Category: Other

Doing Some Fancy Work

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

Saturday, June 15, 1912:  Well this is Saturday. Saturday, that’s the way my brain must be of the dull sort. Did some fancy work this afternoon.

Detachable Collar (Source: Ladies Home Journal: October, 1911)

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

What type of “fancy work” was Grandma doing? . . . . embroidery . . .  tatting. . .  crocheting . . .?

Was she making something that would decorate her clothes? . . . or was she making it to give as a gift? . . . or to put in her hope chest?

I want to picture her sitting in the living room doing fancy embroidery on pillow cases and sheets in anticipation of finding the right guy and getting married someday—but maybe it was for more immediate needs such as decorating a dress collar.

Had to do the Milking Alone

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

Wednesday, June 12, 1912:  I’m mad at that Ruth tonight. She goes away and leaves me with the milking.

Photo in the May 15, 1912 issue of Kimball’s Dairy Farmer magazine. It’s interesting how the women in the photo wore light-colored clothes while working with cows. I would have thought that dark-colored outfits that wouldn’t show dirt would have been preferred.

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

I wonder if Ruth ever did the milking for Grandma when Grandma went somewhere.  Grandma complained several times in the diary that she had to do the milking for her sister Ruth —but she never wrote that Ruth did the milking for her.

My guess is that both of the Muffly sisters benefited from trading chores—but that Grandma didn’t think  that it was important enough to mention when she was the one who got to go somewhere and miss the milking

When I was a child growing up on a dairy farm, my brother and I often informally traded barn chores so that one of us could do something else. I’d do his chores one day—and he might do mine a few days later.  We never kept track of whether one of us did the chores less often than the other—but my sense was that it balanced out pretty well over time.

Put Cows in Wrong Field

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

Tuesday, June 11, 1912:  Such a time as I had with the cows this morning. I got them in the wrong field and then had to take them out.

Picture of an early 20th century dairy farm. Photo source: The Farm Dairy (1908) by H.B. Gurler

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

To give the grass time to grow, farmers generally rotated cows between several pastures.

The cows would have been brought into the barn for milking— and then they’d have been herded back to the pasture.

I assume that Grandma’s father decided that it was time to move the cows to another pasture, but that she somehow failed to herd them into the correct field.  Maybe he hadn’t clearly communicated the change to her  . . . or maybe she hadn’t been paying attention . . . or maybe she’d been thinking of other things and had just plain forgotten.

Picking (and Eating) Strawberries

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

Monday, June 10, 1912: This morning I picked berries and helped myself to some. I wonder if anyone saw me. I want Ruth to help me with a jigger to-night, but I guess she doesn’t have the inclination to.

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

I always think that eating strawberries is half the fun of picking them—but perhaps Grandma was being paid by a neighbor to harvest them.  The previous year, on June 12, 1911, she wrote:

Started to pick strawberries this morning. Of course it will mean some early rising and loss of sleep, but just look at what I can earn.

I’m not sure what a jigger refers to in this entry, but one definition is a tool. Webster’s online dictionary mentions says that a jigger is a “small pointed metal instrument, resembling sharpened pencil, used in assembling ribs of expansion metal watch bands.” I don’t know if metal watchbands existed a hundred years ago, but if they did I can picture that Grandma may have had a watchband that needed adjustment.

Hundred-Year-Old Tips for Making Skirts

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

Friday, June 7, 1912:  I’m trying to make a skirt, but the end thereof is rather dubious.

Source: The Dressmaker (1911)

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

On June 3 Grandma mentioned that she was trying to remodel skirt that had been her sister’s. I assume that she was still working on it—and that it wasn’t going well.

I wonder if she had any books or other resources to help her figure out how to alter the skirt.

A hundred-year-old book called The Dressmaker had lots of suggestions for making skirts. Here are a few tips:

  • Tucks and plaits must be evenly arranged and the space between them must be the same.
  • In skirts where few gores are employed, particular attention must be paid to the correct position of the lines, in order to keep the plaits perfectly even.
  • The skirt must be joined to the waistband and the material between the plaits properly disposed, so that the plaits themselves will have a uniform appearance.
  • Before stitching the waistband, the skirt should be tried on, and, if necessary, alterations made. It is then folded over the edge and hemmed down.
  • The hooks and eyes are sewed on securely;  the hooks on the right-hand end of the waistband and the upper fold of the placket, and the eyes on the corresponding position on the opposite side. The hooks should be one-eighth of an inch back from the edge, and the eye on the top touching the seam of the skirt. [Comment–Until I read this, I hadn’t thought about the fact that zippers were not used a hundred years ago.]
  • A hem, two or three inches deep is the usual finish of the lower edge of skirts.

The Dressmaker (1911) by the Butterick Publishing Company

How to Starch Clothes

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

Thursday, June 6, 1912:  Utterly forgotten.

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

Must have been a slow day . . .

I’m still reading a booklet that Proctor & Gamble published almost a hundred years ago on how to do laundry. A couple of days ago I told you about how clothes were ironed in the early 1900s. Many clothes needed to be starched before they were ironed.

Here are the abridged directions for starching clothes.

Starching

Aprons, shirtwaists, the trimming of underwear, etc. are starched. Make the starch according to the directions given below.

The amount of starch needed depends upon the number of garments to be starched. Those that should be stiffest must be starched first. Dry or thick materials take up more starch than wet or thin ones, and the starch may need to be thinned with water for some garments.

When only part of a garment is to be starched, gather that part into the hand and dip it into the starch, rub it well, then squeeze out the extra starch. This must be done by hand, the rest of the garment being held out with the rest. The starched pieces are hung out with the rest.

Thick Starch

Mix 1/2 cup starch and

1/2 cup cold water, add

¼ level teaspoonful shave white wax or lard and

4 cups (1 qt.) boiling water

Let it boil up several times to be sure that wax is melted and mixed and starch cooked. Add a little bluing and set dish in a pan of cold water until it is cool enough to handle.

Thin Starch

Mix 1/2 cup starch and

1/2 cup cold water, add

1/4 level teaspoonful lard or twice as much borax, stir smooth with

1/2 cup of cold, then stirring rapidly, add

3 pints of boiling water and continue stirring until it boils thoroughly. Have holder ready to lift it from the fire, or it will boil over. Add

1 pint of cold water to thin it and reduce the heat, and add enough bluing to counteract the yellow color of the starch. Turn starch into a large dish. If carefully made, it need not be strained.

Approved Methods for Home Laundering (1915)

As a reader commented on the post about ironing—thank goodness for spray starch. 🙂

Running an Errand for Sister

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

Wednesday, June 5, 1912: Trotted up to McEwensville this morning on an errand for Rufus, the dear little mortal.

Recent photo of the road Grandma would have “trotted” down as she returned home from McEwensville.

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

Throughout the diary Grandma referred to her sister Ruth as Rufus when she was particularly annoyed.

Was the errand to deliver a message to one of Ruth’s friends?  . . . .to buy something at a store?  . . .

These buildings were once part of McEwensville’s small commercial area.

Older sisters can be bossy, but why did Grandma agree to walk the mile or so into McEwensville?  Hmm– maybe running errands was more fun than watching cows.