My mother, Elva Emery, who passed away in 1997, was asked to do a talk for Gerringong’s 140th anniversary on what life was like for families in the early days of Gerringong. If our records are correct, she gave the talk in 1994. 

My mother was born in 1923 and so remembered the Great Depression of the 1930s with great clarity. 

Elva Emery on her wedding day in 1947

Gerringong may now be associated with expensive real estate, but life back in the early years was not easy by today’s luxurious standards.

Here is an edited copy of her speech. 

By Elva Emery

Early settlers lived in what we would consider small houses, built from logs or slabs of the local timber. These homes usually had two buildings, for the kitchen stood apart from the bedrooms because of the danger of fire. 

The main feature of the old kitchens was a large, open fire, sometimes large enough to seat several people round the inside ledges, or benches, which was great on a winter’s night. 

These fires were fed by large chunks of wood, which sent, when a new log was added, a huge blaze roaring up the chimney, together with dangerous sparks. On and around this open fire there were black, heavy iron kettles, always boiling and ready to make tea, a camp oven for cooking and bread-making and often a large pot of soup in winter.

Of course, there was no water in pipes or taps; it had to be carried from the tank in buckets for there was no sink in the kitchen. But there were lots and lots of flies and other insects. Screens for doors and windows were not heard of. 

A tablecloth was a luxury and table-tops and benches were scrubbed down with a hard brush and sand-soap, a gritty sort of soap which helped remove the stains and grease. The family drank from enamel or tin mugs, with the same sort of materials used for plates, knives, forks and spoons. 

They spent most of their family time in the kitchen and just went to the larger building to sleep; there were no such rooms as lounges! There were usually quite a number of children in the family and they often slept, three or four together in one bed, which kept them warm in winter. 

The houses were open underneath, so the winds whistled up through the floorboards. There were often cracks between the wallboards and often they would be papered over with newspaper, or brown paper. The old-style hair and fibre mattresses were very hard to sleep on; altogether, life was pretty hard.

But things improved when there was running water in pipes and taps, and sinks in the kitchen, but it was a great luxury to have a real bathroom, even if we had to carry the hot water to the bath. Later on chip heaters were invented, a sort of drum at the end of the bath, with a pipe through the room, which one filled with water and then lit a little fire underneath – it was a rather slow bath! 

Fathers shaved in the bathroom using some hot water in a shaving mug, with some soap, to first soften their whiskers. Then, with what was called a cut-throat razor, they would slowly and very carefully scrape off all their whiskers; one slip, and your throat was cut – hence the name. 

No washing machines then, but Mother had a laundry which usually housed a large, built-in copper, under which, again a fire was lit, for the water had to be boiled to properly cleanse the family’s clothes, sheets, towels, etc. 

Up-to-date laundries had two tubs, one to rinse the clothes after boiling, and one beside to ‘blue’ the white articles. The clothes were transferred from copper to tubs with a pot-stick, which was hot and heavy work, and each piece of clothing, including sheets and towels, was wrung out by hand, until wringers were later available. 

The clothes were then placed in a cane basket and carried out to be hung, by ‘dolly’ clothes pegs on long, wire clothes lines, propped up here and there by clothes props when the load started to sink to the ground; no Hills hoists then! 

Members of a church picnic line up for a group photograph

Not steam-irons, either. Ironing was done with a heavy ‘flat iron’ which had to be continually reheated on the top of the fuel stove. Many of the items were starched, and so had to be ‘damped down’, rolled up for a time, and it all made for a very slow ironing session.

Soon after I started school we were lucky to have electricity extended to the Seven Mile Beach area and we were able to put away our lamps and actually buy a wireless, which you would now call a radio, but it was quite a large piece of furniture, and quite magical to us. 

But very few people could afford to buy electric stoves, or fridges, and for many years we still cooked with a fuel stove and kept our food reasonably fresh with a Coolgardie Safe, or an ice-chest, which carried a block of ice in the top compartment and melted slowly into a tray underneath.

Screen doors were still in the future and we controlled (partly) the many flies either by inserting an L-shaped small funnel (something like a Poppa) or by attaching a small, round box to the ceiling of the kitchen, and pulling it down to reveal a very sticky strip of paper, about three feet long, from which no fly ever flew away. 

We had had a telephone since I could remember, but more remote places like Foxground, were quite remote until it was extended to there. It was a worrying time when anyone was sick, for the only way of contacting a doctor was on horse-back, or by horse and buggy. 

Many small operations were done in the home. I recall before I was of school age having five stitches in my leg by a doctor from Kiama as I lay on the kitchen table. 

Elva’s son Mark Emery comments: They bred them tough in those days, and my mother was a very tough woman. Everybody was.