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

Friday, November 17, 1911:Another girl and I made our teacher feel cross for awhile this afternoon.  He had drawn a picture of a ring and beneath it we wrote “my diamond.”  Now he gives some of us credit for snooping at everything he has on his desk.

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

This is one of my favorite diary entries. Grandma must have been a hoot when she was young.

This entry also makes me wish that I knew more about her teacher. I know that the teacher’s name was Howard Northrop—but little else.  In most diary entries he seems like the stereotypical teacher—gives hard tests, puts Grandma on the spot sometimes when she isn’t paying attention, etc.

In this post her teacher seems really human—How old was he? Was he cute? Did he have a girlfriend? Was he thinking of asking her to marry him? If so, how did it all work out?

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

Sunday, November 12, 1911: Went to Sunday School this morning. Our Sunday School teacher is sick. This afternoon I gave Caroline a visit. But such a day to go calling. It rained and blew and hailed.

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

Brrr. . . . the weather sounds dreadful.

Caroline refers to Grandma’s friend Carrie Stout. She lived on a farm midway between the Muffly farm and McEwensville.

Friends, then as now, played an important role in adolescents’ lives.  Here’s what a book published in 1911 had to say:

The boy seeks his chum and the girl her bosom friend into whose sympathetic ears hopes, fears, dreams, ambitions, and secrets are poured.

Boy and Girl (1911) by Emma Virginia Fish

I wonder what dreams, hopes, and ambitions Grandma shared with Carrie.  And, if—as the years passed– Grandma fulfilled her dreams, or if they were dashed or forgotten.

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

Wednesday, November 8, 1911: Such stinkers in Algebra as we are having at present is enough to make your head giddy. Of all my six studies Algebra is just about the hardest, excluding geometry, which we commenced to take up several days ago, and General History, which we begin tomorrow. Ma and Ruth are out tonight but I staid in.

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

I wonder what Grandma was going to study in General History.

Think of all the historic events that seem like they happened very, very long ago—but which had not yet occurred a hundred years ago.

Grandma WAS NOT studying the history of:

• World War I (It began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.)

• The Soviet Union (The Russian Revolution of 1917 ended the Russian Empire. The Soviet Union was founded in 1922.)

• Prohibition (The 18th amendment which addressed prohibition was ratified in 1919.)

• Women’s suffrage (The 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote was ratified on 1920.)

• How New Mexico or Arizona–or for that matter Alaska or Hawaii–had become states (New Mexico and Arizona entered the Union in 1912; Hawaii and Alaska entered the union in 1959.)

• The presidency of Woodrow Wilson (He would be elected in 1912 and take office in 1913.)

• Radio (The first scheduled radio broadcasting was in 1916.)

• The Panama Canal (It opened in 1914—though Grandma probably read newspaper articles about the building of the canal.)

• The personal income tax (The 16th amendment which allowed the personal income tax was ratified in 1913.)

• Insulin (Insulin was discovered in 1922.)

• The direct election of senators by voters  (Prior to  the 17^th amendment being ratified in 1913 senators were selected by state legislators.)

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

Tuesday, November 7, 1911: I’ve concluded it’s easier to lose things than it is to find them. The other day six one cent stamps disappeared, and now today I lost two collar pins, which I have no hopes of ever recovering them again.

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

Young people misplace things, too!

I know that Grandma was frustrated, but this entry makes me smile. Sometimes I worry that I misplace things because I’m getting older. This entry reminds me that we all—young, middle-aged,  and old– lose items.

I’m not exactly sure what collar pins were—but they apparently were the rage in 1911. There were directions for making crocheted collar pins in the December 7, 1911 issue of The Youth’s Companion.

New Uses for Irish Crochet

. . . Gold or silver pins used to fasten collars are covered with a single crochet stitch of fine cotton. For a straight strip like the one shown in the illustration, make a chain the length of the pin to be covered, and work back and forth until you have the right width. .  .

An effective ornament for the neck or for the meeting-point of a Dutch collar is shown in the illustration. This is made in single crochet stitch of coarse cotton; a fine needle is used in order to keep the work as close as possible. Two parts are made; the pattern chosen here is in the form of a square, with loops round each side of the square. These loops are made of the picot stitch. The parts are joined on three picot loops at the back and a strip of black velvet ribbon six inches long by one and one-half inches wide is passed through the opening in the design.

Sometimes I’m amazed at the serendipitous way I find materials for this blog. I’d looked ahead and knew a diary entry that mentioned collar pins was coming up. Since I didn’t know what they were. I googled “collar pins” but had little luck.

I’d pretty much given up on finding anything about collar pins when I was flipping through 1911 issues of The Youth’s Companions a few days ago because Grandma had written about getting a subscription. Suddenly an article on Irish crochet that contained the words collar pins jumped out at me–and I had the material for this post.