Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Hmmm. . . Was Grandma wearing ragged, patched clothes? Was her hair a mess? Did she look any different from how she looked on other days? Why was she so self-conscience about her looks?
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, April 24, 1913: I had no idea that I would be so tired. I guess last night was not too much for me. Went up to McEwensville this morning, but not to go to school, for that indeed is past for me. I got home just in time to see the girls off on the train. My presents still seem to be pouring in. This morning I got a dress by parcel post.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, April 23, 1913: The work of twelve long years is over. I have long looked forward to this. My last day at high school. It has come and with it a mixture of sadness and pleasure.
Two of my cousins came on the train to attend commencement. I had quite a time getting dressed, for buttons were bound to come off and strings to break.
At last I arrived at the church. We marched in and so on up to the front of the church, where we took seats in uncomfortable chairs and managed to sit out the evening. I recited my essay without a mental breakdown and then at last all was over, after which came congratulations and well wishes.
I am quite pleased with my presents. I received four today.
Graduating didn’t go very hard for me. I was sorry when all was over.
Succeeded in going to school every day for the last four years.
Helena Muffly (I think this is her graduation photo.)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Congratulations Grandma!
Recent photo of the railroad tracks that cross the Muffly farm.
A hundred years ago Truckemiller’s Mill bordered the Muffly farm. There was a whistle stop for the Susquehanna Bloomsburg and Berwick (S. B. and B.) Railroad at the mill. The mill is long gone—and the road and railroad tracks have changed a little—but her cousins probably stepped off the train near this spot.
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This used to be the Lutheran Church in McEwensville.United Church of Christ (Reformed Church)
Grandma probably triumphantly marched with her classmates down the center aisle of one of these churches to the music of the orchestra. I wonder why the ceremony was held at a church instead of the community hall. . . perhaps the church was larger and would better hold all of the graduates’ friends and family members.
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, April 22, 1913: Just one more day and then my school days will be ended. I believe I’ll feel rather sorry when they are all past. I hope it will be nice tomorrow and everything goes off all right in the evening.
Cope’s dinosaur which March claimed had the head on the wrong end. (Source: Wikipedia)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
One more day until graduation! The exhilaration Grandma felt the previous week about the end of school now seems tempered with the realization that those days were behind her and that there were things about school that she’d miss.
Grandma sounded a bit nervous about the graduation ceremony. She probably hoped that her speech on The Relics of the Earth’s Past would go well.
Yesterday’s post explored her speech topic. Vanbraman wrote a comment, and suggested that it might have been about the Bone Wars or been inspired by a book published in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called The Lost World.
I had never heard of either the Bone Wars or the book, so I did a little research.
A hundred years ago there was an incredible amount of interest in dinosaurs and dinosaur bones.
The Bone Wars refer to a period in the late 1800s when there were several major expeditions that searched for dinosaur bones. There was a rivalry between two paleontologists, Orthniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, to discover additional bones. They both were very secretive, and accused the other of stealing bones and exploration sites. Each claimed that the other was not a credible scientist. For example, Marsh claimed that Cope put the head on the wrong end of a dinosaur. However, the field as a whole benefited from their many discoveries and the feud increased the interest of the public in dinosaurs.
According to Wikipedia, The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a superb piece of science fiction about an expedition to the rain forests of Brazil in search of living dinosaurs. The book was republished in 2012 in honor of the hundredth anniversary of its original publication.
As happens so often, I’m ending up with more questions than answers. Was Grandma’s graduation speech about evolution (pro? . . or . . con?) like I thought yesterday. . . or was it about paleontology and dinosaurs? . . .. or something else?
Was the speech about fossils? . . . dinosaurs? . . . evolution? Was it controversial?
Grandma graduated well after the publication of the Origin of the Species (1859), but well before the Scopes Trial (1925). If the speech was about evolution, how did she frame it?
18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, April 20, 1913: Went to Sunday School this afternoon.
Raymond Swartz
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Three more days until graduation! Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to continue to dive deeper into the information provided by her commencement ceremony program.
Six students, including my grandparents—Helena Muffly and Raymond Swartz— graduated from McEwensville High School in 1913. Both spoke at the commencement.
The title of Grandpa’s speech was Motion Pictures as an Educational Factor.
This was the era of silent films and lots of melodrama. When I researched this topic, I was surprised to learn that in 1913 many people thought that movies were a bad influence on young people.
According to Laura Wittern-Keller in her dissertation:
Movies with themes that challenged traditional values, shown in the dark to a mixed audience with larger-than-life figures, spawned a “moral panic.”
Hmm–Grandpa spoke on a controversial topic. He apparently took the side that his high school class mates would have approved of—but that their parents might have objected to.
How did Grandpa build his argument that movies were educational? . . . Maybe he argued that they enabled people in rural Pennsylvania to see “see the world” . . . or that some of the movies were about historic events. . . or that they were works of art. . .or . . . .
In my imagination, I picture his classmates giving him a standing ovation, while their elders tried to frown but their lips turned up in slight smiles of approval.
This diary entry raises more questions than answers for me.
Today we seldom see $2 bills—and they often seem special when we get one. Were they also unusual a hundred years ago—or were they readily available?
Why did Grandma say the gift was from her mother instead of from her parents? Why is her father so seldom mentioned in the diary? He was a farmer—and it seems like he should have been mentioned more often than he was.
