We presume the first drawers rusted out (leaks from the counter and portholes), and we're sure the current cabinet hardware is not original. Once the cabinet paint was removed, we found the holes and marks of earlier hardware and are looking for 1930s latches that resemble the pattern of the holes.
Conferring with the helpful folks on the tugboatinformation group of Facebook, which includes several former crew members of the MARY WHALEN or their sons, we think we have determined that one wood shelf held a large fan, and that another fan was bolted to the forward bulkhead right underneath the skylight.
We’ll be looking for vintage fans to fit those footprints left behind in decades of paint. We have also acquired some 1930 kitchen implements, appliances and housewares ads to give a sense of shipboard cooking at the time the MARY was launched.
A fun and easy way to support the educational end of this project
A fun way to get involved is to buy original 1930s ads for food, appliances, housewares and kitchens on eBay for us. Plenty of them only cost around $10! Search "1930s kitchen"' for starters. To give you an idea, we have ads for Brillo, Land-O-Lakes butter and a few more. We would display the collection of ads in a binder during tours of the ship. We have found that the galley is of great interest to people; and the fact that we have the original cast iron stove (and use it) and a wood paneled fridge and freezer, make the galley a good place for explaining food, dietary and domestic history. We would also welcome more 1930s kitchenware and appliances, but please get in touch before you get any of those so we don't have redundancies!