17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, July 17, 1912:About the same as yesterday.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later
Sounds like another boring summer day. I’ve been posting Grandma’s diary entries for more than a year and a half now. In that time period she’s never gone more than a few miles from her home.
Grandma went to Milton (which was about 5 miles from her home); to Turbotville (which was about 4 miles); to Montandon (which was about 8 miles); to Ottawa –Limestone Township, Montour County (about 8 miles). She also regularly went to McEwensville and Watsontown—both of which were about a mile from the Muffly farm.
Did Grandma ever dream of seeing the world?
Source: Farm Journal (April 1911)
Reo
$1250
Top and Merger Automatic Windshield extra
New York to San Francisco
10 days 15 hours 13 minutes
steady going and not a wrench touched to the Reo engine.
That’s your answer to every question you can ask about the Reo.
The Reo must have speed and power, to keep going like that over bad roads and hard climbs found in the Great American Desert and the Rocky Mountains.
The Reo must have strength, to stand the constant and tough strain.
The Reo must be reliable. A car that stands a test like that, and then breaks the record from New York to Los Angeles, and then hill-climbing record up Mount Hamilton, and then the record from Topeka to Kansas City, and still is in perfect condition—that is the perfect proof of reliability.
Comfort? Prove it yourself. Get the nearest Reo dealer to take you for a ride.
Send for the catalogue and “Reo and the Farmer.” Plain facts.
R M Owen & Co. General Sales Agent for Reo Motor Company.
You can do it with a Reo.
Whew—10 days 15 hours 13 minutes sounds brutal.
According to Mapquest, today you can get on Interstate Route 80 in New York City and end up in San Francisco 1 day 19 hours and 48 minutes later (assuming you drive straight through).
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, July 16, 1912:I don’t just exactly remember what I really did today.
Jell-O with black raspberries
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I was thinking about what to write, and remembered that a reader commented several weeks ago that many people were getting ice boxes in the early 1900s—and that Jell-O was becoming popular.
I recalled that I had seen an advertisement for Jell-O and flipped through a couple magazines hunting it.
I found this advertisement in the July, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal.
For Summer Appetites
In hot weather when the appetite is just a little off, and there is a peculiar craving for something cool and satisfying, nothing touches the spot like
JELL-O
It is so deliciously cool, so light, so wholesome, so nutritious—so tempting and good every way—that it satisfies the summer appetite as nothing else can.
Fruit of almost any kind can be added, as the housewife chooses, or left out, and in either case the dessert will be delightful.
There is no other dessert worth serving that can be made without cooking, and in hot weather no housewife wants to cook and fuss more than is necessary.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, July 15, 1912:We went up to Oakes’ this evening. I played crouquet with the other players, but such playing as I did was rather shocking. If I didn’t get a game I did get a sore eye, which resulted from tossing a mallet in the air and trying to catch it with my hands. Needless to say it first came in contact with my eye and second with my hand.
Croquet by Homer Winslow
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Ouch! Sounds like Grandma was showing off or fooling around. Was she bored while she waited for her turn?
I bet the embarrassment when the mallet hit her eye was worse than the pain. I can almost imagine what her sister Ruth might have said. 🙂
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 14, 1912:Went to Sunday School this afternoon. I was almost melting by the time I got there.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Did Grandma fold a church bulletin to make a fan to cool herself ?
—
Fast forward 50 or so years to a time when Grandma actually was a grandmother and I was a small child. . .
I can remember sitting on hard pews in Messiah Lutheran Church in McEwensville on hot summer days.
To cool (and entertain) myself, I’d make fans out of church bulletins. Inevitably I’d accidently drop the fan onto the pew in front of me. And, Grandma would smile, pick it up, and give it back to me.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, July 13, 1912: My calling was out in the field today. I was glad when it was over and I was at leisure to do something.
Recent photo of the stream that flows through the farm Grandma grew up on.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sounds like Grandma had to again watch cows or do some other type of field work. Thank goodness she apparently had time to do something fun—at least I hope it was fun; she only wrote that it was “something.”
I love to swim on hot summer days. I don’t think that Grandma ever learned how to swim, but she may have taken her shoes off and waded in the creek. The water would have felt good in the days before electric fans and air conditioners.
A book published in 1911 called Outdoor Sports by Claude Miller discussed the importance of confidence when swimming:
. . . The lack of confidence is disastrous. I have known girls who could swim perfectly well in the shallow but could not keep up at all in water out of their depth. And yet they have not been touching the bottom in the shallow water, but they could if they wished.
Learning to swim in water that is over your head is really better, though it is more “scary” at first. If you do learn in that way you can there-after look upon the deepest water with confident scorn.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, July 11, 1912:Ruth and I went to a party over at Stout’s this evening. It rained so hard this afternoon, and I thought perhaps we wouldn’t go after all.
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Did Grandma and her sister Ruth get wet feet when they walked to their neighbors’ for the party?
Here’s hundred-year-old advice for drying wet shoes.
To dry out shoes, stuff your shoes full of dry grass or old paper to keep them from shrinking.
When they are dry, soften them with tallow or oil.
