A Boring Sunday with No Place to Go

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

Sunday, August 3, 1913: Went to Sunday School this morning. Didn’t go any place this afternoon although I would have liked to.

Recent picture of the house and yard where Grandma lived when she wrote the diary.

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

Grandma—I bet that you wanted to be part of the action (whatever that was back then). It’s no fun when everyone else is busy and you’re stuck at home with nothing to do.

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I can remember how slow Sunday afternoons sometimes seemed to pass when I was a child. My parents were glad to have a day when they could rest, but I was BORED!!

When the Wind Blows Over the Wheat Stubble

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

Friday, August 2, 1913: I don’t remember exactly.

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

It almost sounds like Grandma didn’t write this entry until the following day since she can’t remember what she did on August 2. Since she didn’t write much a hundred years ago today–—I’m going to go back to her diary entry on the 1st.

It was a relatively long entry and included her monthly poem for August:

The month of August with skies serene

Smiles upon this world again.

Let us welcome her with open arms,

For sweet summer cannot always reign.

I also can sense that sweet summer will end too soon. The days are getting shorter. . . and the wind is blowing over the wheat stubble.

A question—Does anyone know the poem that has a line that says something like: When the wind blows over the wheat stubble, Fall can’t be far away.

My father used to always say a poem with those lines on late summer days when there was just a hint of fall in the air. I think that he memorized it when he was in elementary school—but I can’t find it when I search online.

Almost like Oz

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

Thursday, August 1, 1913:

The month of August with skies serene

Smiles upon this world again.

Let us welcome her with open arms,

For sweet summer cannot always reign.

A big thunderstorm came up this afternoon. Just before it got here, I had gone off to one of the neighbors and Ma not knowing where I was had quite a hunt for me.

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

Grandma! You should have told your mother where you were going. Didn’t you know that she’d worry even though you are a grown 18-year-old woman?

Your words make me think of Aunt Em hunting Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

I know that you won’t have seen the movie –it wasn’t made until 1939—but did you read the book? According to Wikipedia, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum was published in 1900.

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For information about the monthly poems sees this previous post:

Monthly Poem in Diary