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

Monday, February 16, 1914: Guess I’ll be kept like a prisoner this week, at least at the first part.

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

Sounds like Grandma was going to need to wait another day to get her valentine. Two days previously she wrote:

Looked forward to a valentine this morning, but no mail carrier came as the roads were rendered impassable from the snow storm. The snow lies 18 in. deep on the ground.

February 14, 1914

Even though Grandma doesn’t mention anything about how the snowstorm affected the farm operations I can’t help wondering what her father was thinking and doing.

The Muffly’s had several cows. They would have stored the milk in the milk in cans—and may have enough cans to hold several days’ worth of milk. But it seems like Grandma’s father would have been panicking that the milk would spoil if he didn’t get it to market soon.

When I was a child growing up on a dairy farm, we always had to the get farm lane open within two days of a snowfall so that the milk truck could get in to take the milk to market.

My father would sometimes work day and night to clear the lane (and to keep it open if the snow was drifting).  If the milk truck couldn’t get in, the tank where we stored the milk would be totally filled and we would have needed to start dumping milk.

(I digressed enough. Back to Grandma’s story–another possibility is that the Muffly’s didn’t need to regularly get milk to market because they only sold butter made from the cream, and that they fed all of the skim milk to calves or pigs.)

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

Sunday, February 15, 1914:  Didn’t get to Sunday School this morning as the road is not much broken. Felt quite vexed about it as I didn’t want to miss more than what I could possibly help.

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

The road must still be impassable due to the snowstorm that Grandma wrote about the previous day:

. . . the roads were rendered impassable from the snow storm. The snow lies 18 in. deep on the ground.

What does “the road is not much broken” mean? If I had to take a guess, I’d guess that not many horses had traveled over it yet—so the snow was not tramped down (broken); but I’m not really sure.

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

Friday, February 13, 1914:  Went to town this afternoon to get some things for a box social. Besse gave me two doggies to slip in Ruth’s box when she wasn’t looking. Almost froze my right hand or rather it got pretty cold coming home.

Well, while Ruthie was eating her supper, I slipped upstairs with her box, undid the wrapping, lifted the lid, and in went the doggies, and brought the box back without arousing suspicions.

The box social and entertainment which we attended was out at her school. There wasn’t much of a crowd there, as it was snowing.

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

Good grief, Grandma. . .  How could you????

—

Who got Ruth’s box? And, whose face turned redder when they opened it?. . . Ruth’s or the guy’s?

Box socials always make me think of the musical Oklahoma. The girls prepared beautiful box lunches with enough food for two that were then auctioned off to raise funds for the school or some charity.

Grandma’s sister Ruth was a teacher at a one-room school house near McEwensville. Grandma’s older sister Besse was married to a butcher, and Besse must have given her two hot dogs. (Did they have hot dogs a hundred years ago?)

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

Wednesday, February 11, 1914:  Spent the afternoon doing some walking. One of Ruthie’s important errands.

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

What errand did Grandma run for her sister Ruth? . . . shopping? . . . returning a borrowed item? . . .

Ruth was a teacher at a one-room school house near McEwensville, so she probably was at work—and needed her sister (who worked at home on the farm) to run the errand.

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

Friday, February 6, 1914:  Got a cold. Guess tis the first I’ve had this winter. Didn’t feel very good today at all.

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

Colds are no fun.

I always catch colds when I’m exhausted and feeling down.  I think that it affects my immune system.  I bet that the same thing happened to Grandma.

She did a recitation the previous night at a Christian Endeavor service—and it didn’t go well since she forgot part of it.