16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, May 14, 1911: Went to Sunday school this morning. I went over to Stout’s this afternoon. Carrie and I were going to take a walk and visit some other girls. Just as I expected we didn’t do. What a shame.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Article in Milton Evening Standard, May 15, 1911
This date was Mothers Day a hundred years ago. I wonder if the Muffly family celebrated it. The holiday had been founded only four years previously—yet people in central Pennsylvania apparently were aware of Mothers Day since there was an article about it in the May 13, 1911 issue of the Milton Evening Standard.
The article discussed how people should wear a white flower if their mother was deceased; and a colored flower if their mother was living. I wonder if anyone still does that. I know that the white and colored flower tradition lasted at least until the 1960s.
When I was a child I can remember going out into the garden before church on Mothers Day to pick a colored flower that I’d pin on my dress.
When I’d get to church most of the other women and girls would be wearing flowers (as well as a few men wearing boutonnieres). I can remember sitting in the pew during the church service and being surprised how many of the adults wore white flowers.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, May 13, 1911: I went to Milton this afternoon to get my teeth filled, but it happened to be a wild goose chase, for he wasn’t there. I walked around town until I was tired, then went into Bijou Dream. I’m so very tired now. Oh, dear.
Advertising Ruler from Bijou Dream Theater (Source: Milton Historical Society)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma’s not having much luck getting her tooth filled. This is the second time that she went to Milton to see the dentist, but he wasn’t there (see the May 6 entry); and she’s been complaining on and off about a toothache since mid-April (see April 11, April 15, and April 18 entries). I can’t imagine this kind of delay in treating a toothache today—I guess some things are definitely better now.
But at least Grandma got to go to the movies at the Bijou Dream two Saturday’s in a row. The previous week when she tried unsuccessfully to go to the dentist was also a Saturday—and that time she also ended up going to the Bijou Dream. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the fact that she kept trying to go to the dentist on a Saturday was at least part of the reason that she had difficulty finding him in his office.
Photo of Bijou Dream Theater in book called Milton 1909 that was published by the Milton Evening Standard (Source: Milton Historical Society).
George Venios has the photo of the Bijou Dream Theater in his book, Milton Chronicles and Legends. His caption says:
The entrance to the Bijou Dream Theater, which was located on Broadway at the same site as the Capitol. It was a converted livery stable. On hot summer days, the unmistakable smell of the stable would return.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, May 12, 1911: Just about the same things which I did yesterday. Ruth went up to Turbotville this evening to attend the commencement. I’ll surely have some peace tonight because she won’t be here to disturb it.
Recent photo of Turbotville Community Hall. The commencement probably was held here.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I’m surprised that the school year apparently was more than a month longer in the neighboring town of Turbotville than it was in McEwensville.
McEwensville High School had held it’s commencement on April 6. That day was also the last school day. In general the school year was very short a hundred years ago since children were needed at home during the spring planting season—but it sure seems like the school year was exceptionally short in McEwensville. I wonder what the community thought about this—Did they worry that their children might be learning less than students in neighboring communities? Or were they glad school ended early so their kids could help with the farm chores?
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, May 11, 1911: It is quite unnecessary to state what I did today, nor would it prove a bit interesting for it is just the same hum-drum duties that we pass through every day. Ruth told me this evening that it was no wonder that everybody despised me, I was so disagreeable.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What caused Grandma’s sister Ruth to tell her that she was disagreeable and that everyone despised her? I’m sure Grandma said something very annoying or maybe even nasty—but from the entry it’s also obvious that Ruth’s retort hurt and that Grandma worried about what others thought of her.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, May 10, 1911: I did about half of the ironing this morning. I don’t call that very much of a suit do you? This afternoon I had to carry water to be used in making mortar and spilt waters on my skirts.
Summer 2010 photo of the farm where Grandma lived when she was writing this diary.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Why was the family making mortar? Does Grandma mean they were making cement—or mortar to be used when bricks were laid?
I think she probably was referring to cement. I picture that the path between the house and barn was just a dirt path and that it probably was sometimes muddy. Maybe they were laying a sidewalk.
Or, maybe they were making a cement floor for the barnyard. Until I saw this entry I never thought about the barnyard—now I’m wondering whether the floor was dirt or cement. . . . Or. . . .
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, May 9, 1911: By jingo if I haven’t forgotten what I did today. Just what I did several days ago. You see, sometimes it happens that I don’t always feel like writing in this diary every evening, so I wait until the next evening and make two entries at one time.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Aha!—just as I thought. Grandma did sometimes write a diary entry the following day. For example, on Feb 23 she had written about going to sleep and then the entry on the 24th talked about waking up. It just seemed as if both entries had actually been written on the 24th.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, May 8, 1911: Toiled away at the washer this morning. This afternoon I went over to Stout’s. My first experience in telephoning. The voice at the other end of the wire sounded rather squeaky. I telephoned to Besse. Ma was so rejoiced to get her teeth back again, which she had sent off on a vacation of one week.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
In yesterday’s entry Grandma went to see her friend Carrie Stout’s new telephone—but apparently was too nervous to try the new technology that day. But she went back the next day—and felt braver and called her married sister Besse.
Both Carrie and Besse lived on the road between McEwensville and Watsontown. Apparently the phone wires went between the two towns; and people living on the main road were able to get phone service before those living on the side roads.
I mentioned this diary entry to my husband Bill and he made several comments about phones, so I asked him to be a guest blogger:
It is amazing how far phones have come from exotic box of wires that squeak out a voice, to a constant presence in our lives that are semi-permanently attached us. Phones are now ‘personal communication devices’ that are increasingly hard to distinguish from normal computers. You’ll soon walk into your office, plug your phone into a cradle and keyboard on your desk, and type away on your phone to do your regular computer work.
Phone, circa 1911Phone, circa 2008 (When we get a smart phone, I'll update the picture!)
My favorite telephone memory is from the late 1970s. I was living in an isolated community on Andros Island in the Bahamas, working on an agricultural development project. There was only one phone in the town at the time. It was in an old-fashioned phone booth in front of the telephone company office in the center of town. Phone calls to the U.S. cost around $10 at the time. I paid my $10 to the clerk, and knowing that she was probably listening in on the call, I went out to the phone booth and called Sheryl’s parents to ‘ask for her hand in marriage’, as they say.
Bill Lazarus
False teeth
Grandma’s mother was only 49 years old—yet she already had false teeth. From the diary entry it sounds like she’d probably had them for awhile since they’d apparently needed some sort of repairs. This was an era before fluoridation and people probably didn’t take as good of care of their teeth as they do now.
When I read the entries about Grandma’s toothache (April 11, April 15, April 18), and how she was in pain for almost a month before she tried to visit a dentist on May 6 (and how she failed to get the tooth filled then)—it makes me wonder at what age Grandma herself got false teeth.
