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

Friday, May 8, 1914:  <no entry>

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

Grandma was probably totally exhausted as the spring cleaning and wallpapering wound down; and was too tired to write a diary entry a hundred years ago today. Hopefully she had a chance to relax a little, and maybe the wedding of the president’s daughter the previous day made her dream a little–

On May 7, 1914, Eleanor Wilson, the daughter of President Woodrow Wilson married William McAdoo. Eleanor was 24 years old, and he was a widower who was 26 years older than her. He was also the Secretary of the Treasury.

Apparently the article didn’t correctly predict how many wedding gifts the couple would receive. According to Eleanor’s 1967 obituary:

Her marriage to McAdoo drew world attention. The wedding was held in the White House, where a family friend recalled “there were rooms and rooms of gifts. It was all a mad rush, but she enjoyed it immensely.”

An aside—Apparently even a storybook wedding doesn’t ensure long-term happiness, because the obituary continued:

The couple divorced 20 years later when McAdoo was elected U.S. senator from California and Mrs. McAdoo had to remain in California for health reasons.

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

Thursday, May 7, 1914:  Two rooms got put in order for today.

The daintily flowered wallpaper and chair cushions, the plain rug and the curtains are all in various tones of lavender, while the two mahogany tables offer a pleasing bit of taste.

Ladies Home Journal (October, 1913)

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

Yeah! It must be wonderful for the spring cleaning to be about finished and to have redecorated rooms with new wallpaper. One room that was redone was the sitting room; I’m not sure about the other room.

—

The October, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal had a fun article about decorating farmhouses:

Good Taste in the Farmhouse

In the living room above we have shown how successfully one family has solved the problem of a long narrow room. A few good pieces of furniture have been placed as apparently to reduce the length of the room; and well-proportioned rugs—one placed lengthwise and one at right angles to this—also tend to improve the appearance of the room.

The living room was once a kitchen in an old farmhouse. Only furniture of Colonial design should be used in a room of these architectural features, as the great open fireplace, the paneled woodwork, and the rough heavy ceiling beams bespeak that period.

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

Wednesday, May 6, 1914: Went to Watsontown this afternoon. Didn’t want to, for I would rather had seen some papering done.

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

Grandma—

Why didn’t you tell us?—Over the last 18 days, you weren’t just doing the spring housecleaning, you were also getting a room (the sitting room?) ready to be wallpapered!

I sympathize–it’s a lot of hard work to scrape off old wallpaper.

And, why were you sent on an errand to Watsontown? Were some additional wallpapering supplies needed?

—

Wow, Far Side of Fifty had it right! Sometimes I’m amazed when a reader has a better sense of what was happening in the Muffly household than I do. On May 1, Far Side of Fifty wrote the following comment:

They did some heavy cleaning back then. Taking everything out of a room and painting or papering it…freshening it all up.

I’m not very far ahead on doing posts right now, and I hadn’t realized until recently that in addition to doing the spring housecleaning, the Muffly’s were preparing to so some wallpapering.

I obviously thought that the term “spring housecleaning” had a narrower meaning that what it really had a hundred years ago.

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

Tuesday, May 5, 1914: Jimmie and I had a knock-out.

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

Hmm. . . Grandma was 19, and Jimmie was her 8-year-old brother. What the heck could they have been fighting about? I’d think that with such a large age difference that they’d seldom fight.

Here are links to some previous posts about Jimmie Muffly that you might enjoy:

Whatever Happened to Jimmie Muffly?

Muffly Magnetic Retriever Used to Remove Metal Objects from Cows’ Stomachs

 

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

Sunday, May 3, 1914:

Brighter days are surely dawning,

Where the flowers peep from their places,

When the birds commence their buildings,

And all things are looking fairer,

Then comes the month of May.

Pandemonium reigned today in the sitting room, and it is going to stay that way for awhile I think. Wish house cleaning days were over.

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

Whew, what happened? Was Grandma’s mother angry that she wasn’t working hard enough?

The Muffly’s spring housecleaning seems way over the top. They started cleaning at least 10 days prior to this entry. On April 22, Grandma wrote:

Spent part of the day on my knees. Now I don’t mean I was trying to be good. I was cleaning house. . .

—

Grandma began the month with a poem—as she did on the 1st of every month. For more information about the poems see this previous post:

Monthly Poem in Diary

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

Thursday, April 30, 1914:  But we went today and got all we cared to carry home. It is quite a distance and my legs ache by this time.

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

I’m guessing that Grandma and some of her friends picked lots of training arbutus. Two days prior to this entry she wrote:

Was going for trailing arbutus this afternoon, but the other girls didn’t have time to go, so it’s postponed til tomorrow.

It apparently took two days to actually get the group together to pick arbutus.

Trailing arbutus are also called mayflowers. Several years ago when Grandma wrote about gathering trailing arbutus, I found a description at The Write Way about what it was like to pick them. It’s still the best description I’ve ever seen, so I’m going to repeat it here:

I have such crisp memories of picking wild mayflowers with my brother. Scrounging around on the sun-splashed forest floor, moving decaying leaves with our bare hands to find a delicately scented flower smaller than a dime.

Trailing arbutus are not easy to find; their flowers tend to hide under the leaves. It takes quite a few flowers to make even a small bunch, but they were worth it.

Brenda Visser