I remember watching my grandmother use hers when a young kid. Don't know what happened to the sewing machine, but my mother and finally my sister ended up with the stand that the top that rolled over as a front room decoration.
I bought one from @Shadowrider 's mom a few years ago. It is in my bedroom, in front of a window, so the kittens have a place to sun in the afternoon. It is beautiful and I am proud to give it a good home.
My mom’s aunt had one in her front hallway. I’m pretty sure it was still in working order when my mom and I went there after the interment service for my mom’s eldest sister early last year.
I always thought it was cool, but they had a bunch of cool things in that house.
Ok, just for a little tidbit of side info. Back in the early 80's, I had to go to a school in Springfield Vermont where Jones and Lampson built machine tools like lathes, mills and so on.
They had a museum dedicated to J&L machine tools that dated back to the civil war.
The same treadle mechanism to run that sewing machine ran a lathe that machinist used on the battlefield to build conical cannon rounds, and refinish the ones shot at them so they could be shot back. Explosive rounds were certainly used, with a lot being solid shot, conical and ball along with a host of other rounds. Grapeshot, chain and so on.
I'll bet whoever ran that manual treadle lathe had one heck of a set of muscled legs!