16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, December 29, 1911: Today was such a greasy one, so you can guess what happened. I had all the odd chores at the house and barn to do. Well it’s over at last, but there is another same kind of day coming again this winter. Ma says she’ll have to have some help then, meaning of course I’ll have to miss a day at school, but I’m not all together hopeless. I believe there is always a way out of most any kind of a difficulty even if it isn’t visible.
Recent photo of the Muffly farm.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Occasionally a diary entry totally befuddle me. This is one of the times.
I can’t figure out what a “greasy” day was—and why there was going to be another one coming up that might require Grandma to miss school to help.
In any case, it sounds like Grandma was planning ahead, and trying to figure out a way so that she won’t need to miss school. Yeah, Grandma! (I love her resourcefulness and how she thinks ahead.)
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Source: Wikemedia Commons
Thursday, December 28, 1911: Wanted Ma to go to Milton this morning, but she wouldn’t do it. Of course I was going along and get some things I wanted. It isn’t muddy any longer because it has gotten colder. Wish it would soon snow. Saw a mousie in the drawers of the desk. Managed to give him a whack, but he got away. But all the same I got him; by the tail too. I’m not afraid of mice, but he’s afraid of me. Poor creature.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
It’s interesting how this diary entry considered the perspective of the mouse. Grandma was braver than I am. I screamed last fall when a mouse ran across my kitchen floor.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, December 27, 1911: Didn’t do so very much today. I guess I read more stories than I did anything else. Ma wasn’t feeling very good this morning so we didn’t get so much done. Oh well, there wasn’t much to do after all. The latest fad of Jimmie’s is a little slender switch, which he calls a spider, a discarded branch of the lower part of the Xmas tree. He makes things lively when he brings it into use.
Jimmie Muffly*
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sounds like Grandma’s six-year-old brother Jimmie was still bored by the long holiday break. The diary entry that I posted yesterday said that Grandma and Jimmie were “turning into fight cats.” I love Grandma’s colorful metaphors.
Photo Source: A group school photo that appeared in The History of the McEwensville Schools by Thomas Kramm
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, December 26, 1911: Am beginning to get rather tired of this seemingly long vacation. When you don’t have anything interesting to do and you don’t go many places it is not very hard to get lonesome. Jimmie and I are turning into regular fight cats, so Ma thinks. I churned this morning, and then set things in order, but don’t suppose they’ll stay that way very long.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma sounds bored—and it seems like she and her six-year-old brother Jimmie were getting into fights to make things a little livelier.
When I was a child if I said that I was bored, my parents used to say that I must not be working hard enough and give me a chore. I wonder if Grandma’s mother had the same philosophy. Maybe her mother decided that churning butter would relieve the boredom.
This is the first time that Grandma’s mentioned churning in the diary. I assume that the family just made a little butter for their own use—though many farmers a hundred years ago sold butter.
There are drawings of “modern” butter-making equipment in a book published in 1908 called The Dairy Farm by H.B. Gurler.
The practice of printing butter has grown remarkably during the past fifteen years and now (1908) most of the butter that is retailed is put up in one pound prints which are wrapped in parchment paper, which carries the name of the farm or maker.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, December 25, 1911: Merry Xmas, Merry Xmas, but nobody wished me a Merry Xmas. I mean in person of course. I was wished a Merry Xmas on different post-cards throughout the week. I felt rather blue this morning. Could hardly realize it was Christmas, but felt better when I saw my presents. Ruth got me the one I wanted her to get: a bow tie. Besse gave me goods for a waist and a piece of neck wear. Mrs. Kerr, my Sunday School teacher, gave me a miniature suitcase filled with candy last evening. And lastly a dollar bill from my mother. Christmas is almost over now, but I am looking forward to New Year’s. Then I can have the commencing my second chapter. Oh what a fib I almost wrote. I was wished a Merry Xmas right this morning and I almost forget about it. I was rather merry after all even if we did not have company.
Christmas postcard, circa 1911
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, December 24, 1911:Succeeded in getting my verses learnt for today at least. Went to Sunday School this morning. After buying Xmas presents, I find it my horrendous duty to distribute them, so down to Besse’s I went to present her with my charming Xmas present. This evening Ruthie and I went up to McEwensville to attend the Xmas services at the Lutheran Church. B. was there. Today was different from all other days in this year, I believe. I didn’t have anything to do with the dishes all day.
Messiah Lutheran Church, McEwensville
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I can just picture a teen writing this entry–with its total focus on the things that are important to a 16-year-old. Who was B.? . .
But I’m going to focus on the Christmas Eve service–
When I was a child I regularly went to candlelight services at Messiah Lutheran Church — the same church Grandma attended on Christmas Eve a hundred years ago. I wonder if the services changed much over the years.
In the middle part of the last century, I remember singing wonderful old-time carols —We Three Kings, Joy to the World, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, O Little Town of Bethlehem, O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark the Herald Angels, . .. . ..
We’d end with Silent Night after all of the lights had been extinguished except for the candles we were lighting.
(Of course, there was no electricity in 1911—so the church would have been lit with lanterns and candles for the entire service.)
I don’t know why, but I have strong memories of one year when an elderly woman didn’t extinguish her candle at the end of the service, and took the flickering light out into the cold night.
I remember asking my mother why the woman didn’t follow the directions—and my mother said that the old lady was remembering Christmas’s from long ago and that we should let her be. I looked at the woman and could see how happy she looked as her face was illuminated by the flickering light.
Traditions, like Christmas Eve services, can so wonderfully pull the young and the old together.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, December 23, 1911:Went after my Xmas tree this afternoon. Ruth made some candy for Christmas. Made a general nuisance of myself all day. Jimmie and I have our scraps occasionally. Just now am trying to commit twenty-seven verses to memory. Have about half of them, and the rest yet to learn.
Was Grandma memorizing the Christmas story?
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Whew, 27 verses is a lot! Grandma was trying to memorize 700+ Bible verses so that her Sunday School would give her a Bible. She’d been working on it since sometime prior to September. (I think that I’d give up before I even started, but Grandma apparently was still trying to reach her goal.)
