17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, December 29, 1912: Went to Sunday School this afternoon. Jimmie went along.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Jimmie was Grandma’ brother. On pictures, he looks like an adorable (though probably slightly spoiled child).
Jimmie was the only son in the family and by far the youngest child. In 1912, Grandma’s oldest sister Besse was 24 and married. The next sister, Ruth lived at home, and was a teacher at a nearby one-room school house. Grandma (Helena) was 17-years –old. And, Jimmie was 7-years-old.—a full ten years younger than Grandma.
One fun thing about doing family history research is that I often know what happened to the people in the diary.
In Jimmie’s case, he went to the University of Pennsylvania and then became a veterinarian in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Lewisburg is about 10 miles from McEwensville. Much of his veterinary work involved taking care of farm animals.
Jimmie–known as Jim as an adult– married twice, but never had any children. His first wife died many years ago. Jim died in 1988. His second wife Ruth (she had the same name as his sister) died in 2010 at the age of 99. Her obituary is available in the online version of the Sunbury Daily Item.
