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

Saturday, July 12, 1913:  I had to help load wheat today. That is something I never did before. Not any too good at it either.

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

The day prior to this entry Grandma wrote about how the boy her father hired to help with the farm work had suddenly quit and run away only four days after his arrival.

Grandma’s father probably was short-handed –and needed extra help. I bet that Grandma was ticked that she needed to help with a hot, dusty, tiring chore that she’d never done before.

Note about the drawing used to illustrate this post: This picture of harvesting wheat was part of an advertisement for flour in Ladies Home Journal. To see the entire advertisement, go to this previous post:

Helping in the Fields  

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

Thursday, July 10, 1913: Ditto

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

The previous day Grandma wrote, “Not so very much doing today,” so I guess that a hundred years ago today was another quiet day.

Sometimes I wonder where Grandma was sitting when she wrote these diary entries. Was she at the kitchen table? . . . sitting in a chair in the living room? . . . .sprawled on her bed?

And, what was the room like? The windows were probably open and the curtains may have been fluttering in the breeze. Were the curtains stylish—and similar to ones shown in 1913 issues of Ladies Home Journal; or were they old and a little tattered?

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

Tuesday, July 8, 1913:  Pa picked up a little boy who is going to work for him. I have to room with Ruth now.

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

It sounds like Grandma’s father decided that he needed to hire someone to help with the farm work.

How old was the “little boy”? . . . 9? . . . 12? . . . 15?  Children often held jobs a hundred years ago, but the term “little boy” seems like an unusual way to describe a new farm laborer. I’d think that the individual would have had to have been fairly strong—and that he would have been a teen-ager not a boy.

Who was the boy? . . . a relative? . . . the son of a friend? . . . the child of someone who was struggling financially?

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

Sunday, July 6, 1913:  I went through a solemn duty this morning. I jointed the church and was baptized. I must strive to keep the promises.

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

In the past I’ve wondered which church Grandma attended as a teen—and finally decided that it probably was the Baptist one. This entry provides further confirmation that Grandma was Baptist when she was young.

In 1913 there were three churches in McEwensville—Lutheran, Reformed (United Church of Christ) and Baptist.  After Grandma married Raymond Swartz she attended the Lutheran church.

In the diary Grandma mentioned the Lutheran and Reformed churches by name when she visited them for a special event—but she provided no church name when she attended her regular church. This suggests that she didn’t attend either the Lutheran or Reformed church–but rather that she went to the Baptist one.

I’ve been a little uncomfortable with that conclusion since the Baptist Church closed in the late 1910s or early 1920s—and the building was torn down many years ago. In the diary, Grandma seemed to really enjoy attending Sunday School almost every week which suggests that the church was still very active in 1913—but I’m now almost certain that she attended the Baptist Church.

I wonder if Grandma was baptized in Warrior Run Creek. It flows through McEwensville (as well as along the edge of the Muffly Farm).