The above painting is of the house built by Abraham Wilson, which he and Emily raised their 5 children, and lived in until 1965, when they moved to a retirement village at Pallarenda.

Abraham built a home made of flattened kerosene tins and used hessian for walls, with mud floors.  Emily kept the house meticulously clean, sweeping the mud floors to the extent the floor sloped where the broom swept most often.   One day no one was home and some goats came to the house and ate all the hessian walls.  Down one side of the house was a number of different varieties of Mangoes.

Homes built mostly with  hessian and benzine (kerosene) tins were not uncommon on Ross Island in the early 1900s.  However Abraham & Emily’s home was probably one of the last, if not the last, example of such a home on Ross Island

No photos were ever taken of the house, though the above painting was done by Jack O’Brien, nephew of Emily (Sister Ruth O’Brien’s son).  The home existed until Abraham and Emily passed away in 1969.