19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 26, 1914: Went to church this afternoon. I was pretty warm.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma-
Whew, it doesn’t sound pleasant. I bet that it was hard to concentrate in the heat. Was there a breeze coming in through a window?—or was the hot air still? Did you have a fan?
A Hundred Years Ago 
I wonder how hot it was that day…
Diana xo
Oh, I hope the windows were open! Sometimes they were closed to keep out distractions. 😉
I wonder about the social expectations of sitting in church on a hot day. Now I sometimes hear folks complain about disrespectful behavior in church–for things like chewing gum or wearing flip-flops. Not to argue those examples one way or the other… I just wonder if it was considered disrespectful in her time to whip out a fan in church. Hopefully not!
Brandy, my childhood church had no air conditioning until I was grown. We had the paper fans (most of them had local funeral home advertisements on the back), and everyone fanned. As long as it wasn’t done over-zealously, it wasn’t frowned upon!
This post brought back memories of all those fans being used on hot summer Sundays!
I too have a distant memory of those paper fans in church, Diana. I grew up in the 1940’s when air conditioning was something to be found only in movie theaters. “Come inside, it’s COOL”, the banners would say. But before my youth, hand fans were a fashion item for ladies.
Yes, I remember those “funeral home” fans, too.
I’m fidgeting just reading this! Here, have a fan, Helena: http://www.materialreligion.org/objects/apr98obj.html
You inspired me to do my Bugs Bunny project. I have about a hundred that my dad left behind.
I can identify with the summer heat, before a/c.
I remember the days of no AC and the paper fans we used. Then we had electric fans before the AC. Hugs
Although our church has air-conditioning, we use it only when absolutely necessary, so at times it can still get very hot with all the body heat and only few overhead fans going. A few years ago the church purchased the old fashioned pew hand held fans. Cardboard fans on a lightweight stick. They work great too. I wonder if they had them? some day when there is no breeze even with windows opened it can get sticky hot that is for sure.