18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, September 13, 1913: This day is a good bit like some other days.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share some fun drawings of the wrong and right ways to care for a baby that appeared in the October, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.
Wrong
Right
.
Wrong
Right
.
Wrong
Right
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, September 12, 1913: I’ve forgotten for today.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share a hundred-year-old ad for Colgate’s Ribbon Dental Cream that was in the March, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.
Care of the teeth twice-a-day and every day is a good habit easily formed with Colgate’s.
COLGATE’S RIBBON DENTAL CREAM
DELICIOUS
ANTISEPTIC
ECONOMICAL
COMES OUT A RIBBON
LIES FLAT ON THE BRUSH
CANNOT ROLL OFF THE BRUSH
Its flavor is delicious—making its use a treat and insuring regularity.
Its antiseptic action is thorough—checking the germs which cause decay.
Its cleansing is safe—removing deposits and leaving the mouth non-acid without over-medication.
Every member of your household—man, woman and child—should have an individual tube.
Single tubes and boxes of half dozen at our dealer’s—or send us 2 cents for a trial tube and our booklet “Oral Hygiene.”
COLGATE & CO.
Dept. H
199 Fulton St., New York
Maker of Cashmere Bouquet Soap—luxurious, lasting, refined.
According to the Colgate website:
Colgate introduced its toothpaste in a tube similar to modern-day toothpaste tubes in the 1890s.
Until after 1945, toothpastes contained soap. After that time, soap was replaced by other ingredients to make the paste into a smooth paste or emulsion—such as sodium lauryl sulphate, a common ingredient in present-day toothpaste.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, September 10, 1913: Didn’t feel the best the morning. Commenced reading a book.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What book was Grandma reading?
Goodreads lists two hundred books published in 1913 that are still in widely read. They probably were not the most popular books at the time, but rather they are the books that have endured –and whose message apparently continues to resonate a hundred years later.
Fifteen books on the list that I recognized the title or author are listed below:
1. O Pioneers by Willa Cather
2. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
3. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
4. Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt
5. The Tale of Pigling Bland by Beatrix Potter
6. The Bobbsey Twins’ Mystery at School (Bobbsey Twins #4) by Laure Lee Hope
7. Chance by Joseph Conrad
8. Desert Gold by Zane Grey
9. The Adventure of the Dying Detective by Arthur Conan Doyle
10. The Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson
11. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir
12. Little Wars by H. G. Wells
13. The Night Born by Jack London
14. The War Correspondence of Leon Trotsky: The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 by Leon Trotsky
15. La Follette’s Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences by Robert M. La Follette
You may also enjoy similar posts that I did for books published in 1911 and 1912:
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, September 8, 1913: Nothing very much.
The hat of black velours, showing its simple original shape with a band of black grosgrain ribbon one inch wide. (Ladies Home Journal: September, 1913)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sounds like a slow day on the Muffly farm. After all of the work the previous week when the threshers were there, Grandma probably was ready for a more relaxing day.
Did she browse through the September, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal? If she did, she would have learned how to make four hats out of one. The article said that it was an “economical way to good dressing.”
The plain band need not be taken off for any of these trimmings, as the others cover it completely, and are applied with milliners’ pins.
The first illustration shows a drapery and long soft bow of Oriental ribbon, which is six-inches wide. Two yards are required to make it.
The second illustration, showing the Continental shape, the trimming is of white moiré ribbon, plaited, and made on a canvas foundation. Three yards of ribbon six inches wide is required to make it. The band measures three inches wide and the cockade six inches high, and three across, widening to five inches at the top.
A little more dressy touch is given in the third trimming, which shows a crushed band of soft silk ribbon of a deep orange color. The feather fantasy at the side is of the same color, shaded and tipped with coque. This is held in place by two small plaited bows of the ribbon. One yard and a half of ribbon about seven or eight inches wide will be required for this trimming. The bow measures four inches across and two inches wide.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Went to Sunday School this morning. Dear old Margaret came along home with me to spend the day. Tweetie came home with Ruth. Got Ruth to take a picture of Margaret and me. The first one she spoiled and in the next one Peggy moved, so I don’t know yet how my pictures are going to pan out.
I just want to add that I was so fortunate this morning as to get an automobile ride.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What an awesome day! Today our roads are so jam-packed with cars that it almost boggles my mind that riding in an automobile was super-special a hundred years ago.
—
If I squint a little, I can almost see three giggling teens trying to stand still while Grandma’s sister Ruth took the pictures.
And, I can almost see Grandma trying not to show her frustration when Ruth ruined the first picture. (I bet she didn’t hide her annoyance very well).
—
Margaret (Peggy) may refer to either Margaret G. or Margaret Bryson. Both were friends of Grandma’s. Tweetie was a nickname of Helen Wesner.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, August 26, 1913: Ruthie and I commenced on this pictures this afternoon. We made a negative. This evening we went to a party up at Bryson’s. There were so many there and lots that I didn’t know.
THE KODAK GIRL AT HOME
Every step in film development becomes simple, easy, understandable with a
KODAK FILM TANK
No dark-room, no tediously acquired skill—and better results than were possible by the old methods. It’s an important link the the Kodak system of “Photography with the bother left out.”
The Experience is in the Tank.
In our little booklet, “Tank Development,” free at your dealer or in the mail.
EASTMAN KODAK CO., 365 State Street, Rochester, N.Y.
Source: Farm Journal (August, 1913)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Wow, Grandma and her sister Ruth apparently developed their own pictures. Grandma brought a camera earlier in the summer and took her first pictures on August 13:
Today we had our S.S. picnic up at the creek. Not all that were invited came, but still I guess we had a good time. I initiated by camera by taking two pictures.
In this era of digital photography—when it’s easy to take and then view hundreds (or thousands) of photos it’s hard to image how much knowledge and skill was required to get a few pictures back then.
—
Blanche and Margaret Bryson were friends of Grandma and Ruth. The Bryson’s lived on a farm north of McEwensville. And, I think that Grandma visited Margaret the previous Sunday—on August 24. I wonder if Grandma helped plan the party.
What does “many” mean? How many people were at the party—15? . . .25? . . . 50?
Who was at the party? Any “interesting” guys?
Recent photo of the home where the Bryson family lived a hundred years ago. In my imagination, I picture young men and women playing croquet in the yard, and drinking lemonade on the porch (and maybe flirting just a little bit).
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, August 22, 1913: Nothing much doing.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share a hundred-year-old advertisement for Hydrox cookies and other biscuits made by Sunshine.
Hydrox cookies bring back warm fuzzy memories, and I was disappointed to discover that they are no longer made.
According to Wikipedia they were first made in 1908 by the Sunshine Company. For some unknown reason the cookie’s name was derived from the atomic elements that make up water: hydrogen and oxygen.
Sunshine was sold to Keebler and later Kellogg. Hydrox cookies were discontinued in 2009.
