Category: Holidays

Last Day of School, Graduation Ceremony, and a Wedding

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

Thursday, April 6, 1911: A warm spring day today it was. We had our second annual picnic out on the school ground. Oh my what fun we had. This afternoon I helped to carry flowers to the church. Alas the afternoon soon passed. When I got home, I had to hurry and get my work done in time to go to the commencement. I had to take my Mamma along, so that impeded my progress somewhat. After commencement came the wedding of Edith and Harry. It was the first one I was ever present at. Well, I guess about all I anticipated was realized. I can hardly believe I can only see him so seldom now even if the distance is short when I used to see him so often.

2010 photo of McEwensville Community Hall. The community hall has a stage that  probably was the site of the graduation.

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

Whew, what a day! The last day of school, the annual school picnic (I wonder if people liked Grandma’s fudge.), Grandma’s sister’s high school graduation ceremony. . . .and A WEDDING (with farm chores somehow squeezed in between the picnic and the graduation ceremony).

It sounds like Grandma’s friend Edith graduated from high school and then a few minutes later got married. I’m amazed how compressed these two activities were. Was there a break, with people perhaps moving from the Community Hall to a church?

Cover of Ladies Home Journal, April 15, 1911

Did Edith change into a wedding gown following the graduation ceremony—or did she just wear the same clothes that she’d wore at graduation?

And, what did Grandma mean when she wrote, “I can hardly believe I can only see him so seldom now even if the distance is short when I used to see him so often”? It sounds like she had a crush on someone at school. Who? One of the graduating seniors?  . . .a classmate?

There’s a lot of information in today’s diary entry.

Another. . . hmm . . . I wonder why . .

Grandma’s older sister Besse was married prior to the time that Grandma kept this diary.  But Grandma says that Edith’s wedding was the first wedding  she’d ever attended. I wonder why Grandma hadn’t attend her sister’s wedding. Might Besse have eloped?

Sweet Sixteen

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

 Tuesday, March 21, 1911:  It hardly seems possible, that I am really sixteen years old. Perhaps it was because I didn’t get my ears pulled. Mother gave me a dollar this morning as a birthday present. Dear mother, many thanks to you. A beautiful sun shone on my birthday as if to brighten my future pathway through life.

I hereby truthfully resolve to be a better and more useful girl in the future than I have been in the past, and may this birthday resolution never be broken, I sign myself, Helena Muffly, Mar. 21, 1911

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

 Grandma always considered March 21 to be a very special day. It was special for three reasons. In addition to being her birthday, it was the traditional first day of spring as well as her wedding anniversary. Her husband Raymond Swartz wrote in a short family history many years later:

On March 21, 1921, Helen Muffly and I were married at her home in Watsontown. We started farming on the home farm where we farmed for thirty years.

Recent photo of the house in Watsontown that the Muffly family lived in when Helen and Raymond married.

They got married at her family’s home on Pennsylvania Avenue in Watsontown. The Muffly family moved to Watsontown because her father had ‘retired’ from farming in the intervening years between the diary entry and the wedding.

Grandma apparently was going by the name Helen (instead of Helena) by the time she married. When my grandparents married, she was 26 and he was 22.

St. Patrick’s Day

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

Friday, March 17, 1911:  Today is St. Patrick’s day. The day to be green and feel green. Ruth and I went to Blanche Bryson’s party. We went with Rachel and Alvin Oakes, going out a lane, that I had never been in before, and because of this, I was goosey enough to tumble down. I had a lot of fun at the party and I suppose everyone else did too. We took our departure about half past one o’clock a.m.

Washington’s Birthday

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

Wednesday, February 22, 1911: It was so awful cold this morning. I got to school before the doors were unlocked. There I had to stand outside and freeze, but the door was unlocked before I reached that point. That glorious sister of mine is in bed now. I will soon follow. Rufus has her eyes on me. Perhaps she is guessing what I am writing. Today is Washington’s birthday. I didn’t forget it. Don’t’ you think I’m very patriotic? 

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

A hundred years ago Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on his actual birthday (February 22)—though it’s obvious from Grandma’s diary entry that is wasn’t considered an important enough holiday for school to be canceled. In 1971 the holiday was moved from Washington’s actual birthday to the 3rd Monday in February—and in many states it is now called Presidents Day in honor of both Washington’s  and Lincoln’s birthdays.

Anonymous Comic Valentines

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

Wednesday, February 15, 1911: I heard from two of the persons to whom I sent comic valentines. I don’t think they suspected me in the least. We had final examinations in Physical Geography. I think I will make a good mark. I got a ride home from school this evening. It was with such a cute boy. (I didn’t know him though.) He asked me, “would I accept a ride”, and I certainly did. We talked chiefly about the weather and the snow. The name of his horse was Grace for that was what he called her.

Comic Vinegar Valentine, circa 1911

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

I found several comic valentines—sometimes called vinegar valentines—at flea markets and on Ebay. None included a message–each just contained the recipient’s name and address.

On a different topic related to this post–I was very surprised that someone Grandma didn’t know would be on the road between McEwensville and the Muffly farm–and that she  would accept a ride from this stranger. Even in the ‘good old days’ I wouldn’t have thought that this would have been considered  a safe thing to do in rural Pennsylvania–but apparently there was so little crime that it wasn’t a concern.  

Valentines: The Good, the Bad, and the Horrid

15-year-old Helena wrote a hundred years ago today:

Tuesday, February 14, 1911. I guess that a good many people know that the fourteenth of February is St. Valentine’s day. I expected at least one beautiful valentine, but like some fools I was disappointed, but I didn’t get any ugly ones either. I don’t think I would have felt very much honored to be the recipient of one, but I was not the receiver of any. I however, was the sender of four horrid ones. I also sent some pretty ones too.

St. Valentine’s day is here once more

To pierce some tender heart to the core

But if Dan Cupid with you can’t make a hit.

He’ll turn over and to some easier one flit.

Vinegar valentine, circa 1911
Pretty valentine, circa 1911

 

Pretty valentine when folded

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

A hundred years ago Valentine cards weren’t like the cards that we have now.  Ethel Spencer, in her memoir about growing up in Pittsburgh, described the valentines that were sent in the early part of the 20th century:

The valentines of our youth were far more interesting than the present-day variety. Most of them were pretty, and many of them did unexpected things when one opened them: a fan of bright-colored paper appeared; a cupid rose up to great us; a bunch of flowers popped out of a box. There were some ugly valentines too, notably paper broadsides with vulgar pictures and rhymes on them that though obtainable at Fatty Schwarz’s little store on Ellsworth Avenue, were forbidden to us.

Ethel Spencer in The Spencers of Amberson Avenue: A Turn of the Century Memoir

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Groundhog Day

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

Thursday, February 2, 1911: I soon get discouraged, and stop writing in my diary if I don’t soon find something of some interest to write. I made a short errand at noon in behalf of my adored sister. It was to deliver a note to one of her bosom friends with exceedingly good care.

Pennsylvania news exactly 100  years ago today:

February 2, 1911:  About a hundred twenty-five miles west of McEwenville, the 26th annual Groundhog Day festivities took place in Punxsutawney.