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

Tuesday, April 11, 1911: I am plagued with an attack of toothache, which seems to have no let up. Read almost half of a novel this afternoon. Carrie Stout was over this evening.

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

Wikepedia has the Publisher’s Weekly list of best selling novels in the US in 1911 and Goodreads has a list of  books published in 1911 that are still popular. The lists are very different—many of the bestsellers were written by authors I’ve never heard of –and some of the books that have stood the test of time were sleepers a hundred years ago.

Recently I’ve read one book from each list:

1911 best seller: The Rosary by Florence Barclay

1911 book that has stood the test of time: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton explores the confines of social norms in Ethan Frome, while Florence Barclay in The Rosary examines the role of physical perfection/imperfection in the development of love.

Ethan Frome is set in rural New England in the middle of a dismal winter, while The Rosary is about the upper class in England and much of the story takes place during the summer. Both books are love stories—though The Rosary is about an improbable couple that successfully navigate lots of obstacles (some of which they bring upon themselves), while Ethan Frome is about star-crossed lovers and ends in tragedy.

Improbable accidents occur in both novels—a sledding accident in Ethan Frome and a hunting accident in The Rosary—which  may or may not work to move the plot forward.

Ethan Frome

Most of the story is told during a very long flashback. This book is about a man who was stuck in a loveless marriage to a woman who was a semi-invalid. His wife’s cousin, Mattie, comes to help—and Ethan really falls for her. From the dreariness of the setting to the hopes of the star-crossed lovers, it is obvious from the first page that there is not going to be a happy ending to this story. But I absolutely loved this book and couldn’t put it down. Edith Wharton knows how to tell a story that made me want to turn each page—and I read the entire book in one afternoon.

The Rosary

The Rosary is about Garth, a famous artist, who is the most eligible bachelor in his social circle. All of the woman are chasing him, but he falls in love with Jane, who is the plainest woman in the group (Is this where Plain Jane comes from?). Garth asks Jane to marry him, but she turns him down because she thinks that he feels sorry for her. Then Garth is blinded when he is shot while trying to protect a rabbit from hunters. (I’m amazed that in a pre-PETA era that there was this level of interest in protecting little animals from hunters.)

After the accident Jane wants to tell Garth that she’ll marry him, but knows that he won’t marry her because he’d think that she now feels sorry for him. So she pretends to be a nurse and gets a job caring for the blinded artist.

Garth falls in love with his nurse, but Jane realizes that she can’t tell who she really is since she lied to him and thinks it would anger him if he knew she’d lied.

After lots of twists and turns Garth finds out the truth, and still wants to marry Jane. They marry and live happily ever after.

—

If Grandma happened to read one of these books I’d guess that it would have been The Rosary. I can imagine a teen who worried about her looks reading and enjoying this book. The targeted reader age is probably somewhat older for Ethan Frome even though it is set in a rural area that Grandma may have been able to relate to.

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

Sunday, April 9, 1911: I went to Sunday school this afternoon. There was communion. Got home rather late for catechize was delayed about half an hour behind time.

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

Based upon this entry it sounds like Grandma participated in three distinct activities at church—Sunday school, a catechism class that was preparing her to join the church, and the mention of communion suggests that she also attended the main church service. I’m surprised that Sunday school was held in the afternoon. Maybe there were several churches in the parish and the minister rode the circuit between them, with some services being held in the afternoon.

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

Saturday, April 8, 1911: I cleaned the yard today. I have to get down to manual labor since school has stopped, whether I like it or not, but tis best to like it. I guess for then you can do it easier.

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

Friday, April 7, 1911: I’m thinking about my by-gone school days. Sad thoughts they are indeed. I ripped apart a waist, and am trying to make it over again.

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

It sounds like Grandma was feeling a bit of post-event sadness. School was finished  for the summer (Whew, won’t kids like to get out of school this early now?), and all of the big events of yesterday were all over. I wonder it anyone pulled any pranks on the wedding couple yesterday?

According to the January 1, 1911 issue of Ladies Home Journal:

Merrily go on the antics of the vulgar and the ill-bred at weddings. The houses of the newly-married are covered with signs,; the throwing of rice injured not fewer than sixteen couples last autumn; carriages are labeled with offensive signs; modest young brides are presented at their wedding feasts with a stork bearing a baby with an attached sign: ‘Not yet, of course, but soon’; trunks are bedecked with suggestive inscriptions—in short, marriage is made a farce.

And parents stand idly by, saying complacently: “Oh, it’s all innocent fun—let the young people have their nonsense!” And these same parents go back to their evening lamps and read about and deplore the tendency to unhappy marriages: they see no connection between the laxity of the marriage tie and a laxity of the sacredness that should surround two persons at the very outset of the founding of a home!

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I’m amazed that Grandma knew how to ‘make over’ a waist (an old term for a shirt or blouse). Maybe she was changing the neckline . . . or making the fit a bit snugger . . . or changing the sleeve style or length.

If I ever took the seams out of one of my shirt I’d be totally clueless how to proceed to end up with a wearable, updated shirt.

It’s funny how disposable clothes have become. A hundred years, clothing was costly and people really tried to get as much wear out of each outfit as possible by making over outfits so that old clothes would still look stylish.

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

Sunday, April 2, 1911: I went to Sunday school this morning. It was kind of lonesome this afternoon. Ruth and I went up to church this evening to hear the baccalaureate sermon.

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

The school year is winding down—and the baccalaureate service for the senior class (of which Grandma’s sister Ruth was a member) at McEwensville High School occurred on this Sunday before graduation.

Since there were three churches (Baptist, Lutheran, Reformed) in McEwensville in 1911, I’m not sure where the baccalaureate service was held. The Baptist church building is long gone, but the buildings that housed Messiah Lutheran and St. John’s Reformed still exist.

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

Saturday, April 1, 1911:

Oh the dawning of April so warm and so bright

Recalls to our minds a glad welcome sight

Of seeing spring hats

Both large and both small

Quite ready for buyers to make them a call.

April fool’s day: I went to Watsontown this afternoon to do some much needed shopping. Rastus went to Milton, and didn’t get home until six o’clock, so I had to do all the milking.

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

Throughout the diary there is a poem on the first day of every month. I’m still trying to figure out whether Grandma copied these poems from some source or whether she composed them. Previously I thought that she just copied them—this month I’m inclined to think that she composed the poem since both the poem and the entry discuss shopping.

——

A hundred years ago today Grandma was probably fretting about how much money she had spent on wedding and commencement gifts.

Grandma had  received an invitation to her friend Edith’s wedding.  And, her sister Ruth was graduating from high school—as well as other people she knew.  On March 28 she wrote, “I got an invitation to the commencement today, and now I’ll be in for getting another present. Alas my pocketbook.”

In many ways the young woman who wrote the diary seems very different from the elderly grandmother that I remember—but this is one place where I can really recognize my grandmother. She always tried not to waste money—I’ve even heard people say she was a tightwad–and both in her youth and as an elderly woman she would have worried about her “pocketbook”.

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It’s amazing how many different names Grandma used when referring to her sister Ruth–Rastus, Rufus, her highness, etc. etc. In today’s entry Grandma’s upset that her sister didn’t get home in time to help milk the cows–therefore she’s Rastus.

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

Friday, March 31, 1911: I got kicked today, and it was such a violent one that it caused me to land on my back. It was by a modest cow, who happened to kick me and the bucket at the same time. I guess I was as much surprised as she was.

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

Whew, that sounds like it hurt. I continue to be amazed at how seldom Grandma mentioned her routine farm chores in the diary. Even though she probably milked cows twice a day—it only merited recording when an unexpected or painful event occurred.