16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, June 13, 1911: I have a sore neck, and I’m not trying to write anything very pleasant, so there. Said good-bye to H.W. Wonder when I will see him again. He came over for some tools this morning.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma probably has a sore neck from stooping to pick strawberries (see yesterday’s entry).
I assume that H.W. refers to one of the carpenters who had been building the barn addition. On June 2 she’d indicated that she thought two of them were cute. And, on June 6 there’d been the barn raising—so the carpentry work is probably finished. It’s hard to be a teen sometimes . . .
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, June 12, 1911: Started to pick strawberries this morning. Of course it will mean some early rising and loss of sleep, but just look at what I can earn.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
It sounds as if Grandma got paid for picking strawberries. I wonder if she worked for a neighbor who raised the strawberries, hired workers to pick them, and then sold them in town—or if her parents raised berries for sale (and paid their own children to harvest them).
Regardless of who owned the berry patch, I bet that the Muffly family enjoyed eating strawberries.
I don’t know how Grandma’s family served strawberries, but when I was a child we ate shortcake muffins with strawberries and milk almost daily during June. I would guess that they also ate strawberry shortcake a hundred years ago.
We ate strawberry shortcake for supper—and it was part of the main meal (not a dessert). The menu consisted of shortcake, and meat or fried potatoes.
It seems a little strange today—but back then on those hot June days we’d typically have a heavy meal for lunch (we called it dinner) and a relatively light meal with strawberry shortcake in the evening. In June on the farm we’d being baling hay—and there was lots of hard, hot labor required to get the hay baled and then stacked in the barn—so it seems even more amazing to me now that we ate a relatively light meal (that many today would consider a dessert) in the evening.
Here’s a traditional recipe for strawberry shortcake:
Strawberry Shortcake
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
Scant 1/2 cup milk
Sliced strawberries
Additional milk (optional)
Preheat oven to 420 degrees. Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Cut the butter into the flour mixture . Add milk and stir just enough to combine using a fork. Grease muffin pan and fill each about 3/4 full. Cook about 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve with strawberries and milk (optional).
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, June 11, 1911: Went to Sunday school this morning and managed to get there when it was almost over. Carrie and I went up to Rhone’s this afternoon. A thunderstorm is raging now.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Interesting that Grandma mentions that Sunday school was held in the morning—on April 9 she indicated that it was held in the afternoon. This provides further support that the church Grandma attended was part of a parish that had one minister who served several churches. The church service and Sunday school times probably regularly rotated between more and less desired times so that members of all of the churches in the parish felt like they were being treated fairly.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, June 10, 1911: The carpenters went away today and I sort of miss them, especially in my stack of dishes. Heard this morning that we will have the same old teacher back that we had last year. Mrs. Edith Reynolds was here a little while this afternoon. Came with her Harry.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I wonder if Grandma ever got to know the two carpenters she thought were cute who were helping build the barn addition.
Grandma’s friend Edith and her fiancé Harry got married in April—on the same day that Edith graduated from high school. I wonder how the marriage was going two months later. The April 1, 1911 issues of Ladies Home Journal had this advice for recently married women:
Marriage
One thing the bride must try to remember: If things seem awry, if the home you have gone to isn’t like you thought it would be, and life begins to seem like a disappointment, it is your love, not his, that is inadequate. In the first glow of love you believed that his presence would glorify a hut; if the glory is gone it is yourself that has changed—not he. Can you understand this? You will some day.
Happily for us all, the boy and girl once married have courage to face facts that they do not quite understand; they have some sense of the sanctity of a vow taken under the auspices of religion and law; and, better still, they love each other deeply and truly, even while they misunderstand. This will tide them over until the child comes, and with its coming, if they are decent young folk, comes the utter irrevocableness of their union. They are parents. As such the dignity with which childish eyes will soon invest them begins to hang visibly about them. They dare not fail then in “their great task of happiness.”
“The Ideas of a Plain Country Woman,” Ladies Home Journal (April 1, 1911)
Whew, in 1911 they sure put a lot of the responsibility for a happy marriage on the woman—
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, June 9, 1911: Must have forgotten what I did today. It won’t come into my head when I am ready to write it down.
William Taft (President in 1911): The most obese president in US history
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t have much have much to say today, I’m going to go off on a tangent. When I look at photos from a hundred years ago some of the people look stout to me—well, frankly they look obese.
We hear that people are more likely to be obese today than in the past—and I wondered what people considered a healthy weight to be a hundred years ago.
I did a little research and found how one author defined obesity 100 years ago. According to Anna M. Galbraith, M.D. in a book published in 1911 called Personal Hygiene and Physical Training for Women:
Women should range in weight from one and eight-tenths to two and two-thirds pounds to each inch in height. In order to determine your own factor in this respect divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches. Any weight above two and one-half pounds to the inch in stature may be considered as excessive, inasmuch as it adds nothing to one’s mental or physical efficiency, and is frequently the forerunner to obesity.
According to the book, in 1911 the average woman was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 133 pounds. According the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website the average woman today is still 5 feet 4 inches tall, but now weighs 165 pounds.
The chart above indicates when a woman was considered normal weight, overweight, and obese in 1911 and 2011. I was amazed to discover that according to the chart I’d be considered normal weight in 1911, but overweight today.
For 1911 I used the quote above to estimate the weights. I assumed that:
Normal weight = 1.8 pounds X height in inches to 2. 5 pounds X height in inches
Overweight = 2.5 pounds X height in inches to 2.67 pounds X height in inches
Obese = Over 2.67 pounds X height in inches
Today a person’s body mass index (BMI) indicates whether they are a healthy weight. BMI is calculated based upon a person’s height and weight and is calculated using a formula that is more complex than the ones used in 1911.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, June 8, 1911: I got my camera this morning which I had sent for about a week ago. I have a kind of cold that is not to my liking.
Folding Kodak Brownie Camera Model A (Manufactured: 1909-1915)*
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I didn’t realize until I read this diary entry that relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use cameras apparently were widely available a hundred years ago.
I was also surprised that Grandma received the camera only about a week after she ordered it. It often takes almost that long today to receive items that I order off the internet.
Grandma probably needed to go into Watsontown to pick up the package that contained the camera since rural parcel post didn’t begin until 1913. According to Wikipedia: “On January 1, 1913, parcel post service began, providing rural postal customers with package service along with their regular mail and obviating a trip to a town substantial enough to support an express office.”
Local merchants across the US had strongly opposed parcel post because they thought that it would give catalog companies an unfair advantage and drive them out of business, but policies were finally changed and it was implemented.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, June 7, 1911: Can take a rest now since the hurrying, scurrying has subsided in part.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
A hundred years ago today was the day after a big event. The previous day, the addition to the Muffly barn was raised.
Since this entry doesn’t take much explanation, I’m going to share some photos of five people mentioned in the diary that I didn’t previously have photos of. As I’ve worked on this blog, I’ve so often wondered what Grandma’s sister Ruth (and to a lesser extent the others) looked like. Now I know.
Lois Everitt recently shared her copy of an awesome book with me: The History of McEwensville Schools: 1800-1958 by Thomas S. Kramm. The book contained photos of Grandma’s sister Ruth, her brother Jimmie, her friends Rachel Oakes and Blanche Bryson, and Ruth’s future husband Bill (Willliam) Gauger. I contacted Mr. Kramm and he very generously allowed me to include the photos in this blog. (Lois and Tom—Thank you!! I couldn’t do this blog without wonderful people like you sharing materials and information with me. )
Ruth, Rachel, Blanche, and Bill were teachers. Rachel was the elementary teacher at McEwensville. Ruth and Blanche were teachers at one-room school houses in the surrounding area. Bill was the teacher at McEwensville High School from 1913-15. A hundred years ago teachers were not required to have college degrees. For example, Ruth graduated from McEwensville High School in spring 1911—and she was already teaching elementary school by Fall 1911.
The picture of Jimmie is from a 1915 school photo of students at McEwensville School.
It feels good to be able to cross five names off my list of photos that I’m searching for–though the quest never quite ends. I’m still looking for photos of Grandma’s father (Alfred Muffly), her oldest sister (Besse Muffly Hester), and two friends (Carrie Stout, Helen “Tweet” Wesner). If anyone has a photo of any of these people–and is willing to share, send it my way and I’d be happy to post.
