Muriel McPhee

Today is Anzac Day, when Australians and New Zealanders commemorate their war dead. I thought it was an appropriate day to write about Muriel McPhee, someone with a poignant story of loss and endurance due to the First World War.

 Trousseau items made by Muriel McPhee.

In the collection of the National Museum of Australia and in a display case in the First World War section are a number of pieces of beautifully made lacy underwear. They are part of more than a hundred pieces made by Muriel McPhee and stored in old flour and sugar sacks as her trousseau. It appears that at the start of the War she had a sweetheart, but he never came back from the War, and the trousseau items were never used. She never spoke about this and even her family don't know who the young man was, although she kept a photograph of him on her dressing table and it appears that he fought in Europe with the 41st Infantry Battalion, who lost two thirds of its men. She never married.

 Muriel's sewing machine and hand crocheted lace.

She worked on the family cattle farm and sewed in the evenings. One of the saddest items is the only one that would have been worn. It is a mourning overdress, of black net, a thrifty design meant to be worn over clothes you already had, to indicate you were in mourning.

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