18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, March 16, 1914: Nothing much doing.
Building that once housed the McEwensville School.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
You’re probably sick of posts about tonsils and tonsillitis by now, but I have to share just one more amazing thing that I discovered: people back then believed there was a relationship between tonsillitis and poor performance at school.
This is what a book published in 1914 called Adenoids and Kindred Perils of School Life by D.T. Atkinson, M.D. said:
Children with adenoids rest badly at night. They breathe through the mouth and snore heavily. Their physical discomfort causes their sleep to be disturbed by dreams and nightmares and it is not unusual for them to spend the night in tossing about in bed.
They awaken in the morning unrested and remain tired and peevish during the day. At school they are backward, absent-minded and forgetful. There is often an inability to fix the attention, and as a rule they make poor grades in their classes.
Nearly every observant teacher can now pick out these children in the school room, guided only by their general appearance and their lack of application.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, March 15, 1914: Was so put out this morning. Pa said I wasn’t to go to Sunday School. I was anticipating some of the kind. I stayed at home and took a physic. Boo hoo. Carrie came over to see me.
Advertisement in Grandma’s local newspaper, the Milton Evening Standard (September 15, 1911)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What’s wrong? Why do you need a physic (laxative)? This is the second time in less than a week that you’ve taken one. Did you take Cascarets? I read that it could cure a lot of different problems.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, March 14, 1914: Do get some good things to eat these days. It was oranges for this day. I had callers this afternoon.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma’s still recuperating from her tonsillectomy on March 11. Who came to visit? . . . someone special? . . . and did he or she bring the oranges?
Oranges were considered a special treat in Pennsylvania a hundred years ago since it was expensive to ship them in from the South, but they weren’t as costly as I might have guessed. According to the Morristown (New Jersey) Daily Record, you could buy a dozen oranges for 25¢ in 1913.
Of course there’s been lots of inflation since then. An online inflation calculator says that a 1913 dollar is now worth $23.81, so in current dollars you could buy a dozen oranges for $5.95 back then. That’s a little more than what oranges generally cost today, but not much.
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If you are interested in looking at how prices have changed across the years, you might enjoy a website that the Morris County Library in New Jersey has which lists prices for lots of items for each decade between 1903 and 2013.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, March 12, 1914: Ma made ice cream for me this morning. It slips down without hurting much. Had chicken broth this morning. It did make me work to get it down.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
It’s awesome that your mother made ice cream for you. I bet your throat really hurts. It’s only been a day since your tonsillectomy.
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Somehow this diary entry makes me think about when I got my tonsils removed. I was 10 or 11 years old, and prior to the surgery, my mother told me that the hospital would give me lots of ice cream to eat.
When I woke up after the operation, I was shocked to discover that my mother was wrong. There was NO ice cream. Instead I got a ‘soft’ meal tray that featured soft- boiled eggs. Yuck!
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, March 11, 1914: Pa took us into town this morning to take the train for mother went along with me. Had never been to Williamsport before and rather enjoyed the trip, going up anyway. You may be sure I took in all the sights.
After we arrived in the city we went directly to the specialist’s office; there the operation was performed.
Was given chloroform and after being under its influence for about half an hour I came to. Ma told me afterwards that I yelled and groaned like everything, so it must have hurt some. I soon became conscious of a very sore throat. Two tonsils had been removed and an adenoid. Was soon able to get up and take a walk with Ma. Arrived home safely. Oh my, the swallowing process is terrible.
Recent picture of Williamsport (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I’m amazed that Grandma had never previously been to Williamsport. It is only about 20 miles from McEwensville—though the train would have had to go through some mountains to get there.
I’m also surprised that Grandma apparently never visited the doctor who removed her tonsils prior to the date of the surgery.
Tonsillectomies apparently were very popular a hundred years ago.I even found a book published in 1914 called Adenoids and Kindred Perils of School Life by D.T. Atkinson, M.D. Here are some quotes and pictures:
Enlarged tonsils and adenoid growths are responsible for many cases of persistent cough. Persons who breathe through their mouths carry into the larynx, twenty times or so a minute, a current of air which has not been freed from dust by the filtering process of the nose, and which is not moistened.
The consequences are that the larynx is kept dry and irritated and responds rapidly to atmospheric changes. Some authorities on the throat have reached the conclusion that in mouth breathing cases there is kept up a mild, almost unnoticed chronic inflammation of the larynx which becomes aggravated under the influence of exposure to cold or irritation from dust. In children with adenoids an almost constant “cold” in the head exists during the winter months.
The adenoid operation, though performed by a limited number of surgeons in different parts of the world, did not come into general use until a few years ago. Both parents and physicians recognize now that mouth breathing is a condition resulting from disease, that it is not a habit and that a child in a normal condition will not breathe through its mouth. . .
I don’t remember Grandma being ill very often during the winter of 1913-14. (She had more colds the previous winter.) I wonder why she decided to have her tonsils removed.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, March 10, 1914: Horrors of horrors, I had to take an awful nasty physic this morning, and I’m not the least bit sick either. Simply because I have to undergo an operation tomorrow.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
An operation? What’s wrong? You haven’t written much lately, but never mentioned not feeling well or going to the doctor.
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A physic is another word for a laxative. Does anyone use that term anymore?
