What did I learn about the 1850's and 1860's from my visit to Ferrymead?
1) Children must be seen not heard.
2) Children had to treat their shoes with care because you only had 1 pair and if they were to big you would stuff newspaper at the ends until your feet grew.
3) Candles were made out of cow fat.
4) Children and adults had to make their own gifts and toys because no one had toys in stores.
5) Women and girls had to wear dresses with aprons on top and bonnets and boys had to wear knickerbockers with a blue cap and top.
6) There were no ovens so you had to cook and heat up irons with a open fire outside.
7) In school it was very strict. If you got caught talking the teacher would bring you up to the front of the room and wack you with a cane. If you called out loud or laughed you would be sent to the back of the room and had to face the wall.
8) When cleaning the clothes the girls had to lift up their dresses so they wouldn't get wet. The boys had to scrub the deck because girls would get their dresses dirty an wet.
9) Ladies were always first walking into or out of buildings and boys would hold the doors.
10) At school you did not use pencils or pens you used ink and quills.
11) When ironing clothes you had to be careful not to burn the items
12) When we were aloud to explore around we were not aloud to touch ANYTHING that would fall or break.
Immigration
For Immigration we had to pick a item off the table and that would tell you your job. Then we had to pick a piece of paper out of a bucket and see if we could go on the ship or not. Most of the people could not go on the ship. Then we got a disease. I got the rickets so that meant that I could go on the ship because I could still walk but I could not walk with strait legs. The jobs that you could get were:
* Doctor * Flour Maker * Banker (I got that) * Painter * Bootmaker * Printer * Metal Worker
* Farmer * Blacksmith * Bricklayer * Priest * Whitesmith * Miller * Builder
Then we got a big piece of paper and wrote down Our name, Our kids names, What out job was ,What disease we had and Our spouse. My name was still Everley and my kids names were Scarlet and Victoria.
V Hut
For the V Hut we had to do chores. There were specific chores for boy and for girls. The reason we all had specific chores was because the girls would get their dresses dirty. These were the chores:
*Polishing Silverware * Planting Broad Beans * Raking the Leaves *Scrubbing the Deck (Boys)
*Cleaning the clothes *Sawing Wood for the Fire * Sweeping the Floor in the House
* Putting flax on the house * Weeding the Garden *Ironing Clothes
Pioneer Crafts
Pioneer crafts was fun. We had to make crafts that kids would make in the olden days. Some of the crafts we had to make were a bird in a cage and a fish in a bowl illusion, making candles,knitting and french knitting, sewing and making out sacks and fabric.
Packing The Trunk
For packing the trunk this lady came around and gave us all 1 item to hold while she came around and told us about the ships that came to Christchurch. Then she picked up our items and we had to guess what they were and f you would take them with you on the trip to use or save them for when you got to land. she went around the circle until all the objects were gone.
