17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, April 18, 1912:O– And I have it all written now, but I got it most too long. I know the introduction so I don’t want that to be changed very much.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma was working on a speech that she planned to give on the last day of school.
The previous day, she wrote in the diary that she’d selected an interesting topic, but provided no hints about what it was. Was it humorous? . . . . serious? . . . about a controversial topic? . . .
A Hundred Years Ago 
So many questions your grandma left for us to ponder!
She seems to be enjoying writing her speech though. I wonder what “too long” was?
She does seem to be enjoying it–it must have been a fun topic. If everyone in the school needed to do a speech on the last day of school, it seems like each one would have needed to be fairly short.
I just love Grandma’s simple earnest diary! She helps me imagine what my own Grandmother’s Maryland-farm girlhood may have been like in the early 1900s. Thank you for bringing us this treasure.
Thanks for stopping by. It’s always wonderful to hear when someone enjoys the diary.
Don’t diaries just drive you crazy? If there were just a tad more information, just one more sentence, word, squiggle. Those that went before us, just dinna know how we would examine every page, word —and want more, more, and more. good job at keeping Grandma’s words, thoughts, and life alive all these years later.
They do–in a fun kind of way. I love how the diary provides a window into Grandma’s life. I want to think that she’d find it humorous that people a hundred years later find her words interesting–yet that she’d be pleased in her quiet way.