100-Year-Old Peanut Cookie Recipe

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

Saturday, December 2, 1911: Saturdays are so cut and dried, when no one comes to see you, especially when one is having a short vacation. I made some cookies this afternoon, the first time I really did it alone. They got rather hard on account of having too much flour in them. Anyway they proved to be eatable.

Peanut Cookies

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

I wonder what kind of cookies Grandma made. A small cookbook published in 1911 to advertise KC Baking Powder contained this recipe for Peanut Cookies:

Peanut Cookies

1/4 cup butter

1/2  cup sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoonsful milk

1/4 teaspoonful salt

1 cup flour

1 level teaspoonful  KC Baking Powder [other brands work fine]

3/4 cup shelled peanuts

Sift together, three times, the flour, salt and baking powder. Cream the butter; add sugar, egg, milk, the flour mixture, and lastly, the peanuts, chopped and pounded fine in a mortar. Drop on a buttered tin, a teaspoonful in a place. Put half a nut meat on each bit of dough. Bake in a moderate oven.

These cookies are excellent with a delightful peanut taste. I plan to make them again when I do my holiday baking.

For this recipe I used a 375 degree oven. I dropped the batter on a greased cookie sheet, and baked the cookies until lightly browned (about 10 minutes).

I did not sift the flour and other dry ingredients. And, instead of using a mortar to pound the nuts–whew, cooking sounds like more work in the days before electric appliances–, I ground them in a blender.

Aprons a Hundred Years Ago

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

Friday, December 1, 1911:

The dying year around us a glory sheds

December with her pleasures breaks upon the scene,

Around our hearts a happy gladness lies

Christmas is coming with her laurels of green.

Didn’t have school today. Had a notion to go a visiting, but then didn’t, as I had some particular work, which I wanted done. Well, as Thanksgiving is over, I am looking forward to Christmas, hoping some pleasant surprises awaits me. Vice versa of Jan. 31.

Source of Photos: Ladies Home Journal (December, 1911)

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

I wonder if Grandma was planning to make any gifts for family or friends. If she wanted to make aprons, she could have ordered patterns from Ladies Home Journal.

According to a December, 1911 article called the “The Pretty Christmas Apron:”

Odds and ends of the piece-bag and remnants from the bargain counter may be utilized to make these pretty aprons.

Hundred-Year-Old Pictures of Embroidered Collars and Jabots

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

Thursday, November 30, 1911: Today is Thanksgiving. We didn’t have such a terrible sumptuous repast either. I would have liked to have had a piece of a turkey gobbler and a dish of ice cream, but we were far from that. I sat at home all day doing miscellaneous jobs which I didn’t relish any too well. Rufus went up to McEwensville this afternoon, to get some of her ever-increasing finery made which she is going to glow in at the institute. One is a piece of embroidery which I presented to her last Christmas but as she at that time was too poor to buy the material to finish it and most too indolent to make it even if she had it. It has lain unmolested till today. There! I’ve filled up the remainder of this page.

Embroidered collar and jobot. Source of photos: Ladies Home Journal (October, 1911)

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

In this entry Grandma refers to her sister Ruth as Rufus. Ruth was a teacher at a nearby one-room school house and was probably preparing to attend a teachers’ institute (professional development meeting) in a nearby town.

Grandma may have given Ruth an embroidered collar and jabot.

Thanksgiving in 1911

Today Thanksgiving is never this late in November. A hundred years ago it was held on the last Thursday in the month. And, in 1911, the very last day of the month was a Thursday.

In 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt made Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in the month by proclamation. Federal regulations enacted in 1941 made the change permanent. A very late Thanksgiving shortened the Christmas shopping season—and the change to the fourth Thursday was seen as a way to provide an economic boost to the economy.

Repast

Grandma used the term repast in her diary entry. It is an archaic word for a feast.

One Hundred Year Old December School Bulletin Board Ideas

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

Wednesday, November 29, 1911: Had sort of a little entertainment this afternoon. We got out of school early. Jake was going away so that was the whole reason. I can not give my myself up to a vacation of two days.

 

Bulletin Board Directions

Going Home. This takes three rolls of white crepe paper, one roll each of yellow, lavender and green, with ten sheets of gray matboard for the trees and fence, which are touched up with black tinting fluid. Orange tissue paper will furnish the hospitable glow seen through the windows. Pink tissue paper over yellow crepe paper is used to produce the flesh tint for the lad’s face. (Ladies Home Journal, December, 1911)

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

In 1911, Thanksgiving was on November 30, and apparently the high school students were let out of school early on the day before the holiday.

I wonder if primary students on the first floor of the school building were also left out early.  Grandma’s friend Rachel Oakes was the primary teacher.  Might Rachel have stayed after school to prepare for the following week? Maybe she took down a Thanksgiving-themed bulletin board picture and put a winter one up.

The December, 1911 issue of Ladies Home Journal had an article titled “Christmas Scenes to be Made of Paper: A Suggestion for the Schoolroom Bulletin Board” that had some great examples.

Bulletin Board Directions

The Sleighride. This requires two rolls of gray crepe paper, three of white, and a roll each of red and green, together with four sheets of gray matboard, two bolts of narrow red ribbon for the sun’s rays, black tinting fluid and a little white cotton. The horse is cut from the matboard and tinted with color obtained by wetting a sheet of brown tissue paper.

Bulletin Board Directions

Christmas Carolers. Black and gray matboard, crepe paper, yellow, and orange tissue.

Good Grade in Algebra!

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

Tuesday, November 28, 1911: Exams are over thank goodness. I made ninety in Algebra, instead of the one I made last month. I must make some good resolutions and study better next month for I have much need to study. Came near missing a day at school.

Recent photo of the building that once housed McEwensville High School.

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

Yeah!! Grandma got 90% in algebra!! In October she’d only gotten 68%.  Her studying over the previous couple days apparently paid off.

It’s silly to vicariously celebrate a minor success that occurred a hundred years ago, yet I get so involved in the diary story that it somehow seems appropriate to feel pleased when Grandma had a good day.

The Sisters Had a Fight

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

Monday, November 26, 1911:Had exams today. Wonder what some of my marks are. Rufus and I had a squabble tonight over such a trifle. She pummeled me so hard on the head that I had a headache for a while. I guess school marms can lay it on sometimes.

Ruth Muffly

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

Whew . . . it sounds the two sisters had a terrible fight. In the diary Grandma sometimes–—especially when she was annoyed or angry– referred to her sister Ruth as Rufus.

In November 1911, Grandma was 16 years old and Ruth as 19. Ruth was a teacher (i.e., school marm) at one of the one-room schools near McEwensville. What could have possibly angered them so much?

100-Year-Old Crocheted Caps

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

Sunday, November 26, 1911: Went to Sunday School this morning. Carrie and I went for a walk this afternoon, which was the around about way to Watsontown and back. We went up to McEwensville this evening to attend the Thanks offering.

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

It sounds like Grandma and her friend Carrie did a lot of walking a hundred years ago today. I wonder if they wore crocheted caps. The November, 1911 issue of Ladies Home Journal had lots of great cap pictures.