A Special Australia Day

I went to The Powerhouse Museum today for a special visit, to view my
Great Grandmother's wedding dress on display, in an exhibition called
'Clothes Encounters'.

Not an inspiring weather day, a cooler, soft grey drizzly one, but quite a
relief after the awful heat and humidity of recent summer days.

Her exhibit is the first one you see, the dress in a large glass display, a
poster stating - 'When Hannah met Alfred'. Lower down are glass cabinets
with accessories to the outfit, more literature and photos.

She looks quite sweet in her wedding photo, if not a little started, beside her
groom, who looks quite the dandy and a little raffish with that hair if his not
quite behaving, and fobwatch and waistcoat.

The last time I saw the dress when it belonged to my family still, was in my
teens. There was even talk of me modelling it for a photo by my keen
photographer mother.

I don't know if it would have fitted me, I was very slim, but grew quite tall
by 14/15. I did do another photo shoot for mum though, dressed in antique
linens, with antique props.

Then I viewed it again in 2 publications, and one day went to see it in the
basement of the Powerhouse with my twin daughters.

She passed it to my grandmother, then it went to my mother, passed on again
after many years to Anne Schofield as it was a risky business  to preserve
such an old piece of fragile textile costume. Anne donated it to the museum.

I had the gloves that went with the outfit, and all the various pieces of the
ensemble were reaquainted.

I have since 2013 inherited Hannah's rocking chair, wedding ring, and many
other personal items of hers and her offspring. I have been researching, and
am most fond of the legend and output of her eldest daughter Elizabeth Charlotte,
known as Charlotte.

In fact, I feel as though I have inherited quite the amount of a small museum of my
own.

Pics to come.