Tweet ‘Tweeting’ in 1911

15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday,  January 13, 1911: Jakie, that’s my teacher had a siege of moving our seats today. I didn’t get mine moved, although I expected to be. It really was a wonder that I didn’t. Some wonderful things happen in this every day world.

Local newspaper article exactly 100 years ago today: 

Miss Helen Wesner, Miss Jennie E. Guinn, and Howard Guinn spent Wednesday evening at the home of Clem Baylor.

 Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later: 

A hundred years ago people also wanted to keep their friends informed about what they were doing. The tweets of that day were brief items in the local newspaper.  A fun evening that a friend of Grandma’s had is mentioned in the Milton Evening Standard exactly a hundred years ago today. You’ll meet Helen Wesner—Grandma calls her Tweet— in the diary in a few weeks. Tweet or one of the other people mentioned in the paper must have given the information to the McEwensville reporter for inclusion.

I remember when I was a child that when we had out-of-town guests my mother would always inform the Watsontown reporter of the Milton paper. At the time small town newspapers that included minor social happenings were seen as being really backwards and old-fashioned, but perhaps tweeting–either in the newspaper or electronically– is really back to the future.