18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, July 24, 1913: Did some sewing today.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hmm. . . “Sewing” is such a general term. Did Grandma do it by hand or did she use a treadle sewing machine? What kind of sewing did she do?
Mending? . . . or Patching?
Sewing a new dress?
Embroidery?
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, July 22, 1913: Nothing much going.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to loop back to a couple posts that I made in early July.
A few weeks ago the diary entry indicated that Grandma’s father hired a “little boy” to help with the farm work—and a few days later the boy ran away. At the time, I wondered how old the boy was.
I recently was browsing through some 1913 issues of Good Housekeeping, and came across an article titled, “Why Do Children Toil?” Since a boy helping with farm work is very different from a child working in a factory, the article really isn’t very relevant to this conversation, but I still found it interesting and thought that I’d share a few quotes and pictures.
Neither beasts of the filed nor birds of the forest impose the burdens of existence upon their young. Only man lives upon his offspring. Why is it?
Involuntary poverty underlies child labor. . .
Poverty drives many a child into the factory.
Good Housekeeping (July, 1913)
Photo caption: Midnight workers in a glass-factory. To the company, it is just a question of getting the work done at the lowest cost, and youth is ever cheaper than age. Some states have forbidden this.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 20, 1913: Went to Sunday School this morning. Ruther and I went up to church this evening.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hmm. . . Ruther. . . That’s a new nickname for Ruth.
Was Grandma annoyed with her sister Ruth. . . or feeling kindly toward her? Throughout the diary Grandma called her Rufus when she was annoyed with her. When the sisters were getting along well, Grandma generally called her Ruth. . . though she occasionally referred to her as Ruthie.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, July 19, 1913: Had company again, but I didn’t make my appearance, since I did not consider myself presentable.
Picture of a bedroom in the April, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal. Did Grandma go to her bedroom to avoid the company?
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Wow, it’s amazing that the Muffly’s had company two days in a row. Visitors are seldom mentioned in the diary, but the previous day, Grandma wrote, “We had company this evening.”
Who were the visitors? Was it the same people as the preceding day or different people?
And, why was Grandma worried about whether she looked presentable? If the guests were friends of her parents, I won’t think that she would care how she looked.
Grandma was having a difficult July, and often felt down. For example, on July 14 she wrote that she was “sick at heart”. Maybe the guests were older people whose conversation didn’t interest her so she didn’t want to see them—but it also seems like the company might have included someone about her age (and maybe male), and but that her unhappiness unfortunately kept her from joining the group.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, July 18, 1913: We had company this evening.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sometimes it’s nice not to have too much detail—because it allows me to create my own mind pictures.
If I squint my eyes I can almost see Grandma, her sister Ruth, and their parents sitting on the porch entertaining guests on a hot summer evening—and maybe serving cookies and iced tea—while her little brother Jimmie chases fireflies as dusk falls over the farm.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, July 16, 1913: Nothing doing.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Two days prior to this entry Grandma wrote that she was sick at heart over something. Other readers and I speculated about what she may have been sick at heart over–and we thought that maybe she liked a guy and he didn’t return her interest.
Another possibility—
Grandma’s two older sisters both got teaching jobs in nearby one-room school houses after they graduated from high school.
Grandma graduated the previous spring, She has never mentioned in the diary that she hoped to become a teacher—yet it seems logical that she may have wanted to become a teacher. Could Grandma have been sick at heart because she heard that she didn’t get a teaching position that she really wanted?
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, July 14, 1913: Didn’t feel very good today and did feel very miserable. I’m not really sick, but sick at heart over something else.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Why was Grandma sick at heart? What could have possibly happened?
Previous entries provided no clue that Grandma might be stressing over something—the preceding day she just wrote about the rainy weather and going to Sunday School. . . and two days before this entry she wrote about helping with the wheat harvest.
