19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, December 2, 1914: Am making handkerchiefs for Xmas presents. They are to be real nice and fancy, with edging of my own makings on them.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma-
The handkerchiefs sound lovely. Do they have a tatted edging? Tatting is so delicate and beautiful. I have vague memories that your married sister Besse showed you how to tat last summer:
Besse was trying to teach me tatting today. Am awful stupid about it, but still I persist in trying to make the stuff. It takes some patience.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, November 26, 1914: Thanksgiving. Have been having quite a long vacation. We had a Thanksgiving dinner for one thing. My taster was lacking due to a cold and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have. Carried a sassy goose down from town last Monday. The remains are in the pantry awaiting further digestion for the morrow. Wonder if that goose will keep me awake tonight.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Happy Thanksgiving, Grandma—
You carried a sassy (live?) goose home from town?
How the heck did you do that? A goose must weigh at least 10 or 12 pounds—and a cage would make it even heavier.
I’m not sure where you got it, but you live a mile and a half or so from both McEwensville and Watsontown. That’s a long walk.
And, then I suppose you had to help butcher it –and then cook it. And, you probably also had to make some other foods for the big meal—maybe mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pies. . . .
Whew, I’m tired just thinking about all you needed to do to prepare for Thanksgiving.
I hope that you feel better soon, and that your “taster” is back by tomorrow. After all your hard work you deserve to enjoy at least some of the goose’s “remains.”
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, November 23, 1914: <<no entry>>
Source: Milton Evening Standard (November 23, 1914)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I always find it interesting to see what national news made headlines in central Pennsylvania. This article was the top center headline on the front page of Grandma’s local newspaper, the Milton Evening Standard, a hundred years ago today.
What a sad story—So many lives were lost due to the extreme weather. .
It makes me think about another, more recent, November maritime disaster on Lake Superior—the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975 which was memorialized in the song by Gordon Lightfoot.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
