16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, August 5, 1911: Am still driving my swift steeds, but it isn’t for very long. One thing I am glad of is that it isn’t dusty a bit, but will soon be.
Is this the field where Grandma drove the horses?
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma was probably leading horses that were hitched to a roller that leveled plowed earth in preparation for planting winter wheat seeds.
Grandma mentioned that she was learning to drive horses in the August 2 diary entry (see that posting for a photo of a horse-drawn roller).
I think that Grandma was being sarcastic when she called the horses “swift steeds.” In the previous diary entry she said that the horses were not fun to drive because they were old and slow.
Friday, August 4, 1911: Went to Watsontown this afternoon to finish that errand, which I had made on Monday. I had to walk in the rain going in and in the sun coming out.
Recent view of the homes that Grandma would have walked by as she entered Watsontown. (Wish it had been raining when I took this photo so it would better match the diary entry.)And, the view as she left Watsontown. (Wish it had been sunny when I took the photo!)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
This entry makes little sense to me. I can’t figure out what type of errand might require two trips to town. Earlier in the week I’d thought that Grandma probably went shopping Now I don’t know.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, August 3, 1911: Just got home from a party a little while ago. It was up at Amelia Seibert’s. I had a real nice time. As I thought, B.G. was there.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Whew, to be young and at a party with a special guy. I bet Grandma spent hours getting ready for the party. Did she wear a special dress? How did she fix her hair?
She may have fixed her hair like this. (Photos from article titled “How Women Can Style Their Hair,” Ladies Home Journal, June 1911)
I can almost sense her excitement, her nervousness, and her fluttering heart. She may have been thinking—Does he think I look pretty? Will he talk to me? . . .
Or like this . . .
The diary entries for the past week have referred to a guy Grandma really liked. On July 29 she wrote, “He was there. B.” And the next day she wrote, “ Saw him today.” And now the diary entry provides another clue: the last initial, “G.”
I keep trying not to speculate who B.G. was. Grandma obviously made an effort to semi-disguise his name by using initials—and yet I somehow can’t help myself. I’m probably totally out in left field but the only B.G. that I can come up with is her sister Ruth’s future husband—Bill Gauger.
Is it possible that Grandma may have liked Bill before he became Ruth’s beau? William (Bill) Gauger lived on a farm near McEwensville and was born in 1894—so he would have been 17 in 1911. Grandma was 16. Ruth was 19. It almost seems like Bill would have still seemed like a young kid to Ruth in 1911. (And, according to the diary, in 1911 Ruth was dating Jim Oakes).
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, August 2, 1911: Took lessons in driving, but even though I would like to learn to drive, I did not like that kind of lesson for the horses were old and slow, and I had to drive them in the field behind choking clouds of dust.
Horse-drawn roller. Photo source: Wikemedia Commons, German Federal Archives. (Rollers in the U.S. may have looked different, but this is the only photo I could find.)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I read this entry to my father and asked him what Grandma was doing. He says that she probably was using a roller on a plowed field. The roller would level the plowed earth in preparation for planting winter wheat seeds.
The horses would have been hitched to the roller and Grandma would have needed to tighten one rein or the other to make the horses go in a straight line.
I can almost picture the clouds of dust stirred up by the roller swirling around Grandma as she drove the horses.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, August 1, 1911:
Summer’s passing onward, August’s here at hand.
Everybody’s busy, don’t you understand!
Summer’s passing onward, soon it will be o’er,
And these summer days will come again no more.
I went over to Stout’s this evening on purpose to give her a present, for today is her birthday. I mean Miss Carrie (of course). I am pretty much cooled off now having got so terrible mad at the cows and the supper dishes this evening.
Me standing on the bridge that Grandma would have crossed when she walked over to Carrie Stout's house. (The bridge appears to be really old--I wonder if this is the exact bridge that Grandma crossed or if it was replaced years ago.)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma included a poem on the first day of each month. Every month I’m intrigued by the poems—some of them are a little better than others—and I continue to wonder whether Grandma copied the monthly poems from a source or whether she wrote them herself.
Poems were more popular a hundred years ago than they are now. Back then students were required to regularly memorize poetry in school —and there were resource books filled with poetry. Women’s magazine also often contained poetry.
Carrie’s Birthday
What did Grandma give her friend Carrie Stout for her birthday? Back in March for Grandma’s birthday, Carrie gave her a “dainty white apron” that Grandma’s mother called “only a patch” so I assume this gift was of similar value.
Terrible Mad
It sounds like Grandma had a rough day—Did she get kicked by a cow? . and break a dish when doing the supper dishes? .. . or maybe a cow kicked a bucket of milk over? . . . or did the cows again escape from the pasture and get into the corn field? (Grandma needed to chase them out of the corn on July 10 and July 25.)
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, July 31, 1911: I went to Watsontown this afternoon, but it was no pleasure trip, for I had to walk on the way, simply a mere matter of going on an errand for myself.
Recent photo of downtown Watsontown
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
The Muffly farm was about 1 ½ miles from Watsontown—so it probably took half an hour or so to walk to town and another half hour to come home. The road was dirt—so on this last day in July it probably was a hot and dusty trip.
In 1911 Watsontown had a two block long downtown area with stores, restaurants, bars, hotels—and an opera house. Several previous entries in the diary indicated that Grandma ran errands to town for her father. This time she says that she went on an errand for herself. I wonder what she needed. I want to imagine that she needed ribbons for her hair . or maybe stockings . . .or some other grooming supply deemed essential by a teen who has a crush on a guy (see the entries on the previous two days)—but I’m probably way off-base.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 30, 1911: Went to Sunday school this afternoon. Was the only one present in our class, even our teacher wasn’t there. Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Seibert were here this afternoon. Saw him today.
The McEwensville Baptist Church building is long gone, but it once was in this area of McEwensville.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Whew, it doesn’t sound like there was much of a Sunday School class—no teacher and one student. Did Grandma attend another class with people in a different age group or did she just go home?
I wonder how many students were in the class on a typical week. Two Sunday’s ago Grandma had also written that she was the only student in her class.
Every Sunday since Grandma began keeping the diary in January she has said that she went to Sunday School. She must have generally found Sunday School to be meaningful—and I guess these summer Sunday’s were exceptions.
I have no idea who Mr. and Mrs. Charles Seibert were.
I think that “him” refers to a guy Grandma liked. The previous day she’d written that she’d had quite a good time at a festival in McEwensville and that “He was there. B.”
I think that this entry was referring to the same guy.
I wish that Grandma had used the complete names of guys she liked—but instead she always used initials or pronouns.
I guess that Grandma worried that her mother or sister Ruth would read the diary—though I’d think that they would have known who B. referred to–so initials seem unnecessary. But to the teen-ager writing the diary it probably felt safer to not refer to guys by name.
