Honour Box to go home

The Society is excited to have been part of the tale about an Honour Box returning to its home.

We have an Honour Box in our collection, and a copy of the book that it contained, issued at the end of World War I, recording all Victorian Teachers who served.

This is our box, one of the commercially produced type.

When the Valencia Creek school closed in 1951 as part of the amalgamation that formed Boisdale Consolidated School, the book and box remained in the vacant building.

When the vacant building was moved to Bairnsdale (in the 1960s?) to use at the first Nowyeung in Grant Street, there was still no interest in the box and its book, so the relocation contractors kept it, rather than see it thrown out.

They have now handed it to the East Gippsland Historical Society at Bairnsdale, who in turn passed it to us, in the hope that we would know where it should be most appropriately placed.

It did not take a lot of thought. The Valencia Creek Soldiers Memorial Hall, which was built next to the school after WWI, was the only option we were prepared to consider. It will be returned as close as possible to its original home in the near future.

The box itself is interesting, apparently a locally made option, much more vernacular than the commercial options usually found. (It is actually quite square - blame the photographer for the list!)

Does anyone have any knowledge of other examples of these boxes, especially any that are different again?











The assistance of the East Gippsland Historical Society in the return of this valuable item to its original home is much appreciated.

Dairy Factories

George is currently working on our dairy display in The Shed, and Maffra Historical Society are working on dairy factories, so our minds are turning to the same thing.

We have a number of items in our collection that relate to home milking and processing, and one cream can (from Miss Farrell), pictured.

But we have no photographs of either milking or of the numerous dairy factories that were in the Shire of Avon.

There were early private factories at Inverbroom and Craigielee, and later the Avondale Condensed Milk factory near Chinn's Bridge. The Heart / Clydebank Cheese factory was very prominent in the 1880s, and a creamery operated on the river (about where the Rules live) from 1893 to an unknown date. The Bundalaguah Creamery was just inside the Shire of Avon, and a private butter factory at Wolverton may have also been in the shire, the same for one on Tom's Creek at Bengworden. Thomas Coto had a large factory near Sale. There was even a cheese factory at Dargo.

But not one photo of these do we have in the collection.

Can anyone help with the loan of any we can copy???

We have a Flower!

The Tuesday team has, over the years, become very attached to the plant on the corner. We used to know its name, but have temporarily forgotten, but think it was planted long before the society took over the building. You can see it here, behind the sign.

Every Tuesday Wemyss would carefully water it, and ever year its flowers were celebrated.

Until we came along, and found the brickies had removed it during renovations during the week, and it had been left on the lawn to die!

Total despair.

One member picked it up, took it home, potted it up and mollycoddled it. Surely, since it had survived that long, it had to be tough.

And it was - it is in flower