17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, February 14, 1913:Cupid didn’t send me any valentines. Didn’t feel very well this morning.
My dearest sister was going to a box social, and then didn’t go because no one came for her. I’m glad I wasn’t going for then I would have been disappointed.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hundred-year-old Valentine Postcard
I bet Grandma wished that a special guy had sent her a valentine like this one.
February must be the month for box socials. Grandma and her sister Ruth went to one the previous week-end.
Poor Ruth—it’s hard to be stood up. (Maybe I should be looking at this from Grandma’s perspective and feel happy—but I can’t help feeling bad for Ruth.)
—–
Grandma’s matured a lot. In 1911 and 1912 she was really into sending ugly valentines–sometimes called vinegar valentines–to people who annoyed her; but in 1913 she never mentioned them. You might enjoy these posts from previous years:
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, February 11, 1913: We are trying to get a program in sway for our next meeting.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hmm…How do you get a “program in sway”? What were they trying to do?
On February 7, 1913 Grandma wrote that she was elected president of the Literary Society. I think that she and the other officers were trying to pull together the program for the next meeting.
According to the Free Online Dictionary, sway can be either a verb or a noun. One meaning for the noun is “control”. So in other words, they were trying to get the program under control.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, February 9, 1913: Went to Sunday School this afternoon. I forget to study my catechize lesson, so I didn’t know it very well.
The McEwensville Baptist Church was torn down many years ago, but Grandma would have walked down this road to go to church.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma occasionally mentioned catechism classes in the diary. The first time she mentioned it was on the very first day of the diary—January 1, 1911:
. . . This afternoon I went to Sunday school and attended catechize after church. On my way home I received a charming new year’s gift. (Thanks to the donor.) The first day of the new year is almost spent and I feel rather sad.
Went to S.S. this afternoon and attended Catechize.
Whew, Grandma’s been taking catechism classes for more than two years. That seems like a really long time. And, she also seems really old to be taking them. She’s 17—almost 18 years old. I believe that Grandma attended the McEwensville Baptist Church.
I wonder:
How many years did young people need to attend catechism classes before they could join the church a hundred years ago?
What was the typical age when people joined the church back then?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, February 8, 1913: Went to Watsontown this morning to get some stuff for a box social. Ruth and I went up to McEwensville this evening. I did not spend a very enjoyable evening since the person I wanted to get my box didn’t get it and the person I didn’t want to get it got it. Rode home with Ruth and her friend. He’s one of the bald-headed types.
Ruth Muffly
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I think this is the first box social that Grandma’s gone to since she began the diary—though her sister Ruth went to one in February, 1912.
Box socials always seem like something out of story books. The girls prepared beautiful box lunches with enough food for two that were then auctioned off to raise funds for the school or some charity.
The winning bidder would eat the food with the girl who made the box.
It sounds like the box social turned into a disaster for Grandma.
Ruth was 21—the guy she was with sounds older. How old was he?. . . 30??. . . older??
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, February 6, 1913: About the same as yesterday.
Source: Ladies Home Journal (June, 1913)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to go off on another tangent.
Today our world is so global—and we think that people lived very geographically isolated lives a hundred years ago. Well, not exactly—
People considered themselves to be very cosmopolitan. As I mentioned several days ago, students studied current events in China in school—and according to the June, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal:
Interest in the political and civic activities of the new China, which is more or less world-wide at this time, let the designers of the garments on this page to look at that country for inspirations for clothes that would be unique and new and yet fit in with present-day modes and the needs and environments of American women.
China has always been known as possessing a wonderful color sense, and the exquisite beauty of its hand embroidery is the marvel of every needlewoman.
These facts are well known, but one might readily question the possibility of finding in the apparel of the Chinese lines that could be successfully modernized, yet that this has been done is charmingly and most convincingly shown by these attractive and absolutely wearable garments.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, February 5, 1913: Nothing very much for today. Went up to practice this evening.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma was going to be in her class play, and went back into McEwenville in the evening for play practice. (She probably had to come home after school to help milk the cows.)
Grandma obviously appreciated whatever culture was available in her small rural community. I recently found this advertisement for Victor Victrola’s in the March 15, 1913 issue of a farm magazine called Kimball’s Dairy Farmer.
If there is any place where a Victor-Victrola is needed and sure to be appreciated, it is in the homes of the farmers—in your house.
You haven’t the opportunities city people have for attending the theatre, opera, and musical concerts—and yet you have real need of such entertainment to rest body and mind after your day of toil.
And you can have it with a Victor-Victrola in your home. You can enjoy the world’s best music, sung and played by the same great artists who entertain the large city audiences.
You can hear whatever kind of music you like right now.
You don’t have to wait until you feel you can afford a $100 or $200 instrument—any Victor-Victrola you choose as the instrument for your home will play every record in the Victor catalog, and will give you almost as perfect music as the Victor- Victrola XVI, the instrument by which the value of all musical instruments in measured.
Any Victor dealer in any city in the world will gladly demonstrate the Victor-Victrola to you and play any music you wish to hear.
Write us for the handsome illustrated Victor catalogs.
Victor Talking Machine Co., Camden, N.J.
Berliner Gramophone Co., Montreal, Canadian Distributors
Victor-Victrola XVI, $200, Mahogany or quartered oak
