Pioneers and Palms
Introduction
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Generation 2 - Alberta 1887-1953

Georgiana and Albert had five sons and four daughters, and all the girls excelled at needlework.

Alberta, the first child, was born at Paskeville. In her late teens she moved to Adelaide where she lived with an aunt while she studied with the prominent local artist William Ashton. She is said to have done many large oil paintings. Alberta was also a good pianist and was a popular accompanist for singers. After her marriage in 1913, she moved to a series of farming properties in New South Wales, and eventually settled in Cronulla, then a small village on the outskirts of Sydney. There, Alberta used her accomplishments as a needlewoman and dressmaker commercially. She had a shop built in the main street of Cronulla which was then a village (now a suburb) on the outskirts of Sydney; one window said ‘The Model Shop' and the other ‘Madame Georgette's'. Alberta also had her own workroom for the construction of her high-quality clothing in an era when a ‘model' was a unique design for an article of clothing made to the measurements of the wearer.

The waistcoat pictured below was made c1913 by Alberta Palm for her father, Albert. It was embroidered on the fronts in surface darning in two shades of brown with white French knots, on fawn huckaback style fabric. The fronts are edged with fawn grosgrain. The same fabric edges the four pockets. There are six mother-of-pearl buttons with brass shanks, which are held in place with split pins. There is an extra buttonhole to hold the end of a the watch chain. The back and lining are of cream linen.