These are Florence's art supplies here on the table. Some of her favorite mediums were oil painting, watercolors, and drawing. All the art in this room except for the large painting of Ruth and Florence was done by her.

This clock is another hiding place like the drink table and the hidden door in the downstairs closet. Florence kept cash taped inside this clock.

This portrait shows Florence on the left in blue and Ruth on the right. We have the blue silk velvet dress that Florence is wearing and we display it around Christmastime, which matches the pattern and scrap of fabric lying on the sewing machine in Ruth’s room. We estimate that Florence is about 18 and Ruth is about 28 in this picture.

If you’ve ever been in a home that was built between 1880-1940, you might know that this is a fuse box for a Knob and Tube (K&T) electrical wiring system, common for houses back in the day. We aren’t sure why the fuse box is located in her room, but we assume that it’s because its location in the back of her closet was central within the house, and therefore a logical place for electrical controls spanning outward from the middle.

For this type of system, copper wires throughout the home would run through drilled holes in the studs using protective insulated tubes, and the length of the wire was supported every so often by nailed-in knobs, acting as anchors and making it easy for the wiring to change direction when needed.

Much of the parts in this system were ceramic/porcelain, and the wiring was insulated with cotton cloth and/or soft rubber.

We typically don’t see these in homes anymore because people weren’t using as many products that required electricity. You’d only see about 10 amps per circuit with these bad boys. After World War II, the wide availability of new electrical appliances and devices skyrocketed, and really hasn’t stopped! There’s no way the old system could run a dishwasher, a washing machine and dryer, a large refrigerator/freezer combo, an air fryer, and all the other appliances we have now!

These days, the K&T fuse box is open like this just for show, although the house was running on this system from its first days in 1907 until after Florence died in 2004. Beaumont Heritage Society added A/C and modern electrical wiring with a breaker box before we opened the home as a museum in 2007, for your safety and comfort, of course.

This room was added on during the 1924 remodel. This is the only room in the home which does not have a replica of the original wallpaper. We found a scrap of paper in the first bathroom and made a replica from that. The rest of the room is entirely original, down to the tiny soap slivers in the dish, the 1920s tile, and the items in the medicine cabinet.

Florence was incredibly studious and a talented writer. She often sat here and wrote letters to her sister Ruth while she was away at college. We have a framed letter from Ruth above her Beaumont High School diploma, with verbiage such as "darling baby sister." They truly loved and cherished each other.