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The front rooms
Mayes Cottage is a genuine relic of Australia's and Queensland's pioneering age. Genuine because it is almost exactly as it was when it was built over a hundred years ago, in 1887. This house, and what remains of the original slab hut that stands outside, are originals, not reproductions. The house was built sixteen years after John and Emily Mayes had first arrived here. It contains original family furniture dating from the 1880s till the 1930s, when John and Emily's eldest surviving son, Josiah, lived here. Comparing what you see here, with the many conveniences we enjoy these days, the lounge may seem small and sparsely furnished. But, to Josiah and Daisy, and to the whole Mayes family, this was a better-than-average home. It remains to this day, a touchstone for them all.
The dining room
John and Emily Mayes brought their family up in this house, after surviving their first years in a simple slab hut. The dining room was the place where the family gathered on formal occasions. When Josiah and Daisy lived here, this room was the place where the family would meet for Sunday dinner. That was, of course, if they weren't involved in choir practice after the morning church service. On those occasions, the family would take lunch with them, as the trip to and from Loganlea where the nearest church was located, would have made the more formal dinner at home far too late. Ian Rohl, Josiah's grandson, remembers occasions when the family would gather around the piano for a good old sing-song. In this era, few people had a wireless and no one had TV. This was the era when you made your own fun and you learned to appreciate your family's voices and each one's ability to entertain the rest of the gathering. This was the most precious time of family life.
Kitchen/laundry
Built separate from the rest of the house, partly as a means of limiting the potential for a fire to take hold and destroy the entire house, the kitchen was the real centre of the family's daily life. Beyond all of the other rooms in the house, this was the place where Daisy, like most pioneering women, spent the great bulk of her time. Daisy was always busy making cream, butter, jams and bottling fruit, preserving what she could for the off-season. Daisy would make or mend cloths on the sewing machine and then cook what was needed for a family hungry after a full day's work. There was no timer on the wood-burning stove and certainly no microwave to speed up the cooking. Baking bread was a daily necessity. It would take anything up to three hours to prepare a roast dinner for the table. When Daisy wasn't busy in the kitchen, she was boiling clothes in the copper so her family had clean sheets and underwear.
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