17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, July 25, 1912:Spent nearly all afternoon in getting an embroidery pattern reversed so as to have the whole design. It’s finished now and stamped on the material.
For several evenings I’ve seen a balloon go up, but tonight I saw only the gas.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Help!! I don’t understand this diary entry—and am hoping that some of you can help me make sense of it.
Embroidery Pattern
How do you reverse an embroidery pattern and then stamp it on cloth? I can remember using an iron to transfer the patterns to cloth when I was child—but I have no idea how Grandma reversed the pattern and then stamped it.
Balloons
Was Grandma referring to a hot air balloon?
Hot air balloons were popular attractions at fairs and festivals in the early 20th century. Steve Shook has a wonderful picture of hot air balloons at a festival in Valparaiso, Indiana that was taken around 1910.
But what did she mean when she said that she only saw the gas?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, July 23, 1912:Did the ironing this morning. I’ve decided at last to get through with a book I brought home from school last spring. I studied at it some this evening. By studying twenty-five pages a day I’ll be though it by the time school starts.
Source: Commercial Geography (1910)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What could the book have been about? It doesn’t sound like light reading, but rather something serious . . . more like a textbook.
I found a hundred-year- old geography book, and was surprised to discover that even back then people were really worried about the environment and the deforestation of the US.
In fact, millions of acres of the uplands in the United States, now denuded of timber would best serve the uses of man if permanently reforested. Already the proportion of forested area in the United States has fallen almost as low as in Germany (Fig. 9).
Commercial Geography (1910) by Edward Van Dyke Robinson
This made we wonder if more or less of the land in the US is forested today than it was a hundred years ago.
According to the US Forest Service about 33% of the land in the US was covered by trees in both 1912 and 2012.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, July 22, 1912: Heard that school starts on the 26th of August. I’ll be glad when that day arrives. I’d rather go to school than have to hardly anything else, and I’m not going any places any ways.
Recent photo of building that once housed McEwensville School.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
When I was a teen I always dreaded the end of summer vacation—but Grandma seemed to miss school.
. .. . though she probably had to work harder on the farm during the summer months than I did. And, I suppose she missed her friends.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 21, 1912:Went to Sunday School this morning. Had to go through the mud coming homeward. Hence it rained today. Went over to see Miss Caroline May, though it rained, for it won’t hurt me.
Source: Wikipedia
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma saw rain and mud. . . Did her father give a sigh of relief and see more corn? (Somehow this brings to mind that crazy country song about rain making corn.)
Farmers worry about the weather–too much rain (not good) . . . too little rain (not good).
This year so many farmers are worried about a drought and the possible failure of their corn crop. Did Grandma’s father have similar worries a hundred years ago?
To get lots of corn in the fall it is vital that the corn plants get enough water in July when the corn is tasseling, and the ears are beginning to form.
—-
Miss Caroline refers to Grandma’s friend Carrie Stout. Carrie lived on a nearby farm.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, July 20, 1912:Today seem oh so lonesome and sad. Ma and Pa went to attend a funeral. The deceased was my aunt. We kiddies kept house and did the little duties that were left to us.
Mary Feinour Obituary. Source: Milton Evening Standard (July 19, 1912). Click to enlarge.
MRS. MARY FEINOUR
DIES AT OTTAWA
Mrs. Mary Feinour, widow of Mathias Feinour, died yesterday afternoon at 12:30 o’clock, at the home of her brothers, Samuel and George Muffley, at Ottawa, Limestone township Montour county, following an illness of several months, part of which time she was in a hospital at Williamsport.
Mrs. Feinour was aged 56 years. She is survived by a son, Edward Duglas. Also by the following brothers and sisters: Dr.Oscar Muffley, of Turbotville; Albert, of Watsontow; Asher, of Pottsgrove; and Samuel and George, at whose home she died; Mrs. George Walters, of Montandon, and Mrs. Samuel Rhone, of McEwensville.
The funeral will take place tomorrow morning at ten o’clock from the home at Ottawa. Interment will be made at Watontown.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
The aunt who died was Mary Feinour. She was a sister of Grandma’s father Albert.
She must have been reasonably prominent because her obituary was at the top center of the front page of the Milton Evening Standard—yet I feel like she’d had a difficult life.
Mary was a widow who lived with her two bachelor brothers. According to the 1910 census her two children, 19-year-old S. Kathryn and 14-year-old John, were also part of the household. But the obituary only mentions one child–Edward. (Something seems inconsistent between the census and the obituary, but nonetheless I wonder if she had a daughter who died.)
Mary is buried next to her parents in the Watsontown Cemetery. I do not know where her husband is buried.
(I’m not even sure how her name is spelled, it’s Feinour in the obituary and Fienour on the gravestone.)
I’ve been fascinated by Mary for awhile–though Grandma’s diary entries always focused on her unmarried uncles and not on Mary. I’ve mentioned Mary in two previous posts:
I asked my father if he knew anything about Mary or her children. He didn’t.
Mary is very tangential to my genealogical research. Yet, ever since I first saw her tombstone—and realized that she wasn’t buried next to her husband–I’ve wanted to know more about her.
I know it’s a rabbit hole and I don’t have the time to do extensive research on Mary—but maybe, just maybe, someday I’ll learn more of her story. If I ever do, I’ll share it with you.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, July 19, 1912:My brain must be getting full of rubbish, that I cannot even remember the happenings from one day to the next.
Recent photo of McEwensville.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
The way this diary entry is written almost makes it seem like Grandma forgot to write anything in the diary a hundred years ago today–and then tried to remember what had happened the following day.
Once before Grandma wrote that she sometimes did two entries at the same time:
By jingo if I haven’t forgotten what I did today. Just what I did several days ago. You see, sometimes it happens that I don’t always feel like writing in this diary every evening, so I wait until the next evening and make two entries at one time.
I assume that wasn’t the hat she was refurbishing—but maybe a hat could become an “old hat” in only three months.
A hundred years ago 5 & 10 cent stores sold ribbon, artificial flowers, feathers from ostriches and other less exotic birds, and other types of millinery supplies so that people could easily change the look of their hats.
Does anyone refurbish old hats anymore? . . . or old clothes (or anything else) for that matter?
I just move things to the back of my walk-in closet or give them away when they go out of style.
