15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, January 14, 1911. Here’s to another monotonous day. It rained instead of snowing. I like things to come in some kind of order, but things won’t always come as you would want them to.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Weather Underground forecast for McEwensville for today, January 14, 2011:
Low: 11; High: 29; partly cloudy
January 11, 1911: Missing entry (Diary resumes on January 12)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
The diary entries resume tomorrow. Yeah!!
Since a diary author doesn’t really write the diary for others to read many years later, sometimes it is difficult to understand the context of diary entries.
Also, Grandma was about 40 years younger than me when she began this diary. How might the age differences frame how I interpret what she wrote? Grandma’s diary entries and my reflections and comments are not parallel. Grandma was a teen jotting down her thoughts—I’m a mother with adult children reflecting on what a 15-year-old said a hundred years previously.
To help me make sense of the diary I have several questions that I hope to answer as I work my way through the entries—one day at a time.
15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Mid ice and snow,
and wintry glow
The happy new year rings.
So now I’ll commence,
And not with pretense,
My diary of interesting things
Sunday, January 1, 1911: The old year has passed, and the new year is ushered in with its joys and possibilities. To me the old year has been quite a pleasant one. May this year be as pleasant. Christmas brought me no fatal grievances, and it really proved to be enjoyable and merry. I received quite a small number of Christmas presents although none of them were very costly. Judging none of them to exceed the modest price of fifty cents. (By this no one should think I am ungrateful for I really mean to be a grateful girl.)
This afternoon I went to Sunday school and attended catechize after church. On my way home I received a charming new year’s gift. (Thanks to the donor.) The first day of the new year is almost spent and I feel rather sad.
