Welcome to Erin Mankie's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

It's a nightly ritual for pretty much everyone.

Check your phone or your alarm clock to make sure that it's set to wake you up in time

for you to make it to school or work.

After all, we have places to be and things to do, right?

But what about the world before alarm clocks?

In places where roosters weren't exactly cockaroodle doing their job to wake us up with

the sun?

How did everyone make it to work on time back then?

Well the answer to that question lies with a long forgotten occupation and with one

of the biggest names in that field.

Generally speaking, to be the muse of someone's picture book you had to have done something

pretty noteworthy, something perhaps inspiring or educational, or unlike anything anyone

else had done before.

And for the most part you could say all of those things about Mary Smith.

A Londoner who did something pretty remarkable between 1901 and 1918.

Mary was a knocker-upper whose job description can probably be inferred from the title.

...