trader covered toy manufacturing and sales. After seeing all the wonderful ads from those magazines, copied by collectors and researchers in those countries, I was a bit disappointed to see the Australian magazine.

I did manage to find one dolls house (or two?) - hurray! but no information on the maker. See the dolls house(s) right on the top shelf:


And a closer look:




The shop pictured, Elegant Novelties, was in Melbourne, so we can probably assume that these dolls houses were made in Melbourne.

Notice how the ad mentions a "wonderful range of books", including Jane Eyre, Little Women, Treasure Island, Hollywood Album, Black Beauty and Enid Blyton books for all ages? You can see the books in this photo, on a shelf on the lower right:


Another shop also mentioned books in their ad - they advertised The Coronation Book, English Children's Books, and, again, Enid Blyton's Range of Books. Well, as I've said, it was 1950s Australia. Everyone was too busy playing sport to read.

I don't expect I'll find many more issues offered for sale. The State Libraries of Victoria and New South Wales do have fairly good runs, so I hope I'll be able to visit one day and go through them. I thought buying one might give me an idea of how easy it would be to find information in them - and it does: not easy at all! I'll need quite a bit of time to read all the snippets of news, as well as to scan the ads closely for any dolls house related items.

Bridal Fashions

My blogging friend CM, of MyRealitty and Leftcoastmini, is going to be the Mother of the Bride this month. She invited me to take some photos of my bridal pairs - you might remember Bridezilla from the second pair, who was determined to win the game of musical chairs at the fancy dress party last year!

Several of my Erna Meyer dolls are getting married:

18th century style

1950s or early 1960s

1970s

Thinking about bridal fashions made me think of the wedding photos I have of my parents, grandparents, and earlier ancestors.

The earliest wedding photo I have is one of my great-great-grandparents. They were both Scottish, although one was born in Jamaica and they lived in India; they married in Munich, in Bavaria (Germany), in 1859.


While this bride opted for the full white silk and lace deal, her daughter, my great-grandmother, had a rather different kind of wedding. My grandmother described it like this:

“My mother was married in her best green costume to her cousin Henry Dunlop one day in 1895, with no-one knowing. She went out for the day, came home as usual; a week later her mother found a note in an empty room saying - “I have gone to America with Henry; Gracie”

Not surprisingly, I don't have any photos of the best green costume!

My grandmother (this great-grandmother's daughter, and my mother's mother) also had a slightly unconventional wedding. Neither the bride's parents, nor the bridegroom's, were present; the bride was given away by her brother. I only discovered some photos of the wedding among a distant cousin's collection inherited from my grandmother's father - my grandmother didn't keep any.


Here they are in 1927, cutting the cake - I believe the dress was pale pink.

My mother had been a bridesmaid at several weddings:

1941

ca 1945

1955

But when she herself got married in 1961, she chose a nice gingham frock for her wedding dress. Like her mother, her brother was present but not her parents, but she refused to be given away, saying she was a person not a present.

That's Mum and Dad on the right, with my godparents on the left.

Here's a photo of my father's parents on their wedding day:

Casino, NSW, Australia, 1935

I've already shown you my maternal grandfather's parents' wedding, in Calcutta in 1903:


Another white lacy wedding dress! This is my Californian great-grandmother, who married an Englishman; her father refused to attend the wedding, so only her mother was present. (Both the groom's parents had already died.)

So, two of these brides went for the white silk, satin and lace - the others were dressed in green, blue, pink and (I think) brown & white. Some were solid colours, one flowery and one check ... Really, based on my family's traditions, I could photograph any of my nicely-dressed dolls as bridal couples!

Love from Darwin

Yes, I'm home again. It's been longer than it seemed while I was away - some time at Mum's place with my sister, some time there alone with Mum's cats, then time in Sydney with my sister - now I'm back in Darwin with my cats. After being very close to Mum all my life, and sharing many interests, it's taken time to come to terms with her death.

I'd forgotten how dry and hazy Darwin gets in the dry season (when rural property owners burn off, leading to smoky skies and ash particles in the air - and inside). I also hadn't realised how much I had bought on ebay while I was away! I have a small car, but absolutely filled it with all the parcels that had arrived since I left in April. The staff at Darwin GPO are wonderful, and had kept it all safely in one place ...

So I've spent a couple of days unpacking (and dealing with all the packaging!). One of my purchases is this wonderful set:


Actually, there are two armchairs, but they are quite big - about 12.5cm or 5" wide, deep and high - so I only put one in the photo with the sofa.

The "walls" are an old filing box and the flooring is an old piece of lino, both of which I found at an amazing secondhand shop in Annandale called Recycling Works:

photo from Google; not mine

I really could do with something to cover the metal that held the spring clip - maybe a lamp, like this one:


but I'd need to make it a stand, or hang it - not today, so only half a scene - but I wanted to show you this lounge suite, with a lovely message on the back of the sofa:

"With love from Darwin 1944"

I bought this from Queensland; it was described as a "salesman sample miniature Genoa lounge," and it might well be a miniature sample, but for the message on the back.

1944 was of course during World War II, and following the Japanese bombing raids on Darwin in 1942, many civilians had been evacuated, and there were army bases in and south of Darwin. I think that these pieces may have been made by a service man or woman based in Darwin, and sent as a gift to a child living, perhaps, in Queensland ... I'd love to know more of their history, but these words alone evoke a time and place and circumstances - these chairs have seen a lot.

After the funeral

Dear friends and fellow bloggers, thank you so much for your condolences, thoughts, love and support after the loss of my mother. I've been gone from here for over a month now, while I've been staying in Mum's house and slowly adjusting to not having her here anymore.


I thought you might like to see some photos of Mum's funeral. They were taken by Rodney Shrimpton, who is a professional photographer as well as a good friend and Reiki student of Mum's.

We chose an eco-casket for Mum, with the image of a stately tree on it.


The words on the top are from William Blake:

To see a world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.

The autumn leaves were from Mum's garden.

My sister and I took turns reading the eulogy we had written together - we're smiling in these photos because there were some funny bits ...




It was a lovely funeral, with a lovely feeling in the room. It felt much fuller than it looked afterwards in the photos, I'm sure because of all the love and prayers and thoughts of people who couldn't be there in person.

After the funeral, a friend of my sister's, who was also a student of Mum's at the university here, stayed on for two nights. We went op shopping together (op shop is short for opportunity shop, though no-one ever calls them that - they are secondhand shops run by charities, what are called charity shops in the UK and thrift shops in the US (I think)). Bathurst has several op shops, as well as several other secondhand shops of varying priciness. I found a few nice bits and pieces which I might be able to use in my dolls houses:







Both I and my sister were exhausted after looking after Mum and then preparing for the funeral, and we both got flu afterwards. So I have been taking things very slowly, spending time resting, cuddling Mum's cats, reading, and so on, as well as doing necessary things like organising Mum's tax for the last 3 years and making a list of her investments for the solicitor. Oh, and I have put together another issue of the Dolls Houses Past and Present online magazine, thanks to all the members who sent articles! It was good to have something to focus on that wasn't too demanding (I was a bit less active as editor/researcher this time). So hopefully I'll be back on here a bit more from now on.

Gone

Mum died early in the morning on Wednesday 27th April. These photos were taken by my sister Deborah in Mum's backyard, ten days before she died. We were able to care for Mum at home for the last 20 days of her life, with support from palliative care, the district nurses, and friends. Mum was happy to be with her two daughters, her cats (and Deborah's), and to be in her own home. We're very sad that she's gone, but very glad to have had this time together with her as a family. Now we're remembering her life as we prepare the eulogy and a slideshow of photos for her funeral.
Many thanks to those of you who have offered your support on my previous post, and your sympathy following Mum's death through facebook or DHPP. It's a great help.

A Mother's Love

Dear blogging friends, I just wanted to let you know that I may not be posting much over the next month or so, or commenting much on your blogs. My mother has been diagnosed with cancer of the liver, and I am going to be with her for the last phase of her life. My sister is already with her.
It's been quite a shock, although Mum had lost much appetite and a lot of weight over the last year. She had already had major changes after this photo was taken, nearly 10 years ago, as she had a heart attack and stroke 5 years ago, and has suffered vascular dementia since. She is philosophical, and will be happy to spend the time she has left with her daughters, reading good books, and going for drives. It's autumn in Australia (or at least the part she lives in), so I hope there will be some lovely trees to see.
I'll still be dropping in to your blogs and enjoying your company when I get the chance - and perhaps posting a bit too, I'll just see how it goes.