16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, March 17, 1912: Am trying to get my lessons out tonight. This light of mine is going out and tis all I can do to see.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sometimes I’m surprised by the similarities between 1912 and 2012. Other times, I’m reminded of the differences . . .
It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like to study using light from a kerosene lamp.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, March 16, 1912: Ruth went to Milton this morning. I made an apron today. Started to read a book this evening. The sequel of which I read about three years ago.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hmm. . . what was Grandma reading? She probably was reading adult books—but since she said that she’d read the other book in the series three years previously maybe they were children’s stories.
I don’t know which adult series were popular a hundred years ago—but I can think of several children’s series.
Little Women, Little Men and other books in the series by Louisa May Alcott are classics that have retained their appeal over the years. The series was published between 1868 and 1886.
The Bobbsey Twin series of adventure stories by Laura Lee Hope were published between 1904 and 1979. Laura Lee Hope is a pseudonym used by several different authors over the years.
The Elsie Dinsmore series by Martha Finley were published between 1967 and 1905. Elsie’s mother was dead, and Elsie faced many moral conflicts (and seemed to constantly feel guilty for one minor offense or another) as she grew up in her grandparent’s home.
An aside–Grandma WAS NOT reading the Nancy Drew series (first book published in 1930) , the Hardy Boys (first book published in 1927), or the Betsy and Tacy series (first book published in 1940).
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, March 15, 1912: It was out of the ordinary walking to school this morning. It rained so last night that my morning, water was plainly visible everywhere. It was about the same height tonight. I thought this morning I might not get to school after all.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma needed to cross Warrior Run Creek to get to school.
It sounds like the creek had flooded and was out of its banks. However, the water apparently had not covered the road and the bridge so Grandma could get to school.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, March 3, 1912: I don’t believe we are going to get our papers back. I wouldn’t mind knowing what some of my marks are. Perhaps not very satisfactory any way.
Had to walk home from school behind a tramp. I walked slow enough you can bet.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sounds a little scary—
A tramp walking down a rural road—and a a teen-aged girl needing to walk the same road to get home from school.
There were lots of tramps in US in the early 1900s. Many men found it very difficult to find jobs as the country industrialized. According to Wikipedia:
In 1906, Professor Layal Shafee, after an exhaustive study, put the number of tramps in America at 500,000 (about 0.6% of the U.S. population). The article citing this figure, What Tramps Cost the Nation, was published by The New York Telegraph in 1911 and estimated the number had surged to 700,000.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
