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As the war progressed and came closer to Australia’s shores, this need for more “manpower” grew even more pressing. Eventually it was conceded that women’s services would be required, though one question was still perplexing some: what exactly could women do? One woman who took up the challenge of a “man’s job” was Mary Emma Martin (nee Jackson). Before the war, Emma’s husband Bob was an ice vendor, delivering blocks of ice to Brisbane’s inner-northern suburbs, in the days before refrigerators when everyone relied on an icebox in their home to keep foodstuffs from perishing. Ice delivery was such an essential service that at first ice vendors were excused from military service; it was still quite a novel idea to think a woman could handle the job. However, when Bob Martin and other men enlisted for service, Emma took on the role, along with an estimated 50 other women ice vendors in Brisbane alone . Amid wartime crisis, these women literally kept cool and carried on! Source: www.anzacsquare.qld.gov.au/stories/australian-women-work-...

A pleasant 30-minute drive from Toowoomba, just off the Gore Highway is Pittsworth. There lie some of the richest farming lands in Australia. The Pittsworth Pioneer Village showcases the early development of the area and is dedicated to the memory of the feats of Arthur Postle - the "Crimson Flash". Once the world's fastest athlete, Postle grew up in the region and developed his love of running on the family farm. Crafty travelers will be interested in the Lady Fletcher Lace Room which houses one of Australia's largest lace collections. While at the RSL Display Centre, you can view an extensive collection of wartime memorabilia. In Hume Street you will find the gracious St Stephen's Catholic Church, constructed in 1908. Just around the corner, St Andrew's Anglican Church is also worth a visit to view the magnificent stained-glass windows. Source: www.queensland.com/au/en/places-to-see/destination-inform...

In the past Girls spent a lot of time at home learning to do domestic tasks, like sewing, cooking, washing, and cleaning. Their education was geared towards training them for womanhood and how to be good wives and mothers. Needlework was a key part of this education, from the working class to the wealthy. It was seen as an essential feminine skill—plain sewing to make and mend clothing and household items, and embroidery to decorate them. Needlework samplers have been around since the 15th century and had become a standard feature of girls’ education by the 1700s. Settler girls in Australia made cross-stitching samplers at school. But samplers and other domestic items don’t tell us much about the lives these girls led outside the home. Girls often worked out of the home as domestic servants or in factories, went to school, and played in the urban neighborhood. Some evidence of this can be found in the shape of homemade wooden dolls from archaeological digs around Little Lon—a working-class area on Little Lonsdale Street. We have written correspondence, photos, and paintings of prominent men and women from the era, but these rarely include much detail about children. Of the hundreds of thousands of girls born in 19th-century Australia, very little of what they made have survived. Source: museumsvictoria.com.au/article/a-discovery-of-stitches-ne...