19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, December 27, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write anything a hundred years ago today, today I’d like share another photo of Grandma and me. This one was taken at my wedding.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, December 26, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write anything a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share some suggestions in the January, 1914 issue of Ladies Home Journal that addresses an age-old problem on the day after Christmas. What do you do when the children don’t play with the toys that Santa brought them?
Well, Ladies Home Journal had some fun suggestions for creating scenarios that would make it more interesting to play with dolls:
Playing with the Christmas Doll
With a new doll at Christmastime little girls are made the happiest of happy little beings, since the newcomer frequently adds one more to the collection of other years, and now there is quite a family for the little mother to train.
What fun it would be to have a school in a corner, if only someone at home will provide a few tables and benches which might easily be fashioned from boxes.
“Let’s play ball” is suggested by the wee mites in the picture.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, December 25, 1914: << no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Since Grandma didn’t write anything a hundred years ago today, I’ll share a 1914, Christmas-themed advertisement for Necco Wafers.
It’s always fun to come across an ad in an old magazine for a product that still available. I did a little research on Necco wafers and was stunned to discover that they’ve been around for 167 years. According to Wikipedia:
Necco Wafers date back to 1847. Oliver Chase, an English immigrant, invented a lozenge cutting machine with which he produced the wafers. At the time of the Civil War, these were called “hub wafers” and were carried by Union soldiers. In 1901, Chase and Company merged with two other companies to incorporate the New England Confectionery Company. By 1912 the wafers were being advertised as “Necco Wafers”, a name they still carry today.
During World War II the United States government ordered Necco to produce its wafers for soldiers overseas. As a result of this action, Necco saw its sales of the wafers peak. Upon returning home, many former soldiers became faithful customers who continued to buy the wafers.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, December 24, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Even farm magazines got into the Christmas spirit a hundred years ago. Since Grandma didn’t write anything specific for today, I thought you might enjoy this old Kimball’s Dairy Farmer cover.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, December 23, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Across the past few years I’ve shared many stories about my grandmother as an older woman. I’d like to on of them since it so aptly describe my memories of her. This is what I wrote on January 29, 2011:
Since not much happened a hundred years ago on this date—let’s fast forward to another January day 52 years later–probably a very routine day from Grandma’s perspective, but a day that I still remember.
In January 1963 Grandma would have been 68 years old. I was 7 and often visited her in her cozy bungalow on a neighboring farm. Cloth dish towels with calendars printed on them were the fad at the time, and Grandma always had a cloth calendar hanging decoratively in her kitchen. The calendar towel had a dowel running through the top hem and a string attached to the ends of the dowels, and it hung from a nail that was pounded into the wall.
I noticed that the calendar said 1957. I was old enough to know that the year was 1963. I asked Grandma why she had an old calendar.
She replied, “Calendars repeat themselves every so often.” She walked over to the closet at the far end of the kitchen, opened the door, and showed me a stack of cloth calendars. On top of the folded stack was a sheet of paper with Grandma’s handwriting on it. It indicated which years were the same. For example, one row on the page may have said 1958, 1969 which indicated that the 1958 calendar could be reused in 1969.
She pulled out calendars and explained how some patterns repeated with regularity—whereas due to the vagaries of leap year–other calendar patterns seldom repeated. It was so complicated that I could barely follow her explanation—but trying to understand calendar quirks consumed my mental energy for the next several days. I looked at calendars, drew calendars, asked questions about leap year. . .
Today it’s easy to find out when calendar years repeat with a quick internet search—it was a much harder task back then. But, looking back, Grandma’s explanation that day partially frames how I think about her. She was smart, and obviously enjoyed the challenge of keeping track of calendars and years.
Grandma was also always very frugal and reusing old calendars seemed to fit her. I wonder if the 15-year-old in the diary would have been as frugal—or if the Great Depression and other events in the intervening years made her thriftier.
Four years later I think that I can answer my question at the end of that post. Based on Grandma’s diary, I think that Grandma always was fairly thrifty and didn’t like to deplete her pocketbook unnecessarily.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, December 22, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
After Grandma and Grandpa’s children grew up, they built a small bungalow on my uncle’s farm. This is where they lived when I was a child.
Since Grandma didn’t write anything a hundred years ago today, I’d like to repost a picture of Grandma and me that shows what the kitchen in the bungalow looked like.
This is wrote when I originally posted it on July 31, 2013:
Others who have family history blogs often have awesome pictures of themselves with the relative they are writing about—and I’m always slightly jealous.
The few pictures that I have of me with Grandma have many limitations. Time has taken a toll on the color, the picture has lighting problems or is blurry, and so on.
But, in spite of the poor quality of the picture above, I really like this photo so I decided to share it with you.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, December 21, 1914: I look by these pages of late that I don’t take much interest in keeping a diary. I really don’t because I have nothing exciting to write. Am done Xmas shopping for this year, and my pocketbook is done, too. The trouble for me with Christmas presents is that I never get enough.
Had one of my Brownie pictures enlarged. It came this morning. A Xmas present for myself.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma, do tell—Was it the picture that you took of the girls at Niagara Falls last summer?
If so, I feel tingly. By giving yourself a Christmas present, you’ve given your descendants a gift that has lasted a hundred years.
—-
Whew, I can hardly believe it. I’m only aware of one photo that Grandma took which still exists—and I think this dairy entry may be referring to it. My cousin Alice has a photo that Grandma took of her sister, her cousin, and a friend during a trip to Niagara Falls in August, 1914. Grandma really liked the photo, and mentioned it in previous diary entries.
I asked Alice about the photo last summer. I’m reposting what Alice told me:
My Dad and I were cleaning out sheds on our farm outside of McEwensville, probably around the summer of 1977 or 1978. That is when we found the picture. I had just bought my first house and was delighted to have some pictures to hang. There were several other pictures from the Muffly and Swartz family.
I love the picture so much. It still hangs in my office and I enjoy looking at it every day. Everyone looks so happy.
