Join me on my trip to the St Marys Museum where you will find treasures from Victorian, Edwardian and early to mid-20th-century times. Furniture, fashion, decorative elements, artifacts, anything and everything relating to the household and lifestyle of this rural area. Typical of small town museums, it's quaint and charming, the staff is sweet, professional and very knowledgeable. Just ten walking minutes from the Dusty Victorian, the museum provides a lovely, nostalgic way to spend an hour or two amongst well crafted things made to last.
I would like to get my hands on this hall tree, unfortunately, this is not a store. |
These two vases were painting subjects also found in my studio |
Just a very small sampling of the museum's collection; so much more is on display.
The museum accepts items donated by local residents as long as it has a St Marys connection. Below is our contribution to their wartime collection. A bottle of Larvex found in our basement, it dates back to the Second World War. Not very glamourous and most certainly the most unappealing name for a product. I wasn't certain that it would be of any interest to the St Marys Museum, and so wrote to Trisha McKibbin, archive manager. She answered back "Yes, bring it in... it tells a story".
Unopened, with all its pamphlets and labels. Particularly interesting is this label that instantly brings the reader back into those rationing war times and talks about an object (a Larvex sprayer in this case) that would last for years because it's made of quality rust proof material.
With disposable plastics saturating the market and landfills, a
label such as this nowadays is unthinkable.