17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, August 7, 1912:Was donated with a pair of shoes. First time since I don’t know when. Ma and I had sort of a scrap this afternoon!
Here’s an ad for shoes in the Milton Evening Standard from May 4, 1911. Maybe the “donated” shoes looked like the ones in the picture. Were they still in style in 1912?
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Poor Grandma, she wants to look stylish and instead gets a pair of hand-me-down shoes.
I bet that her mother didn’t think that she was appropriately appreciative of the donated shoes—and gave her a hard time about it.
Who gave the shoes to Grandma? . . . were they her mother’s old shoes . . . her sister’s shoes. . . or someone else’s? In February, 1912 Grandma mentioned that her Aunt Annie, who was married to a doctor, gave her an old dress. Maybe Aunt Annie also handed down shoes.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, August 6, 1912: Ma cut out a dress for me or rather a part of it. When it’s finished I suppose I’ll wear it to school.
Source: Ladies Home Journal (December, 1911)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma was going to begin her senior year at the end of August. I bet that she wanted to look really nice for this special year.
Did Grandma think that the dress her mother was making for her was stylish? . . .or was it just going to be a run-of-the-mill everyday dress? Did she select the pattern and fabric—or did her mother do it?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, August 4, 1912:Went to Sunday School this morning. Carrie and I went over to see Florence Crawford this afternoon. I feel so drowsy now, just like gaping.
A recent view of a road into McEwensville
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Carrie refers to Grandma’s close friend Carrie Stout. She is regularly mentioned throughout the diary. I don’t know anything about Florence Crawford. This is the first time (and maybe the only time) that she is mentioned in the diary.
Sounds like Grandma had a nice time with her friends; and that she had that happy, relaxed, sleepy feeling that I sometimes get after a good day.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, August 3, 1912: Let me see, what did I do today? Not very much, anyway. Twas it easy this afternoon.
Mold of Rice Filled with Chopped Meat (Source: The Butterick Cook Book,1911)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma again didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to go off on a tangent. It’s kind of amazing, but sometimes I find a hundred year old advice really useful and it sticks in my mind.
Here’s some advice about how much to eat:
Temperate people with good digestion never feel their stomachs, forget that they have stomachs, while big eaters are always hungry or faint, or bloated or troubled with heart burn, derangement of the bowels or some other conditions showing a morbid state of the digestive apparatus.
National Food Magazine ((June, 1912)
I saw this quote a month or so ago—and since then when I’m tempted to overeat, I often think that I’d better stop before I feel my stomach. (And, sometimes I forget the advice and feel my stomach—and only then do I remember that I should have followed the advice in that old magazine.)
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, August 2, 1912:Had to does some work today, but I guess anyone would get tired of playing all the time. Was out helping in the field this afternoon.
Horse-drawn roller. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, German Federal Archives)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I think that I know what Grandma was doing in the fields She was probably leading horses that were pulling a roller over a recently plowed field. It probably was a field from which oats had been harvested in July.
The field would have been plowed, and a roller was smoothing the soil, so that wheat could be planted in September. Back then farmers typically followed a four-year crop rotation: corn, oats, wheat, hay.
How do I know what Grandma was doing?
Farm work varies by season—corn is planted in the spring, wheat and oats are harvested in July, and so on.
Amazingly exactly one-year prior to this diary entry on August 2, 1911 Grandma wrote about driving horse through the dust of a plowed field. That post is repeated below:
Grandma wrote:
Wednesday, August 2, 1911: Took lessons in driving, but even though I would like to learn to drive, I did not like that kind of lesson for the horses were old and slow, and I had to drive them in the field behind choking clouds of dust.
My Comments
I read this entry to my father and asked him what Grandma was doing. He says that she probably was using a roller on a plowed field. The roller would level the plowed earth in preparation for planting winter wheat seeds.
The horses would have been hitched to the roller and Grandma would have needed to tighten one rein or the other to make the horses go in a straight line.
I can almost picture the clouds of dust stirred up by the roller swirling around Grandma as she drove the horses.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, August 1, 1912:
August will fly fast enough,
And at its eve will again will be
The dear old school days.
So farewell to July.
Half of the Summer has vanished,
And half of it yet to come.
Yet the days glide on as ever,
And August another month begun.
We had our S.S. class up along the creek today. All were there and had a splendid time. Such a time as we had a losing of things, but they were all recovered. I lost the heel off of my shoe and didn’t miss it for awhile afterwards. I feel like a stuffed toad this evening.
Recent photo of the stream that flows through the farm Grandma grew up on. The old Muffly barn is in the background.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
It sounds Grandma and her sister Ruth were the hostesses for the Sunday School party. What fun! . . . good friends. . . good food. . . wading in the creek . . . the perfect summer day (in spite of a broken shoe heel).
