17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, March 10, 1913: It rained tonight so we didn’t go up to practice.
A recent rainy day in McEwensville
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma was in the class play. Did some of the cast members show up for practice? . . or did everyone independently decide that the weather was too bad?
Today we’d text, email, or call if we couldn’t get to a play practice or meeting. A hundred years ago, did people just use their own judgment to determine whether an event was probably canceled due to weather?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, March 8, 1913: It was kind of dull here today. Nothing much of anything doing.
In Front of the Mirror by Georg Friedrich Kersting (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hmm—What boring chores did Grandma need to do on a dull Saturday in March? ’
When I was a child, a weekly Saturday chore was to wash all the hair brushes and combs. I wonder if Grandma also did this when she was young,
I think that the reason we washed the brushes and combs was to have clean ones after we washed our hair. (We only washed our hair once a week back then.)
Here’s how to wash brushes and combs:
Add two or three tablespoons of baking soda to a small pan filled very hot water. (I use very hot tap water.) Swish the brushes and combs through the water—and “comb” the brushes with the combs. This cleans both the brush bristles and the comb teeth. Rinse with cool water. Lay on counter to air dry.
My sense is that people brushed their hair a lot more in the old days—and that brushing was one way to distribute, or remove, the oil and dirt between washings.
I can remember those old luxurious boar hair brushes that we used to have. Can you still buy them?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, March 6, 1913:I got pretty cold today. My hands got rather chilly coming home from school. Ma and Ruth went up to Oakes.
President Woodrow Wilson
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
It sounds like it was a cold day. Did Grandma forget her gloves? Maybe she thought that the day would be warmer than it actually was.
For today’s post, I searched for a hundred-year-old newspaper article about the weather, but I failed to find any anything. Instead I discovered that a hundred years ago today was the 3rd day of President Woodrow Wilson’s presidency.
A hundred years ago the presidential inauguration was in March. Inauguration Day used to be four months after election day. In 1913, it was on March 4. Inauguration day was changed to noon on January 20 by the Twentieth Amendment in 1933.
In November, 1912 Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, beat the incumbent president, Robert Taft in a three-way race. He also beat former president Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the founder of the Bull Moose Party. For more on the election see:
Was Grandma excited about the new president? . . unhappy about the change. . .indifferent?
—
The Oakes lived on a farm near the Muffly family. They had several children about the same age as the Muffly children. Rachel Oakes was a friend of Grandma and her sister Ruth.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, March 5, 1913: We had a class meeting tonight to decide some things. One was we selected our invitations.
Metal movable type similar to what the printer may have used to make the invitations (Source: Wikipedia)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma was in her last year at McEwensville High School. Her class apparently was selecting what the invitations to their graduation would look like. I think that you’d call Grandma a senior, but I’m not sure since the school was an old-fashioned 3-year high school.
I think this is what was involved in getting invitations—
One of the class members probably visited the shop of a printer and got some sample invitations. The samples may have been glued into a book. There probably were different prices for different invitation styles.
Once the class selected an invitation style, the words that would go on the invitation, and the number of invitations needed, the information would have been taken back to the printer.
The printer would then have ordered the blank invitations from his supplier. Once the blank invitations arrived, the printer would set up the type-face and print a copy for the class to proof.
Once the proof was approved, the invitations would be printed.
Whew, that’s a lot of steps (and I probably missed a few). It’s so much easier today with the internet.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t’ write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to go off on a tangent.
I’ve often wondered what children ate for lunch a hundred years ago. Today we hear so much about how unhealthy school lunches are—and that even children who bring their own lunch often don’t bring nutritious foods.
.Of course, in the small rural schools a hundred years ago all students needed to bring their own lunches. I found a great article on packing school lunches in a 1913 magazine:
The School Lunch Pail
Great care is essential in making the lunch and the lunch pail appear attractive, not only for the sake of the child’s appetite, but for his pride as well. Many a lunch has been surreptitiously thrown under a convenient hedge, because the child was ashamed to open it before the critical eyes of his playmate. . .
The foundation of a lunch is always the reliable bread sandwich. There are many dainty and appetizing sandwich fillings to be made from left-overs. . .
You can make the most appetizing custards and puddings in little ramekins. These are easily prepared the day before when you are getting dinner for the home folks. . .
There are a variety of simple cookies and cakes which delight the child’s heart, particularly when baked in “animal” fancy shapes.
No lunch pail is complete without fruit. If it is impossible to obtain fresh fruits, the dried stewed ones may be substituted. Figs, prunes or dates are wholesome and may be made doubly so when stuffed with nuts, peanut butter, or the puffed grains.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, March 2, 1913:Went to Sunday School this morning. Besse and Curt were out this afternoon. Went to church this evening.
Recent picture of house Besse and Curt lived in. It’s just outside of nearby Watsontown. (I’m not sure whether they lived in this house as early as 1913).
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma’s oldest sister Besse was married to Curt Hester. They were frequent Sunday visitors.
When I was young, Sunday afternoon was considered the perfect time to visit friends and relatives. People generally didn’t work on Sunday, or clean house on Sunday. Stores were closed.
We’d often get unexpected “company” on Sunday afternoons. We looked forward to getting these visitors. There was no expectation that people would call ahead to see if we were busy. No matter what we were doing (and we were probably just reading or playing games), we’d welcome the guests—and would consider ourselves fortunate that people liked us enough to visit. I picture that the customs were similar a hundred years ago.
Today, it’s considered impolite to stop by someone’s house without first texting, emailing, or calling first. Sometimes I think that people were more hospitable years ago (or maybe they were just less polite).
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, March 1, 1913:
The month of March, ah welcome sound
You bring to us a coming spring.
Where glimpse of leaf and budding flower,
Awake to us this glorious thing.
Today was a busy one for me. Ma got mad at me, but it’s over by this time. Rufus has gone up to Tweet’s to stay til tomorrow evening. I got my fee in advance.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
There’re lots of nicknames in this entry. Rufus referred to Grandma’s sister Ruth. Grandma often called her Rufus in the diary—especially when she was upset with Ruth. Tweet was their friend Helen Wesner.
I think that on a typical day Grandma and Ruth shared the daily farm chores, and each milked several cows. Grandma probably had to do all of the chores herself since Ruth was away—though it sounds like she made Ruth pay her.
Why did Grandma’s mother get mad? Since it was a busy day, maybe Grandma failed to do something or didn’t do it to her mother’s satisfaction.
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On the first day of every month Grandma included a poem in the diary.
