House history research

In my quest to complete a house history for the Sow's Ear, I am finding the original owners of the house far more interesting than the house itself! Particularly dear Zoila Ceferina Mabel Stables.

I've been liaising with The University of Queensland about Zoila Stables who was an Arts student in the 1920s. The archivist was only able to give me a date of graduation which was 1928; the year that the Sow's Ear was built.

There was nothing else, however she did say to contact the Fryer Library on the Campus as they held publications and manuscripts of some of Australia's leading writers. I knew Zoila had written a book.

Eureka!

"Our Austlit database records that Zolia Stables wrote under the pseudonym of “Eleanor Peters”.  

It states:  “’Eleanor Peters’ was the pseudonym of Zoila M. Stables, who was born in Argentina of English parents and moved to Australia some time before the publication of ‘Tare Harvest’, her only work.” 

The Fryer Library said there are no copies of this book held in Australian libraries.

I knew Zoila held the copyright of Tare Harvest by Eleanor Peters, but did not put two and two together.

Zoila was Eleanor!

screen print of an excerpt from an American publishers journal about Ms Peters/Zoila

I know I will be able to track down biographical information and literary reviews from when the book was published in 1936.

The new information also explained why I could not find Australian birth records for the Stables family and why Zoila had a Spanish name.

A quick search on the Queensland State Archives site lead to the Stables immigration records. Zoila entered Australia in 1911 under the name of Mabel Stables. She was 11 years old.

She arrived with  her nine-year old sister Florence (her middle name Ethel was used in the immigration records), seven-year old brother Stanley and 39 year old Mother Mary (Florence was used in the records).

Now I have approximate years of birth for the first owners of the Sow's Ear, which is terrific.

The best news is the Fryer Library said they were interested in acquiring a second-hand copy of Tare Harvest, because they aim to have a comprehensive collection of Australian literature and also Zoila was a past UQ student.

A good week for research! And maybe Zoila wasn't such a fruit-loop after all...

Coffee

I've been doing a little bit of a clean up in the kitchen this morning. The oven and the coffee maker are now clean - such annoying but necessary jobs.

I also dug out our coffee percolator which we have largely ignored since we went down the coffee appliance track a few years ago. The only time we use it now is when we go camping or holiday in a self-contained apartment.

I'm going to try to use it more, especially when we have dinner guests or when a crowd drops in.

Anyway, coffee is an extremely important part of our morning ritual, especially when we are woken up by the little one at 5am each morning. Ahh...the coffee hit makes everything seem more optimistic at that hour.

We are not hard-core coffee aficionados, as our coffee machine is basic and we no longer grind our own beans since I gave my old Moulinex grinder away during the great purge of 2009 when we moved house. (I seriously don't know what I was thinking!)

Door Sixteen did a great post on their coffee set-up in their city apartment, so this post is very much inspired by that. I thought it was really interesting to see how other people do coffee at home.

This is our coffee set-up. The old illy tin actually contains Lavazza which is our coffee staple of choice.

I grew up drinking Lavazza - my Italian father used to grind the beans religiously every morning for our morning coffee. We've flirted with other coffee brands - cheaper and more expensive - but always go back to familiar favourites.

The machine is a basic 15 BAR pump variety which produces a nice crema on an espresso and also has a steam nozzle to heat or froth our milk. We also use filtered water to minimise the scale build up in the machine. It's a cleaner taste.

We drink from glass, because they fit well under the machine and are the perfect size for morning latte. Jason takes raw sugar in his coffee, which is contained in a small Georg Jensen sugar bowl.

And my most favourite thing is the set of Robert Welch teaspoons which was given to us as a gift last Christmas.

This particular pattern of cutlery won a Design Council Award in 1965 and is featured in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The people who gave us this gift had no idea of the pedigree of the spoons. They were stunned at my elation and then flattered for having such good taste.

Now tell me, how do you do your coffee, if you drink coffee? Or is tea your brew? I'd love to know.

P.S We are not elitist because we also have a jar of instant in the pantry...caffeine hits are welcomed in any form.

Flying Zoila

If you've been reading Fun and VJs for a while, you probably know I'm trying to find more information regarding the original owners of the Sow's Ear - the Stables family - for my house history research.

After my visit to the crematorium a fortnight ago, I contacted the office to locate the rest of the Stables family. They are all cremated at Mt Thompson's Crematorium...all in different niches scattered throughout the grounds...

...except for Zoila. I don't have her date of death, yet and it makes it hard to search their records without a date.

I can find lots of information about Zoila online though, because she was a published author, attended the University of Queensland in the 1920s and was a participant in a case study in a book about out of body experiences or astral projections by Robert Crookall.

Just recently, the entire text of the book called The Study and Practice of Astral Projection, published in 1966 was made available on the internet.

Image from here

When I read the case study out loud to Jason, we both giggled like school children and thought Zoila sounded like a complete Fruit-loop. With a capital F.


"One night I had what I then considered a dream, but what I now believe to be a genuine projection. I simply woke to find myself flying through the air at a considerable height above the ground."  

"I have never for a moment believed I was dreaming during a projection;any more than I could believe I am dreaming at the present moment! The experience is far too real for that. I KNOW I am not."

Oh man! I'm just imagining Zoila levitating near the ceiling as I write. I know one shouldn't mock the things they don't understand...but, seriously?

Interestingly, I also discovered from the book that the Stables family did not always live in Brisbane.

"We lived then on a small selection in the empty western grazing areas,and were 200 miles from the nearest town."

I did a quick search of historical electoral rolls and found out that they were living in the Capricornia Electorate, near Rockhampton, I suspect. 

I'm waiting for some more information about Zoila through other sources; hoping, in particular, to find a photograph of her. 

I'd love to put a face to the name.

Repurposing a beer bottle

At Jason's 40th Birthday, one of our guests brought along some Lucky beers for apératif.

They were the cutest beer bottles I had ever seen and I had to keep one. But what on earth do you do with an empty beer bottle?

Lucky Beer Buddha bottle

 Inspired by Mise from Pretty Far West who is reknowned globally for re-purposing Bonne Maman jam jars, I thought to follow her lifestyle-guru lead and re-purpose the Buddha beer bottle.

And then I remembered that Amanda from Small Acorns and Ani's House from The Clothesline wrote blog posts about re-using pretty bottles for dish-washing detergent. (Ha! I bet they thought no one was paying attention. Funny the things you choose to remember about fellow bloggers)

The Cusson's Morning Fresh concentrate was carefully decanted into the little green Buddha. I just plugged a spare olive oil pouring thing-a-ma-jig on the top et voilà.

re-purposed Lucky beer bottle at the sink 

Isn't he charming?

It is very zen at our sink. Enlightenment awaits all who washes the pots and pans at the Sow's Ear.

Rub its tummy and good fortune is yours.

Furtive visit

Last night we were in the kitchen talking with our financial planner, Steve, who was doing our annual review (please don't think grand thoughts - it was basically a reminder to do power of attorneys, update insurances and tut tut the state of our meagre investments, post-GFC).

A very glum affair until the door bell rang. It was 9pm. Who'd be calling in at this time?

It was our neighbour telling us he saw a man running into our yard and that this man was somewhere on our property.

Well, the financial results were flung aside.

Jason raced to the backyard with the neighbour, while mild-mannered Steve followed them and I flooded the outside area with light.

It was action central at the Sow's Ear.

Our neighbour said he saw two suspicious looking men lurking on either side of the street before one ran into our yard. He immediately called the police on his mobile phone.

While Jason and his band of followers were downstairs, I locked all the doors and windows and checked on all the children who were sound asleep in their rooms.

The search outside proved fruitless. Whoever had come into our yard must've climbed a side fence and ran off.

Our neighbour got into his car and went around the block to see if he could locate them. Within a few minutes the police had arrived. They searched the neighbours yard, had a quick look in ours and poked their heads into Boo's house (the deserted house on the other side of our place).

The intruders had scarpered off. The police did a round of the area, but there was very little they could do and that was that for the evening.

I don't think poor Steve the financial planner had experienced a more eventful client visit! It was the most animated we had ever seen him. He definitely earned his commission this quarter.

We are all a bit jumpy at the moment and double checking that all the doors and windows are locked tonight. Make sure you check yours too. xx