Hundred-Year-Old Advice Column: “Heart Problems” by Aunt Harriet

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

Monday, July 28, 1913 – Thursday, July 31, 1913: Nothing very much doing for these days. It’s so terrible hot and I have a hard time of it just doing nothing. I’d hate to go anyplace such weather as this is.

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

This is the third of four days that Grandma lumped together into one diary entry.

Since Grandma didn’t write anything specific for this date, I’m going to share some more hundred-year-old advice from an advice columnist called “Aunt Harriet.” It was published in Farm Journal.

Heart Problems

[Note: Aunt Harriet didn’t include the original questions, just the answers.]

“Whistling Girl”: No, I do not think it improper for a young, healthy and happy girl to whistle around her own home; but it would be unwise for her to walk along the street or public highway doing so.

“Dismay”: It is not necessary to have s written agreement concerning the breaking of an engagement. You can ask the young woman to release you from a promise which you feel has been a mistake and say that you will return her gifts and her letters, and she will no doubt understand that you expect her to do the same with yours. Make your request in language as polite as you can command, and consider well before you enter into another engagement.

L.T.W.: It is rather difficult to make advance now that the young man has left your neighborhood. If you had any special reason for refusing his attentions, and now find that you were mistaken, you might write and tell him so. On the other hand, if it was just a whim and you have gotten over it, you might write and explain. You could write to him about like this: “Dear friend John: In thinking over the changes in our neighborhood, I am reminded of my lack of appreciation of your attention to me. I sincerely regret my shortcomings in this direction.

Farm Journal (May, 1913)

You may also enjoy these previous posts that contain advice from Aunt Harriet:

What Did Wedding and Engagement Rings Cost A Hundred Years Ago?

How Much Should a Man Spend on a Date? Hundred-Year-Old Advice

Girls and Women Fishing a Hundred Years Ago

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

Monday, July 28, 1913 – Thursday, July 31, 1913: Nothing very much doing for these days. It’s so terrible hot and I have a hard time of it just doing nothing. I’d hate to go anyplace such weather as this is.

Picture caption: Who said girls couldn’t—and shouldn’t—fish down on the old dock or under the sycamore? Who gave the outdoors to their brothers anyway? Source: Good Housekeeping (July, 1913)

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

There’s no new diary entry to post today since Grandma apparently didn’t write anything for four days—and then summarized what she was thinking at the end of the time period.

But, I wonder if Grandma ever did any fun activities on hot summer days. Did she ever go fishing, either in the creek that flowed along the edge of the farm or in the West Branch of the Susquehanna River which flows through the nearby town of Watsontown?

The text of the short article beside the picture seems a bit odd to me, but it probably made perfect sense a hundred years ago. It says:

Play!

There’s no doubt whatever about it, men have all the best of it in this world, and women have to put up with ‘most anything. Why, just take that one example of the way the men go rooting in the back of the closet on the top floor after that old fishing-rod, the one with the black thread all wrapped about the part of it that split once when—everyone in the neighborhood knows it was five pounds. And there’s the fuss they make over the disgraceful old clothes that are fit for only the rag-bag, and goodness knows hardly that, , and the disreputable hat that you were planning to give to Mandy Brown’s husband the very next time he came after the ashes, and—

Good Housekeeping (July, 1913)

Recent photo of the bridge at Watsontown. This is the second bridge that was built a this site. It's hard to believe that a hundred years ago the first bridge had not yet been built. — Recent photo of the river at Watsontown.

July 28, 1913 Temperatures for Cities Across the US

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

Maximum, Minimum, and 8 p.m Temperatures

July 28, 1913

Source: Washington Post (July 29, 1913)

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

Sounds like it was miserably hot in central Pennsylvania. A hundred years ago farmers like the Muffly didn’t even have electricity so there were no fans—just the sweltering heat.

Grandma apparently didn’t even have enough energy to write in her diary for several days. How hot was it?

Two Pennsylvania Cities—Philadelphia and Pittsburgh had highs of 90, so it’s a safe bet that it was in the upper 80’s or possibly 90 in McEwensville. Hot–but it doesn’t sound as unbearably hot as Grandma described it. Maybe the humidity was really high and there was no breeze– that could make it seem “terrible hot”.

Did Grandma’s Parents Attend Church or Sunday School?

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

Sunday, July 27, 1913: Went to Sunday School this afternoon.

Grandma would have walked down Main Street in McEwensville to get to the Baptist Church.

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

Across the two and a half years that I’ve been posting the diary, most Sunday’s Grandma wrote that she went to Sunday School. She rarely mentioned Church. Why? . . . Didn’t she attend the church service?

Did Grandma go alone to Sunday School a hundred years ago today, or did other family members also attend? What about her parents?

In the past, sometimes the diary entries suggested that her sister Ruth may have at least occasionally accompanied her to Sunday School. And, if I remember correctly, Grandma mentioned one time that her 7-year-old brother Jimmie went to Sunday School. But her parents are never mentioned in the context of church or Sunday School.

Today I think that parents are more likely to attend church than their teen-aged children. It almost seems like it was the opposite for Grandma—she attended, but her parents didn’t.

Piano Questions and Answers from a Hundred Years Ago

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

Saturday, July 26, 1913: Ma wanted me to keep digging at my music this morning. I don’t like to practice very well.

DSC08000.crop — Source: Ladies Home Journal (November, 1911)

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

Oh dear, Grandma just began taking piano lessons on June 13—it’s sad that she’s already tiring of practicing.

Playing the piano must have been extremely popular a hundred years ago. Back then there was even a column called “Piano Questions Answered by Josef Hofmann” in Ladies Home Journal.

Today I’m sharing two examples from his columns.

Playing Staccato and Legato Together

How can one play staccato when there are two voices, as in the notes of the second measure of the example? Naomi

Why should one finger be unable to play staccato while another finger of the same hand holds a key down? It takes a little practice, it is true, but it is by no means difficult, much less impossible.

Ladies Home Journal (March, 1912)

Blue Hydrangeas and Other Questions

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

Friday, July 25, 1913: Not worth writing about.

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

Since I knew my grandmother when she was much older than the teen in the diary, I’m constantly trying to reconcile how the young Helena in the diary evolved into the grandma I knew.

Since it was a slow day a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share a memory that I have of Grandma as an older woman—when she actually was my grandmother.

—

Every year when the hydrangeas bloom I think of Grandma. I can remember playing with my cousins—and seeing Grandma “watering” her hydrangeas with a can filled with something that wasn’t water.

I ran over and asked what she was doing . She explained how she needed to add aluminum sulfate to the soil to make the hydrangeas blue.

I couldn’t understand how a flower could possibly change colors depending upon what was put on the soil—so I asked a zillion questions. And, I remember Grandma carefully and patiently answering each one.

In many ways this story is very typical of many of my memories of Grandma. When I was a small child Grandma always welcomed questions and treated each question with respect.

When I was a youngster, she treated me like an older person than almost anyone else I knew—but I always understood her answers and really liked that she knew that I was big enough to understand what she was saying when she explained complex things to me.