19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, December 9, 1914: Went to Milton this afternoon on a shopping trip. Took my camera down and had the film changed. Bought some Xmas presents and had a time getting them home.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Welcome back, Grandma-
Tell us, PLEASE. What did you buy? Maybe some of the latest kitchen and cleaning gadgets for your mother? They might be awkward to carry.
Milton’s at least four miles from your home. You didn’t walk the whole way did you? . . . Did you take the trolley from Milton to Watsontown, and then walk the last mile and a half or so?
A Hundred Years Ago 
I’m always interested in how Helena just pops back into her diary–doesn’t try to catch up with what’s been going on, just gives the most basic details. If only she knew we’d be hanging on every word!
In recent weeks, it seems like she tended to skip writing on days when she was at home doing routine chores and tasks, and only wrote something on days when something out of the ordinary occurred–like going Christmas shopping.
We take for granted (among many other things) how easy transportation is for us these days…. I DO wish we knew what Grandma bought!
Over the years of the diary I’ve been somewhat surprised how seldom the family seemed to use a horse and buggy. They generally just walked to town. I guess that it probably was a time-consuming task to get a horse harnessed and hitched up to the buggy–and equally time-consuming to get the horse unharnessed when they got home– so it often was just easier to walk.
That’s why so many people now drive to Dallas from Houston, rather than flying. By the time you get to the airport, park, get inside, go through security, discover your flight has been delayed a half hour, and then get boarded, you’re more than halfway there on the road. Not only that, there’s no need to rent a car once you get there. Helena may have discovered the same dynamic.
I love the analogy. It is such a wonderful modern-day example of a similar situation.
Helena’s camera was a big part of her life during this year – I wonder how long she stayed with her interest? It would have been a lot more unusual a hobby back then.
I think that she continued to take family pictures–at least through the years when her children were young–though I am not aware that any of those photos still exist. My memory is vague, but I think that my father once told me that she occasionally turned the stair landing on the steps that went to the basement into a dark room and developed photos when he was a child.
In honor of the bake-a-thon, I made scones yesterday.
http://ourviewfromiowa.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/moms-oat-scones/
The scones look delicious and are perfect for the Bake-a-thon. It was fun to read how you used your mother-in-laws recipe.
I have one of those metal dustpans. It doesn’t go back to 1914, but it does go back to the 1930s in depression green with an art deco decal. I love it.
I am looking for one! Yours sounds wonderful!
It sounds great! Some of the old-time gadgets work really well.
My guess is Helena did walk home carrying the gifts she found.
You’re might be right–but I hope not. It’s a long way to walk (at least by today’s standards).
My mother had a flour sieve but I can’t remember that we ever used it!
I got one as a gift at my bridal shower, but never used it and eventually sold it at a garage sale.
I wish I could find one of those hand-powered egg beaters – I love them!
Diana xo
I’m surprised they don’t still sell them I can remember using a hand-powered egg-beater when I was about 8 or 9, and my mother didn’t quite trust me with the electric ones.
Glad Helena got out and did some shopping. I hope there were decorations in town. You can bet she didn’t lug things home in plastic bags 🙂 The one thing I wish had never evolved.
I think that the commercial area of towns were generally decorated a hundred years ago. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen a picture of stores decorated for the holidays in any old magazines. How true about the plastic bags.
I wonder if Helena is afraid that sister Ruthie will snitch peeks at the diary, and that is why she is so reticent about details….
You might be right. I do have a sense that she sometimes worried that either her sister or mother might be reading the diary.
I imagine she did have a time trying to carry the camera and her purchases.
I hadn’t thought about the camera. You’re absolutely right, that’s another thing that she would have had to carry. I wonder if the camera had a neck strap.
Great to hear from her again and to know all is well.
I agree–She sounds happy in this post–even if she was weighted down trying to carry the Christmas presents.
I use my mother’s flour sifter all the time: likewise the combined grater, the curved grapefruit knife, and the little carpet sweeper that doesn’t even require being plugged in. The grater has one dented corner, but otherwise they’re all fine and functional, after at least 75 years in the case of the sifter. It was a gift at her wedding shower.
Wow, it’s amazing that the flour sifter is still functional after all these years. It probably has been used to make thousands of cakes and batches of cookies over that time span.
Oh my! How familiar …
🙂