Category: Other

A Sleepover

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

Sunday, March 9, 1912:  Blanche slept with Ruth and me. I slept on the rail part of the time. Made me kind of stiff. Went to Sunday School this afternoon. B. was there. Hat blew off coming home, but by luck didn’t land in the mud.

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

Grandma had a crush on B. in the diary but doesn’t use the complete name. I think that B. refers to Bill Gauger.  Grandma’s sister Ruth married Bill several years after the diary ended.

Blanche Bryson was a friend of Grandma  and Ruth. The previous day’s entry indicated that their friend had arrived by train.

I assume that rail refers to the edge of a wooden bed frame. A hundred years ago, people didn’t have nearly the amount of privacy or space that they do today. Grandma and her sister Ruth shared a double bed—and it sounds like when they had an overnight guest they managed to squeeze a third person in.

I wonder how late they stayed awake talking. What did they talk about? Did their parents tire of the noise and tell them to go to sleep?

Old-time Cough Remedies

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

Saturday, March 9, 1912:  Ruthie’s friend, Miss Bryson, arrived here on the train. I had to do my sister’s milking. They went to a play in Watsontown this evening. I coughed so today that Ma said I might be getting the whooping cough. It did scare me some.

Recent photo of downtown Watsontown. Where were plays once held?

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

Grandma’s cough sounds bad. Hopefully she didn’t have whooping cough.

Maybe Grandma tried some home remedies. Here are some old-time cough remedies in the Compendium of Everyday Wants (1908):

COUGH – Below will be found a number of cough cures and syrups that are unfailing and will relieve the worst forms.

Treatment No. 1—One of the most simple remedies is flaxseed lemonade, made by adding two or three tablespoons of flax seed to a lemonade made of two lemons, two tablespoonful’s of sugar and about a quart of water; boil it.

Treatment No. 2—COUGH SYRUP—Mix together one-half pint of honey, 1/2 pint of gin, 1/2 oz. of oil of tar, 1/2 oz. of balsam fir. Take a teaspoonful three times a day. This is one of the most effective and valuable remedies known for coughs and will break up a cold where other remedies fail.

Treatment No. 3—An efficacious remedy for continued cough is found in chewing the bark gotten from the root of sumac. Chew the bark. Several kinds of sumac are poisonous, but use the common upland sumac, having cone-shaped bunches of berries and from which a milky fluid comes when leaves are broken.

I don’t know where to get all of the ingredients for any of these remedies. And, even if I could find Sumac bark—I won’t want to risk something that requires warnings about avoiding the poisonous types.

Miss Bryson refers to Blanche Bryson. She was mentioned several times in the dairy during during 1911. At that time it seemed like she lived in either in or near McEwensville. She apparently had moved somewhere more distant by 1912.

 

Exams, Recitations, and Spring Approaching

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

Wednesday, March 6, 1912:  Examinations are slowly approaching the horizon, and they will soon be in sight. We have one next Friday just before the awful recitations.

Recent view of field across the road from the house that Grandma lived in.

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

Grandma had a lot on her plate when she wrote this entry. Her February grades were lower than she’d hoped so she wanted to do better on the upcoming exams—and she was struggling to memorize an “abominable piece of poetry.”

At least spring was approaching– and, maybe the essence of spring in the air compensated a little for all of the school drudgery.

Trying to Memorize an Abominable Poem

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

Tuesday, March 5, 1912: I’m trying to commit that abominable piece of poetry to memory and it’s no easy task either, although it is short in the extreme. I only hope I know it, when the time comes to say it.

A hundred years ago Grandma was sitting inside this house trying to memorize an abominable poem.

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

What could the abominable poem have been?  A hundred years ago people memorized recitations, poems, and Bible verses more than they do today.

Grandma generally did not complain about needing to memorize something. For example, one Sunday she memorized  27 Bible verses. This poem must have had some very difficult text (a dialect perhaps??).

The Poem of Quotes website provides information about lots of 18th and 19th century poets and poems.  I browsed through it, but am not familiar enough with old poetry to even guess which poem Grandma was trying to memorize.

Old Ad for Smth Brothers’ Cough Drops

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

Monday, March 4, 1912: I have my first cold of the winter now. It seems to have all gone to my throat. We are going to have recitations next Friday, but our teacher instead of having some interesting speeches favors dried up pieces of poetry. Oh it will be stupid from beginning to end.  

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

Colds aren’t fun. Maybe Grandma used some cough drops to soothe her throat. Amazingly Smith Brothers’ Cough Drops were available a hundred years—and are still available today.

Rainy Day

Cough at Night

5 cents a box

Never be without a box of S.B. cough drops during the Fall and Winter– during damp, chilly weather when sore throats, coughs and hoarseness are so prevalent. Take a few of these drops on your way home from the heated theatre, dance hall, office, etc. Far better than medicine, more pleasant, too. Good to take before the “forty-winks.” They loosen the phlegm.

Smith Brothers’

S.B. Cough Drops

Containing Only Pure Medicinal Oils–No Glucose

Makers of S.B. Chewing Gum and Lasses Kisses

Smith Brother of Poughkeepsie

Your Grandpa Knows Us

I absolutely love the last line of the ad–“Your Grandpa Knows Us.” Smith Brother cough drops have been around for a long, long time if that’s how they were advertising them in the early 1900s!

Took Little Brother to Sunday School

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

Sunday, March 3, 1912:  Went to Sunday School this morning. Took Jimmie along with me. He seems to like going very much, but looked afraid at first.

Carrie was over this afternoon. Ruth and I accompanied by Tweet went over to church this evening. Coming home we got a ride with a young friend of Ruth’s.

Jimmie Muffly

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

There are lots of names in this diary entry. In case you don’t have them all straight I’ll recap who everyone was. Ruth was Grandma’s older sister, and Jimmie was her 6-year-old brother. Carrie Stout and Tweet (Helen) Wesner were friends of Grandma and Ruth.

It’s somewhat surprising that Jimmie didn’t typically go to Sunday School.  Actually, based upon the diary entries, it seems as if their parents didn’t generally go to church or Sunday school. Grandma probably was attending Sunday School at the McEwensville Baptist Church.

Cleopatra

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

Friday, March 1, 1912:  

March

This month signifies that the winter is passing.

And soon will be the Springtime

With all its bright scenes and soul stirring dreams,

And memories so long and so dear.

After a whole week of trying to get a theme in readiness, I finished the thing at noon. It came under General History. Cleopatra was what I had to write about. I got it so as to suit my satisfaction. But of course there were some mistakes.

Late 19th century painting of Cleopatra by Jean-Leon Gerome--Maybe this is what Grandma pictured Cleopatra looking like. (Source: Wikipedia)

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

How did Grandma end up writing about Cleopatra? Did she choose the topic? (If so, why?) . . . or did her teacher assign it? (If so, why did he assign it to her instead of to another student?)

The way I picture Cleopatra is strongly affected by the 1960s movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.—and I can’t quite envision how people thought about her a hundred years ago.

Was Cleopatra’s beauty, charm and ability to control men generally seen in a positive or a negative light back then? The suffragettes were very active a hundred years ago. Do they see Cleopatra as a role model or as a failure of the past to allow women appropriate roles?

Monthly Poem

One the first day of each month Grandma begins the entry with a poem.  It’s almost spring! Yeah!