Myriad of stories dating back a century at Dowerin and Districts Museum

Within the walls of an old weatherboard and iron-roofed cottage on Cottrell Street, are a myriad of stories dating back more than a century.

Heartwarming tales, stories of resilience, family and farming are among those told by the Dowerin and Districts Museum, which shaped the Wheatbelt community into what it is today.

And over the years, the money raised through the Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days has been instrumental in keeping it running and preserving the town’s history.

“The Field Days is huge for us,” chair of the museum Di Hatwell said.

“In small country towns often how people raise money is, ‘I’ll have a cake stand this week and you buy my cake,’ and vice versa the next weekend, which means the money is circulating within the town.

“This is an opportunity to earn money that’s coming from outside the town.”

The house was built in 1915 by saddler and harness maker Eugene O’Shaughnessy, and he lived there with his wife Mae and their five children.

It has not been lived in since the 1970s, but it now provides a glimpse of Wheatbelt life in the first half of the 20th century.

From photographs and stories to household items and hand and foot-worked machinery, Mrs Hatwell said there was a lot to learn from looking at times gone by.

“I really believe that we understand who we are by the stories we tell,” she said. “How we came to be here and what it took for us to stay when times were tough, and they help us to get through tough times.”

Along with general maintenance and “keeping everything up to scratch,” the funding will help them to bring exhibits into the digital age.

“We’ve got a project to digitise some tapings of some oral interviews that were recorded years ago, but many of those people are no longer with us,” Mrs Hatwell said.

“We’re hoping to get them digitised and put them on our website to make them more accessible. And we have lots of photos very safely tucked away which we’d like to get digitised and on to a TV screen in the museum.”

Hours contributed by volunteers to Field Days are pledged to a cause of their choosing to raise money, with Mrs Hatwell and secretary-treasurer Julie Bailey — who will be making sandwiches and chips for the event — pledging theirs to the museum.

While they will be busy during Field Days, Mrs Hatwell said visitors could contact the Shire to organise a time for them to open.

Click here to view the digital edition of the program.