15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, January 15, 1911: Hardly remember what I did today. This evening I accompanied my lofty sister up to Oakes.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma had two sisters. Besse and Ruth. Besse was the oldest and already married by the time Grandma began keeping this diary. Ruth was 3 years older than Grandma and still lived at home—so this entry must be referring to Ruth. I wonder why Grandma refers to Ruth as lofty?
The Oakes family lived on a farm that was located about a mile from where Grandma lived. Grandma and Ruth would have gone down the road that went past their farm in the opposite direction from the way they headed when going to McEwensville.
I don’t like to go out after dark on cold, dark January nights. Grandma and Ruth would have gone up a hill and then turned into a lane to get to the Oakes home. Did they walk to Oakes—or did they ride in a carriage or wagon? Was there a full moon? Did they take a lantern?
I’ve consulted a couple of online moon phase calculators, and they agree that the night of January 11, 1911 was one day after the full moon.
Oops–I guess the title should be Cold, Moonlit, January Nights.