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

Saturday, June 21, 1913:  My music teacher came this morning, and I spent a long hour in taking my lesson.

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

This is the second week since Grandma began taking piano lessons. Why did the hour seem long?

Was she learning “boring” but important basics like how to hold her hands and how to properly hit the keys?

I’m still looking for hundred-year-old music books for beginning piano students, but I did find a college-text on playing the piano:

The principal difficulty of piano playing we found to be the production of sufficient power, and the economical application of the power to all kinds of passages, with velocity and under delicate control.  Tone quality may be harsh if the strings are unduly vibrated, or thin if the quantity of vibration be too small to excite all the overtones.

The Mechanics of Piano Technic by Ethelbert Warren Grabill (1909)

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

June 18, 19, 20:  These days are filled with uneventful proceedings not worth mentioning.

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

Occasionally I miss the obvious, and this is one of those times. I recently realized that I knew one of Grandma’s friends in the diary (Blanche Bryson) when I was a child!

Since Grandma didn’t write anything specific for a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share that story with you.

Yesterday I shared information that Blanche Bryson’s daughter Jane Shuman, daughter Pam Cooper, and granddaughter-in-law Janet Shuman gave me about Blanche and her sister Margaret. Blanche’s married name was Kramm, and Janet wrote in an email:

“Grammie Kramm was 74 when I met her & still substitute teaching at Warrior Run in 1966.”

And, it was like . . . Whoa, my 4th grade teacher missed a lot of school, and for much of that year I had a long-term substitute named Mrs. Kramm. . . Blanche Bryson Kramm.

Mrs. Kramm would have been in her early 70s when I had her as a teacher, but she still had lots of enthusiasm, loved working with children, and knew how to engage them in learning.

I’m sure that Mrs. Kramm did a superb job teaching us reading and math, but–and this might sound silly, but I mean it in the nicest way– what I remember best about Mrs. Kramm is how she taught me to tear paper in a straight line without using scissors.

Let me explain—

During the time period when Mrs. Kramm was our substitute, there was a school program or assembly. Our class sang a song about popsicles and we held “popsicles” that we made out of Crayola crayon boxes that we attached a popsicle stick to and then covered with brown construction paper. (We made chocolate popsicles).

The music teacher had selected the song, and my classmates and I thought that making fake popsicle props was a bit babyish for us fourth graders.

Mrs. Kramm, however, decided that it was a wonderful project for fourth graders—if we learned how to tear paper neatly without using scissors.

I remember folding brown construction paper back and forth a couple times—and trying to tear. Oops—the tear veered off at a strange angle. . . .

I don’t remember many sheets of paper I ruined, but I do remember the pride I felt when I successfully tore a straight line. (It’s really easy, but it seemed hard back then.)

Fast forward to today— Every time I neatly tear a coupon out of a flyer at the grocery store, or tear off a registration form at the bottom of a larger sheet of paper, I think of Mrs. Kramm. . . aka Blanche Bryson Kramm.

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

June 18, 19, 20:  These days are filled with uneventful proceedings not worth mentioning.

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

Since Grandma didn’t write anything today, I’ll share some information about two of Grandma’s friends—Blanche and Margaret Bryson.

One of the things that I enjoy most about doing this blog is the opportunity to meet wonderful people—and to reconnect with people in the community where I grew up. I recently spent a wonderful evening with three of Blanche’s descendants—Jane Shuman (her daughter), Pam Cooper (her granddaughter), and Janet Shuman (her granddaughter-in-law). We looked at pictures, shared stories, and reminisced about people we knew.

This is what I learned about Blanche and Margaret–

At the time of the diary, Blanche Bryson was a teacher at the Keefertown School. It was one-room schoolhouse in a very tiny hamlet about 5 miles northeast of McEwensville. Today, Keefertown wouldn’t be considered a town at all, but just a cluster of several homes along a country road. During the week, Blanche boarded with the Frank Menges family so that she wouldn’t need to make the daily trip out to Keefertown from her family’s home.

About two years after the spot we are at in the diary, Blanche married O.W. (Oscar William) Kramm. Blanche and O.W. lived on a farm in Turbot Township for about 7 years, then moved to the Gaston Farm (near old Gaston School – now a chicken coop) on the Turbotville Road between McEwensville and Turbotville. They moved to McEwensville in 1939.

Their daughters, Ruth and Jane, were attending college in Bloomsburg by that time. Later Blanche taught the primary grades at the McEwensville School. She also taught a short time at Owltown (near Shamokin), Dewart, and the 8th Street School in Watsontown.

After she retired in 1962, she was a substitute teacher in the Warrior Run School District. (Small schools in the area became part of the Warrior Run District in the late 1950s).

Margaret was the youngest of the Bryson children and had a twin brother named Milfred (called Babe). There was also a brother, Bertlet, between Blanche and the twins. Margaret was always called Sis by family members. She married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to a policeman, Heber Wolfe. They lived in nearby Milton and had two children.

Margaret was a nurse. She worked at the Muncy Women’s Prison, and also did hospital and private duty work. The prison is about 12 miles from McEwensville. It still exists, and is now called the State Correctional Institution—Muncy.

Both Blanche and Margaret lived well into their 80s, and according to Janet, “The Bryson girls remained close throughout their long lives.”