18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, February 13, 1914: Went to town this afternoon to get some things for a box social. Besse gave me two doggies to slip in Ruth’s box when she wasn’t looking. Almost froze my right hand or rather it got pretty cold coming home.
Well, while Ruthie was eating her supper, I slipped upstairs with her box, undid the wrapping, lifted the lid, and in went the doggies, and brought the box back without arousing suspicions.
The box social and entertainment which we attended was out at her school. There wasn’t much of a crowd there, as it was snowing.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Good grief, Grandma. . . How could you????
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Who got Ruth’s box? And, whose face turned redder when they opened it?. . . Ruth’s or the guy’s?
Box socials always make me think of the musical Oklahoma. The girls prepared beautiful box lunches with enough food for two that were then auctioned off to raise funds for the school or some charity.
Grandma’s sister Ruth was a teacher at a one-room school house near McEwensville. Grandma’s older sister Besse was married to a butcher, and Besse must have given her two hot dogs. (Did they have hot dogs a hundred years ago?)
