Month: June 2012

Didn’t Go to Sunday School

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

Sunday, June 16, 1912:  It rained today. Wanted to go to Sunday School this afternoon, but the walking I felt sure would be simply terrible. Besse and Curt were out this evening.

Recent rainy day photo of the house Grandma lived in when she wrote the diary.

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

The weather doesn’t sound good—

Mud would have been an issue since the road between the Muffly farm and McEwensville wasn’t paved a hundred years ago.

Grandma seldom skipped Sunday School—I think this was only the second time since the diary began in January, 1911.

Grandma mentioned several times in the diary that she didn’t want to miss Sunday School because each week she memorized Bible verses—and that if she memorized  700+ verses that she’d get a Bible.

Well, Grandma reached her goal on May 26 and received her Bible two weeks prior to this entry on June 3. Apparently she was less motivated to attend Sunday School now that she had the Bible.

Besse was Grandma’s married sister, and Curt was her husband.

Doing Some Fancy Work

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

Saturday, June 15, 1912:  Well this is Saturday. Saturday, that’s the way my brain must be of the dull sort. Did some fancy work this afternoon.

Detachable Collar (Source: Ladies Home Journal: October, 1911)

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

What type of “fancy work” was Grandma doing? . . . . embroidery . . .  tatting. . .  crocheting . . .?

Was she making something that would decorate her clothes? . . . or was she making it to give as a gift? . . . or to put in her hope chest?

I want to picture her sitting in the living room doing fancy embroidery on pillow cases and sheets in anticipation of finding the right guy and getting married someday—but maybe it was for more immediate needs such as decorating a dress collar.

Bulls on Farms a Hundred Years Ago

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

Friday, June 14, 1912:  Such a time as I had a running after Jake this afternoon. He broke out of the field and when I spied him he was walking up the railroad. Carrie was over this evening.

Recent photo of the railroad tracks that cross the Muffly farm.

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

Hmm—who was Jake? I never really thought about it before, but I bet that the Muffly’s had a bull—and that Jake was the bull’s name.

Photo Source: The Farm Dairy (1908) by H.B. Gurler

Bulls are MEAN. They have unpredictable tempers and sometimes charge people.

This adds a whole new dimension to what watching cows involved. When Grandma wrote about watching cows—it probably wasn’t a pastoral pastime, but a potentially dangerous job.

An aside—Most farmers started using artificial insemination to breed their cows in the 1950s and 60s—and they were very, very glad that they no longer needed to have bulls on the farm.

Old-fashioned Cherry Pie Recipe

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

Thursday, June 13, 1912:  I guess I’ve forgotten.

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

My sour cherries are getting ripe and I made an old-fashioned cherry pie. Grandma mentioned picking berries on June 10—but hasn’t mentioned cherries. I wonder if cherries ripened this early in 1912.

Here’s the recipe I used to make the pie:

Old-Fashioned Cherry Pie

Pastry for 9-inch two crust pie (see pie pastry recipe in previous post)

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup flour

4 cups fresh pitted sour cherries

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Stir the sugar, flour, and almond extract into the cherries.  If the mixture is very juicy add additional flour. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan. Make a lattice top crust and flute edges. Brush crust with a small amount of milk; sprinkle with sugar.  Bake in oven for 10 minutes; then reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until crust is lightly  browned and juice just begins to bubble.

I made my own pie crust dough using the recipe that I previously included in the post for Rhubarb Sponge Pie.  I doubled that recipe since I basically needed two crusts for this pie.

For the lattice top crust, I cut the dough into strips about 3/4 inch wide and laid them on the top of the pie. I try to lay every other one perpendicular to the previous one—but the lattice never ends up being woven exactly right.  I never worry much about that because the pie tastes so awesome.

Had to do the Milking Alone

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

Wednesday, June 12, 1912:  I’m mad at that Ruth tonight. She goes away and leaves me with the milking.

Photo in the May 15, 1912 issue of Kimball’s Dairy Farmer magazine. It’s interesting how the women in the photo wore light-colored clothes while working with cows. I would have thought that dark-colored outfits that wouldn’t show dirt would have been preferred.

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

I wonder if Ruth ever did the milking for Grandma when Grandma went somewhere.  Grandma complained several times in the diary that she had to do the milking for her sister Ruth —but she never wrote that Ruth did the milking for her.

My guess is that both of the Muffly sisters benefited from trading chores—but that Grandma didn’t think  that it was important enough to mention when she was the one who got to go somewhere and miss the milking

When I was a child growing up on a dairy farm, my brother and I often informally traded barn chores so that one of us could do something else. I’d do his chores one day—and he might do mine a few days later.  We never kept track of whether one of us did the chores less often than the other—but my sense was that it balanced out pretty well over time.

Put Cows in Wrong Field

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

Tuesday, June 11, 1912:  Such a time as I had with the cows this morning. I got them in the wrong field and then had to take them out.

Picture of an early 20th century dairy farm. Photo source: The Farm Dairy (1908) by H.B. Gurler

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

To give the grass time to grow, farmers generally rotated cows between several pastures.

The cows would have been brought into the barn for milking— and then they’d have been herded back to the pasture.

I assume that Grandma’s father decided that it was time to move the cows to another pasture, but that she somehow failed to herd them into the correct field.  Maybe he hadn’t clearly communicated the change to her  . . . or maybe she hadn’t been paying attention . . . or maybe she’d been thinking of other things and had just plain forgotten.

Picking (and Eating) Strawberries

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

Monday, June 10, 1912: This morning I picked berries and helped myself to some. I wonder if anyone saw me. I want Ruth to help me with a jigger to-night, but I guess she doesn’t have the inclination to.

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

I always think that eating strawberries is half the fun of picking them—but perhaps Grandma was being paid by a neighbor to harvest them.  The previous year, on June 12, 1911, she wrote:

Started to pick strawberries this morning. Of course it will mean some early rising and loss of sleep, but just look at what I can earn.

I’m not sure what a jigger refers to in this entry, but one definition is a tool. Webster’s online dictionary mentions says that a jigger is a “small pointed metal instrument, resembling sharpened pencil, used in assembling ribs of expansion metal watch bands.” I don’t know if metal watchbands existed a hundred years ago, but if they did I can picture that Grandma may have had a watchband that needed adjustment.