19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 26, 1914: Went to church this afternoon. I was pretty warm.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma-
Whew, it doesn’t sound pleasant. I bet that it was hard to concentrate in the heat. Was there a breeze coming in through a window?—or was the hot air still? Did you have a fan?
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, July 25, 1914: Nothing doing.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma-
You must have done something. Do you and your 9-year-old brother Jimmie ever go fishing on hot summer days in the the nearby Warrior Run Creek ?
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, July 24, 1914: Nothing doing.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma-
I hope that you aren’t doing “nothing” because you’re still in pain from the hay-loading accident two days ago.
If you’re stiff and sore, maybe Sloan’s Liniment would help. It kills all pain in man or beast.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, July 23, 1914: Can still feel the results of yesterday.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
Are you going to be okay? Your accident yesterday didn’t sound good—and I still think you should have gone to the doctor and the dentist. I hope that your father at least gave you the day off—and that you are lounging around the house.
—
Grandma hurt herself while loading hay or straw. She wrote:
I’m feeling awful sore in my lower region. Have a sore nose and two sore front teeth. Was loading hay this afternoon. While at work on the last load the train rounded the bend. I glanced in that direction. This next moment I was lying on the ground with the breath knocked out of me.
July 22, 1914
As I described yesterday, I think that hundreds of pounds of hay fell from a hay hook as it was being lifted into the barn.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, July 22, 1914: I’m feeling awful sore in my lower region. Have a sore nose and two sore front teeth. /Was loading hay this afternoon. While at work on the last load the train rounded the bend. I glanced in that direction. This next moment I was lying on the ground with the breath knocked out of me.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
Whew, are you okay? Do you think you should go to a doctor (or a dentist)? It sounds like a bad mishap—and like you‘re very lucky that you weren’t hurt worse.
—
I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I think that it was a mishap with the rope and pulley system used to lift hay or straw from the wagon, and take it up into the hay mow. There was a huge hook at the end that held the hay that was being lifted. If care wasn’t used (or if the rope broke) hundreds of pounds of hay would fall back onto the wagon. This would jolt the wagon—and could throw a person standing on it. The falling hay could also potentially hit a worker.
There were train tracks that ran along the edge of the Muffly farm—and the Susquehanna, Bloomsburg, and Berwick Railroad had regularly scheduled passenger trains that used the tracks. I suppose Grandma was surprised by the train—and somehow failed to properly attend to whatever she was supposed to be doing with the pulley system.
For more information about hay pulleys you might enjoy this previous post:
You may also enjoy this link to a YouTube video what shows people using the old-fashioned pulley system to unload hay. (Thank you Jim in Iowa for finding this link and sharing it when I did the previous post on this topic.)
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, July 21, 1914: Went to a party about three miles from here. Went with Carrie and her beau. There were lots there I didn’t know. Didn’t stay so very late.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
It’s too bad that you didn’t know very many people . . . were you happy for Carrie that she had a beau? . . . or a little jealous?
—-
Carrie Stout is the friend of Grandma’s who’s mentioned the most frequently in the diary—so I assume that she was Grandma’s best friend. She lived on a nearby farm.
Since Carrie’s not a relative I’ve never put much effort into tracing her story, but here’s the little I know.
Carrie was a little younger than Grandma. She married a farmer named John Pressler who was about 10 years older than she was. (I wonder if the beau in this diary entry was John.) Carrie and John lived for many years on a rural Milton farm. The farm was on Muddy Run Road, and was 3 miles or so from the farm where Carrie grew up.
I’ve never come across a photo of Carrie, so I don’t know what she looked like.
Somehow my description of Carrie feels inadequate—I guess that her life is a puzzle that still has lots of missing pieces.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, July 20, 1914: Nothing of importance.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share a hundred-year-old ad that I found a bit unsettling. Today we hear so much about the problems with asbestos. I was surprised to see an ad for asbestos roofing in the March 15, 1914 issue of Kimball’s Dairy Farmer Magazine.
