A BLOOMING GOOD CWA WITNESS: An apple seed story

It is apple picking time
not apple blossom time
but what the heck

We have contacted Mrs. Peg Lipscommbe and she given us some very useful information. At 80, and a CWA member, and given that she has spent all her life in and around around Margate on the Apple Isle, she had some very useful information about community life in the region, the apple industry and community understandings of the kinds of activities the community was involved in – apple festivals, the promotion of the apple industry, apple packing competitions and the like.

This kind of information is like solid gold for a researcher. We always thought that the CWA would have such people in its membership.

Mrs. Lipscommbe has willingly given us her permission to name her in our research despite the fact that she was telling us about an Aunt & Uncle who made watermelon seed & cherry seed necklaces in Hobart before WW2. Even though this does not point us to a maker of apple seed necklaces it does tell us quite a lot. More to the point, she is a very reliable witness.

We have had several 2nd & 3rd hand reports, and one first hand report, of people who made apple seed necklaces. It seems that they made them for their own or their family’s use in general.
Interestingly, Mrs. Lipscommbe has told us that “she has never heard of apple seed necklaces being made” anywhere near where she has lived. She has wonderful stories about Apple Festivals, Apple Blossom Princesses and all kinds of things that were celebrated at these events. But no apple seed necklaces! Strange because this is the Apple Isle and Tasmanians all celebrate that.

It seems that people did make apple seed necklaces in Tasmania but not in large numbers. Mrs. Lipscommbe discounted the idea that seed necklaces were "jewellery of The Depression." She is a child of The Depression and recalls that life was "too busy for that kind of thing." She recalled helping her Aunt make necklaces as a child and in particular handing her melon seeds that she could "pierce the seeds with a hot hat pin." It seems these necklace were made as a kind of recreation activity but not for sale and often as gifts.

Nonetheless the search goes on! We need to know the stories that are out there and it seems that up until now very few people have been looking for them in Tasmania.