18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, February 12, 1914: Cut a gash an inch long, while drying the dishes, in my hand.
Picked out nuts for a cake. Ruthie made it. It got most too stiff. Could hear her rumbling and grumbling about it for half an hour afterwards at least.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
How the heck did Grandma get a one-inch gash while drying dishes? I don’t think that I’ve ever been injured while drying dishes.
Maybe Grandma treated her injury with Carbolated Vaseline. It was a popular ointment a hundred years ago.
Nuts and Nut Cake
What kind of nuts was Grandma picking out—black walnuts? . . .butternuts? . . hickory nuts?
Several previous posts that you might find interesting include:
Old-Time Black Walnut Cake Recipe
What is the Difference Between Butternuts and Black Walnuts?
A Hundred Years Ago 
Oooh, I have. Somehow, a big casserole once broke as I was picking it out of the water. I actually had to have the gash stitched at hospital. No Carbonated Vaseline for me!
Maybe she cut herself on knife? When I’m at reenactments we are always very careful with the knives when doing the washing up as we’re often washing up after dinner at night by the light of the moon and lanterns. It’s very easy to reach for something in the murkey water and cut yourself on a knife. The washers will always tell the dryrs when they’re handing them a knife, just incase the dryer can’t see it’s a knife and grabs it with too much haste.
I would say a knife is the culprit, too. Only because I have cut my own hand whilst drying a knife.
Poor Miss Muffly… 1inch gash is quite nasty. My son cut his hand badly, when he was a child, drying a glass which cracked 😦 It required stitches…
I cut my hand on a knife while washing dishes once, but never while drying them! And I’ve never heard of carbolated Vaseline!
Too bad about the cake…!
I have! Twice! Once on a knife and another time, a glass broke 🙂
Maybe a glass broke in her hand while she was drying? This has happened to me!
Ouch! That would be quite a deterrent for my participation in dishes drying activities.
Mom used to use Mercurochrome for cuts and scratches. I wonder if anyone remembers that. It would turn your skin orange.
Mercurochrome was wonderful! My first grade teacher always used it to treat any scrape or scratch we got on the playground. Just having her paint the red liquid on the cut made it hurt less. 🙂
See, now? This is why I don’t dry dishes! Housework is dangerous work! 😉
Hi. I agree with Diana. I got quite a cut one time from a glass that just seemed to break in half in my hand as I dried the inside. Poor Helena.
Cute ad. We used to buy that before they took it off the market.