A Hammock!

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, June 28, 1912: Mother went to Milton this morning. I had been talking hammock to her for the last couple weeks at least, and behold you when she came home if she didn’t have one.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Awe–It would feel good to relax in a hammock right now.

After all the work harvesting hay, it’s awesome that Grandma’s mother bought her something fun that she really wanted.

Based on the previous day’s entry, it seems has if hay harvesting was in full swing. A hammock must have seemed like the perfect thing to relax in after a hot day of making hay.

An aside—I’m a little surprised that you could buy hammocks in rural Pennsylvania in 1912. Sometimes I tend to think that stores had fewer products than they actually had a hundred years ago.

Making Hay

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, June 27, 1912: I worked all afternoon out in the hay field, and my hands which were bad enough now take on a deeper shade every day.

DSC04218.crop3 — Click on photo to enlarge (Photo Source: Farm Implement Magazine: July 30,1911)

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Harvesting hay was hot, dirty, hard work. The sun was hot. Horses needed to be led; hay needed to be lifted and stacked . . .

For a previous post on hay making, see Hay Pulleys and Ropes.

DSC04218.crop — Source: Farm Implement Magazine (July 30, 1911)

How to Play the Game of Life: Hundred-Year-Old Advice

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, June 25, 1912: Nothing extraordinary done.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I think that Grandma was in a rut when she wrote this entry.

Here’s some advice hundred –year –old advice about how to get out of a rut:

Dare to be different; dare to take a decisive step to carry out your plans and ideas yourself. Fight your own battle, make a new road if necessary.

Ask no favor of anyone and you will succeed a thousand times better than one who sticks in the old beaten path, and who is always beseeching someone’s influence and patronage.

Aren’t you tired of the rut, tired of walking in file as convicts walk together in stripes? Cultivate enough individuality to refuse to be sewed up in the universal patchwork. The onward sweep of progress in this age has prepared the way for nonconformists. Why not get into line?

As in a game of cards, so in the game of life. We must play what is dealt to us, and the glory consists not so much in winning as in playing a poor hand well. Do not ask for a new deal, but play the cards given you.

You were not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out what you have to do and then do it with all your might, because it should be your duty, your enjoyment, or the very necessity of your being.

How many of us exhaust ourselves and wear out our friends by chafing against the chains of the unalterable, by complaining of the cards that are dealt to us in the game of life.

Play the game the best you know how to play it, give your life, your energy, your enthusiasm to the game.

National Food Magazine (June, 1912)

1912 Flower Gardens

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Monday, June 24, 1912: I got so tired a working today. I am about well nigh used up.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Sounds like Grandma had a rough day. After hard days I enjoy relaxing in my yard and enjoying my flowers.

I know that Grandma enjoyed gardening when she was older. Maybe she also enjoyed relaxing amongst flowers when she was young.

Here are some hundred-year-old drawings of flower gardens in the April, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Dieting a Hundred Years Ago

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, June 21, 1912: I’ve been thinking over an article I read in a magazine. It is about reducing a speck. I think I’ll try it at least, and be less of a pumpkin than what I am now.

helen_muffly2a — 1913 graduation photo of Helena Muffly. She doesn’t look heavy in this picture–but maybe she’d lost a “speck.”

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

It sounds like Grandma needed to lose a few pounds—or at least that she thought that she did.

A hundred years ago people believed that the best way to lose weight was to eat “dainty” foods and to chew food more thoroughly. They thought that they would lose weight if they chewed each bite 30 times, 40 times, or even more, before swallowing. This was often called Fletcherizing.

At dinner last night I tried chewing each bite 35 times. The sandwich and potatoes (oops–they may not be dainty foods) that I was eating liquefied in my mouth and it lost all flavor long before the 35th bite.

My family finished eating while I still had lots of food left on my plate.

I don’t think that I could Fletcherize my food meal after meal—but I do think that I’d lose weight if I did it consistently.

Previous Posts on Dieting and Obesity

Are You Obese?: 1911 and 2011

One-Hundred-Year Old Advice on How to Avoid Overeating

1911 Weight Loss Tip: Fletcherize Your Food

Pulled Little Brother’s Baby Tooth

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, June 19, 1912: Pulled a tooth for Jimmie. It was the first one to go, and then he got another yanked out before the day was over.

Jim.Muffly.circa.1913.crop — Jimmie Muffly

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

How did Grandma pull her little brother’s baby tooth? Did she tie a string around it and pull? . . . twist and wiggle the tooth back and forth with her finger? . . . give it a quick tug?

100 Years After the War of 1812

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, June 18, 1912:Ma went to Milton today. She bought me an umbrella. Went to Watsontown this afternoon, and some of my money went to.

Recent photo of downtown Watsontown. It’s about a mile and a half west of the Muffly farm.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma must have decided that she needed an umbrella after the rain the previous Sunday prevented her from attending Sunday School.

What did Grandma buy when she went to Watsontown?

_____

Since the diary entry is self-explanatory, I’m going to go off on a tangent.

I’m not sure why, but when I see something in the news I often view it through the frame of the diary.

For example, in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal there was an article which said that the War of 1812 began 200 years ago on June 18. I guess it’s obvious that the War of 1812 occurred 100 years before Grandma’s diary entry–but I’d never thought about it that way before. In other words, the diary was written at the midpoint between the War of 1812 and the present.

I t also made me think about how the Civil War began 151 years ago (51 years before this diary entry)—and that War War I had not yet occurred in 1912 (it started in 1914).