The Seamstress Sisters Stewart
In the Hawkesbury district, travelling west along the Bells Line of Road near Bilpin, a road on the right leads to the very small locality of Mountain Lagoon,14kms away.
This small locality was the home of the Stewart sisters, Myra and Ivy. Their father and grandfather were pioneers in the area and also in the fruit growing industry in the Hawkesbury region. The property where they lived was named “St Anne’s”.
The sisters, although born four years apart, were very close to each other, both had a great talent working with needles. Being very adept at making, mending and altering clothing back in the day during the very early 1900s right up to the early 1970s.
Throughout that time, they had lived through two World Wars and the Great Depression seeing and experiencing much hardship and suffering and therefore became very frugal and often recycled material and trimmings and even scraps such as calico from used flour bags.
During the Peace celebrations held to celebrate the end of World War 1 at Richmond in 1918, Myra and Ivy travelled by horse and cart from Mountain Lagoon to a friend’s home in Windsor Street, Richmond, a distance of some 42kms.
The friend’s home was located where the Aldi supermarket now stands. After arriving during the afternoon and the partaking of refreshments and a short rest, the sisters changed into frocks that they had made themselves and attended the Peace Ball with a group of friends.
Naturally, as it was late and therefore dark, at the end of the ball, it was much too dangerous to travel back up the Bells Line of Road towards Mountain Lagoon, so they stayed overnight in Richmond electing to travel home the following morning.
During the 1920s there was a great change in fashion as the “Roaring Twenties” saw with the relaxation of the restrictions of the Victorian ideas of propriety. Society became more lenient, with great changes that came in music, dance and fashion.
It was during the 1930s depression that the sisters showed their frugality in recycling. They would recycle decorative trimmings from one article of clothing to another as well as using scraps of material and clothing to patch such items as men’s calico work shirts or night attire. It was not only everyday events that they prepared items of clothing for but also for such occasions as deaths or funerals with the creation of mourning outfits for both males and females.
During their early days the two sisters would often work by the light of kerosene lamps. As there were no such distractions as television or the internet. They would pass the time of day and evening with crochet, sewing and knitting everything from baby clothes to men’s waistcoats. They would travel into town once a month to deliver their wares.
After the death of their father, the girls and their mother moved from Mountain Lagoon to Chapel St, Richmond, and from there they began creating garments and accessories for the major Sydney department stores of David Jones and Farmers. They also sewed for the popular Richmond haberdashery called “The Patsy” so named after the old steam train that travelled through Richmond as far as Kurrajong until the Richmond-Kurrajong line was closed.
The girls, who had never married, brought uniqueness and beauty to their hand made clothing and accessories. Ivy Stewart passed away in 1976, whilst Myra Stewart developed Alzheimer’s disease and lived in a nursing home until her passing in 1978.
A collection of clothing and accessories known as “the Misses Stewart Collection” was donated to the Hawkesbury Historical Society and Regional Museum by Mrs Mary Avern over a period of three decades beginning in 1981. Mrs Avern was a long-time friend of the sisters and much of the above story has come from her recollections.
