STRETCHER, SHOE - HEEL RIGHT FOOT

Pair of boot stretchers either collected by or owned by Mrs Lois Turner who was a member of the Armadale Kelmscott Historical Society and collected and donated a large amount of 'olden days' objects for the museum in the year before it opened in 1976. Some of those items were owned by her or her family when they first lived in Armadale and later on farms near Brookton.
Lois's father, William Tidbury Mills came to Western Australia in the 1890s to try his luck on the recently discovered Goldfields. In c1905 William returned to South Australia and married Victoria Maria Mason. The newly married couple then returned to Western Australia and settled in Armadale where they started their family. Their first child, George Hartly was born in Armadale in 1906. Lois Adelaide Turner was delivered by local midwife Mrs Bodicoat in 1908 at the family property on the corner of Eleventh Avenue and Gull Street. Lois would have spent her first few years of schooling attending the Armadale State School. While in Armadale the family had four other children, Avon William in 1909, Hartly Mason in 1911, Sydney Eric in 1913 and Victor Glenn in 1914
In 1915 the Mills family moved to Brookton. That same year Hilda Victoria was born and in 1918 Fred Mason was born. The family lived on a farm which they called 'Masonville' to the east of the Brookton
In 1932 Lois married Sidney John Turner a local farmer and lived in the district for the next thirty years. In 1961 Sidney passed away and Lois moved back to Armadale. Lois would later join the Armadale Kelmscott Historical Society. In 1975 as the AKHS prepared to open History House Lois donated a large number of items from her family.
Lois passed away in Armadale in 1988.