19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Wednesday, May 6, 1914: Went to Watsontown this afternoon. Didn’t want to, for I would rather had seen some papering done.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma—

Why didn’t you tell us?—Over the last 18 days, you weren’t just doing the spring housecleaning, you were also getting a room (the sitting room?) ready to be wallpapered!

I sympathize–it’s a lot of hard work to scrape off old wallpaper.

And, why were you sent on an errand to Watsontown? Were some additional wallpapering supplies needed?

—

Wow, Far Side of Fifty had it right! Sometimes I’m amazed when a reader has a better sense of what was happening in the Muffly household than I do. On May 1, Far Side of Fifty wrote the following comment:

They did some heavy cleaning back then. Taking everything out of a room and painting or papering it…freshening it all up.

I’m not very far ahead on doing posts right now, and I hadn’t realized until recently that in addition to doing the spring housecleaning, the Muffly’s were preparing to so some wallpapering.

I obviously thought that the term “spring housecleaning” had a narrower meaning that what it really had a hundred years ago.

19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Tuesday, May 5, 1914: Jimmie and I had a knock-out.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Hmm. . . Grandma was 19, and Jimmie was her 8-year-old brother. What the heck could they have been fighting about? I’d think that with such a large age difference that they’d seldom fight.

Here are links to some previous posts about Jimmie Muffly that you might enjoy:

Whatever Happened to Jimmie Muffly?

Muffly Magnetic Retriever Used to Remove Metal Objects from Cows’ Stomachs

 

19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Sunday, May 3, 1914:

Brighter days are surely dawning,

Where the flowers peep from their places,

When the birds commence their buildings,

And all things are looking fairer,

Then comes the month of May.

Pandemonium reigned today in the sitting room, and it is going to stay that way for awhile I think. Wish house cleaning days were over.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Whew, what happened? Was Grandma’s mother angry that she wasn’t working hard enough?

The Muffly’s spring housecleaning seems way over the top. They started cleaning at least 10 days prior to this entry. On April 22, Grandma wrote:

Spent part of the day on my knees. Now I don’t mean I was trying to be good. I was cleaning house. . .

—

Grandma began the month with a poem—as she did on the 1st of every month. For more information about the poems see this previous post:

Monthly Poem in Diary

19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Thursday, April 30, 1914:  But we went today and got all we cared to carry home. It is quite a distance and my legs ache by this time.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I’m guessing that Grandma and some of her friends picked lots of training arbutus. Two days prior to this entry she wrote:

Was going for trailing arbutus this afternoon, but the other girls didn’t have time to go, so it’s postponed til tomorrow.

It apparently took two days to actually get the group together to pick arbutus.

Trailing arbutus are also called mayflowers. Several years ago when Grandma wrote about gathering trailing arbutus, I found a description at The Write Way about what it was like to pick them. It’s still the best description I’ve ever seen, so I’m going to repeat it here:

I have such crisp memories of picking wild mayflowers with my brother. Scrounging around on the sun-splashed forest floor, moving decaying leaves with our bare hands to find a delicately scented flower smaller than a dime.

Trailing arbutus are not easy to find; their flowers tend to hide under the leaves. It takes quite a few flowers to make even a small bunch, but they were worth it.

Brenda Visser