19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, October 1, 1914:
The days of fall and summer’s last farewell,
When the flowers must droop and slowly fade away.
Time changes. October now is here again,
And sweet summer can no longer with us stay.
Spent the day at the Milton Fair. We had seats on the grand stand. That was the first time I was on one. Don’t get so tired and see a great deal more. Was late getting home, as the trains behind time.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma-
What fun! Who were you with in the grand stand? . . . your sister Ruth? . . . friends?
It sounds like the perfect day (even if the trains were running late).
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For those of you who are familiar with the area, the Milton Fairgrounds were located along the road between Milton and Watsontown near the current site of the Wynding Brook Golf Club.
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Grandma began each month with a poem. For more about the poems, see this previous post:
A Hundred Years Ago 
It looks like the grandstand overlooked a raceway for “wholesome trotting races”, not the kind where “they sit down right on the horse.” Very traditional eastern fair fare!
Of course–the newspaper told us several days ago that everything at the fair was moral and wholesome. 🙂
So sweet. Love this blog.
I have a lot of fun doing this blog, and it’s wonderful to hear that you enjoy it.
Thrilled to see the poem and that she had such a good time.
I continue to be amazed that she was so consistently included a poem on the first of each month. If I was doing it, I think that I might be more random and forget the poem some months; write a second poem on the 6th of a month, etc.
That is cool that she wrote poetry, it is beautiful! Hugz and happy Wednesday
I agree! Happy Wednesday.
That looked like a big event in the 20’s – wonder if it had grown since Grandma was there in 1914!
I think that it was a fairly large fair in the 1910s–though it may have been even larger by the early 1920s.
My father trained and drove harness horses, so I particularly love that picture.
I’m glad you liked the picture. Training harness horses sounds like fun.
I’ve recently found a photo of the grandstand at the Marion county fairgrounds in Iowa during the 1920s. It looks like they had the same building plans! That’s a nice poem, too, and what a nice way to begin a new month.
It’s interesting that a grandstand in Iowa looked very similar to one in Pennsylvania. Even in the days before the internet and other modern means of communications, ideas (and maybe building plans) somehow spread relatively rapidly from one geographic area to another. 🙂
How do you keep them down on the farm, once they’ve been in the grandstands?!
I love it. 🙂
I also love her monthly poems.
I agree–Her poems are nice.
I too love the start of the month with a poem. It seems that is more of a calling for her than even diary-writing. I wonder did she ever pursue it after she stopped with the diary?
As far as I know she didn’t do any writing (except for writing the occasional letter) after the diary ended–which seems a little sad, but I guess that her life just went in other directions.
Wow – sitting in the grand stands! Hope you had tons of fun Helena!
Diana xo
So do I. 🙂
I wonder what went on that they could see from the grand stand?
I’m betting that there were lots of interesting things. 🙂