17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, March 26, 1912: Seems I have more work to do tonight than I usually do. I have most of it done now and am ready to lay it aside. I get kinda afraid sitting here all by myself.
Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What time it was when Grandma wrote this entry? It must have been really late—and the rest of the family had gone to bed hours before.
I wonder what Grandma worried about as she sat there alone. . . things that go bump in the night?. . . her future? . . . her school work? . . . tramps possibly lurking outside? . . .???
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, March 24, 1912: Went to Sunday School this afternoon. It was slushy walking and kept on drizzling.
Jimmie threatened with the whooping cough. I don’t want him to get it, nor do I want to get it myself. I would have to stop school if I do, and that I shouldn’t like to.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sounds like miserable weather. Grandma had worried in her March 9 post that she was getting whooping cough—now she had similar worries about her six-year-old brother Jimmy.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, March 23, 1912:Ruth and I went to Milton this morning on a shopping tour. I needed a pair of new shoes and so I got them. We went in and came out on the train so you can see we weren’t gone long.
Another view of downtown Milton.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Milton was about five miles from the Muffly farm. There was a whistle-stop for the Susquehanna, Bloomsburg, and Berwick Railroad near their farm. Grandma and her sister Ruth probably needed to change trains at Watsontown.
A hundred years ago Milton had a thriving downtown. Today better transportation, nearby malls, and several floods have all taken a toll–though hopefully the recent movement toward shopping local will help revive it.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, March 22, 1912:We had some of those recitations repeated this afternoon, but fortunately I wasn’t called upon to say mine. After this was over, we wound up by singing a laughable song.
Potatoes with eyes (sprouts). Photo source: Wikimedia Commons
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What was the hilarious song? An old-time silly song we used to sing when I was a child was Never Make Love in a Buggy. It seems like the sort of song that teens might have enjoyed.
Never Make Love in a Buggy
Never make love in a buggy,
While riding along in the moonlight.
You better be wise,
Potatoes have eyes,
You’re watched from the orchard
By great Northern Spies.
The corn having ears
It might hear you.
While riding o’er hills and dales,
So never make love in a buggy,
For horses carry tails.
Northern Spies refers to an old apple variety.
Recitation
I’ve previously written about the role of recitations in schools (see Pros and Cons of Recitation as a Teaching Method). But, this entry provided another bit of information. Apparently all students were required to memorize a recitation, but only some actually had to recite.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, March 21, 1912: On the first day of spring the ground is white with snow. My seventeenth birthday dawned this morning. Tried to make the most of it. I received two presents. I am staying up later this evening to study longer, also want to see the passing of my birthday.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I hereby truthfully resolve to be a better and more useful girl in the future than I have been in the past, and may this birthday resolution never be broken.
I sign myself,
Helena Muffly,
Mar. 21, 1911
I wonder if Grandma remembered her resolution—and if she felt like she’d kept it over the course of the year.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, March 20, 1912: I lost myself in reading a book, and as a result went to bed at a quarter of three this morning. I was awfully sleepy when I woke up.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Wow, Grandma must have been reading an awesome book if she stayed up until almost three a.m. And, it was even a school night!!
What could the book have been? A mystery? . A romance?
I bet that she wasn’t reading The Financier by Theodore Dreiser.
Photo source: Wikipedia
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A couple months ago I wrote a post about books published in 1912 that are still in print—and The Financier was one of them.
In this era of Bernie Madoff and Occupy Wall Street, I wanted to see if a hundred-year-old novel about a crooked financier would still seem relevant.
The book told the story of a man in Philadelphia who misused municipal money to become very, very rich.
Due to unexpected circumstances, the whole scheme unraveled and he went to jail.
I found the details of his financial scheming confusing and boring—but I did get insights into the psychology of someone who might commit financial fraud.
The book also explored social norms, and seemed very supportive of extra-marital affairs and divorce in a era when divorce was very rare—though the characters had to pay a price for finding happiness.
After the financier got out of jail—he did what he was born to do. He moved to Chicago and again became rich as he helped to develop the Commodity Exchange.
Bottom line: The book wasn’t optimistic that human nature will change—and suggested that some people just are born to know how to make money, even if it hurts others.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, March 19, 1912: We got our report cards to day. It seems to me he marks rather hard in some things. I got my marks raised by two points in deportment, but I don’t see as I’ve improved any in that direction since last month. He was up to visit our school today.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I’m surprised that high school students received grades in “deportment” a hundred years ago.
According to The Free Dictionary, deportment means “the manner in which a person behaves.” At least the teacher apparently was pleased with Grandma’s behavior.
A few days before Grandma received her February report card she’d gotten a new teacher. The old one had quit mid-year. He caught her cheating shortly before he quit. I wonder if her February deportment grade had been affected by that incident—and if her grade had gone up in March because there were no more cheating incidents.
