1913 Nestle’s Food (Baby Formula) Advertisement

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

Tuesday, September 23, 1913: Don’t know how to express myself.

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

Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share an advertisement for a baby formula, Nestle’s Food, that appeared in the October, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

A few days ago I did a post that showed several pictures of the “right” and “wrong” way raise a baby. Readers’ comments about that post led me to do this post. It contained pictures from the October, 1913 issues of Ladies Home Journal where both the “right” and the “wrong” way showed the baby drinking from a bottle. Several people commented that it was interesting that breastfeeding wasn’t mentioned.

After reading the comments I looked at the magazine again–and I discovered that this ad was positioned right next to the picture article about the right and wrong ways to raise a baby.

Maybe I’m in a cynical mood today, but somehow it feels like the magazine was trying to please the advertiser, and that the advertisement drove the content.

A Coat for a Rainy Day

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

Monday, September 22, 1913: Walked the coats I borrowed yesterday back this morning.

Source: Ladies Home Journal (December, 1912)

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

The previous day it rained while Grandma and her sister Ruth were at Sunday School at the Baptist Church in McEwensville. They were particularly upset because Ruth “had on her bestest dress.”

Someone who lived near the church must have lent them coats. I wonder if Ruth managed to keep her dress dry.

A Ride Home in a Buggy

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

Sunday, September 21, 1913: Went to Sunday School all afternoon. It rained nearly all afternoon. Ruth and I were in quite a pickle about getting home. She had on her bestest dress. The questions were solved when a nice boy brought us home in his buggy.

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

Grandma and her sister Ruth usually walked the mile or so home from Sunday School. It would have been a miserable walk if they’d had to tramp home in the rain.

But all’s well that ends well. . . hmm. . . Who was the nice boy who brought them home?

How to Remove Stains from Hands

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

Saturday, September 20, 1913: I picked and picked at the potatoes today till there weren’t any more to pick and then I stopped. My hands presented quite a spectacle by the time I was through from being so badly stained. I don’t care though, Pa gave me a dollar.

Did Grandma rub her hands with tomatoes or tomato juice to try to remove the stains? (Picture Source: Simply Recipes)

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

Work and more backbreaking work. . . at least the potatoes were all harvested (and Grandma was a dollar richer).

Here’s some advice in a hundred-year-old book about how to remove stains from hands.

To remove stains, dip the hands into a dish of strong tea, rub well with a nailbrush, and rinse in tepid waters. Ripe tomatoes, also the juice of a lemon, will remove stains from the hands.

Housekeeper’s Handy Book (1913) by Lucia Millet Baxter

You may also enjoy reading a previous post on Harvesting Potatoes.

Rolling the Fields

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

Tuesday, September 16, 1913:

September 16 – 17 – 18 – 19: Nothing much of importance happened during these days. I have to help Pa some and get put at rolling for one thing. Of course I had my mishaps even to going off of the roller. That work is all done by this time.

Horse-drawn roller. (Photo source: Wikemedia Commons, German Federal Archives) — Horse-drawn roller. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

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

Whew, I bet that Grandma was exhausted. It’s rare that she didn’t write a diary entry every day—but I can understand why she was too tired to write anything a hundred years ago today.

Grandma was using a roller in a plowed field to level the ground and break up clumps of soil in preparation for planting wheat seeds. In Pennsylvania wheat is planted in the fall and harvested the following summer.

Horses were hitched to the roller, and Grandma would have needed to tighten one rein or the other to make the horses go in a straight line. Unlike the roller in the picture, the diary entry makes it sound like the roller that she used may have had a seat. The mishap sounds embarrassing (and perhaps painful).

Headache Causes

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

Monday, September 15, 1913: For one thing I’ve had a splitting headache this afternoon and it still continues.

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

Ouch. . . headaches are no fun! I wonder what caused Grandma’s headache.

Here is what a hundred-year-old book said about headaches causes:

Headache is a symptom rather than a disease, but there is no symptom which requires more careful investigation of its cause than that of headache. It occurs at all ages, but is most common from ten to twenty-five years and from thirty-five to forty-five years. Women suffer from headache more than men, in the proportion of about three to one. Headaches are most common in the spring and fall of the year and in the temperate climates.

Causes of headache—These may be classified into those in which the blood is at fault; reflex causes; various nervous disorders; and organic diseases.

The blood may be impoverished, as in the case of anemia, where there is a deficiency in hemoglobin; but by far the most frequent cause of headache is where the blood is disordered, as in gout, rheumatism, kidney diseases, diabetes, and the infectious fevers and malaria.

Among the more common reflex causes are eye-strain, especially errors of refraction; disorders of digestion, particularly constipation; and pelvic disorders, as in inflammation of the pelvic viscera.

Functional diseases of the nervous system causing headache are overwork, neurasthenia, hysteria, epilepsy, and neuritis.

Among the most common of the organic diseases is arteriosclerosis; other diseases are meningitis and brain tumors.

Personal Hygiene and Physical Training for Women (1911) by Anna M. Galbraith

You also enjoy reading a previous post on Old-Time Headache Remedies.

Unexpected Visitors and Harvest Home Sunday

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

Sunday, September 9, 1913: We got company today for a wonder. It was Alma and her folks. They took us by surprise.

Ruth and I went up to church this evening. They had Harvest Home services.

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

Alma was Grandma’s cousin—as well as a friend. In August Grandma visited Alma for three days.

A hundred years ago many families–including the Muffly’s–didn’t have phones, so if people wanted to let someone know that they were coming to visit, they needed to send a post card or letter.

Back then it was considered much more acceptable to just drop in than what it is now. . . and Sunday was considered one of the best times to go “visiting.”

Harvest Home

Harvest home Sunday was an annual event that churches held in the fall to celebrate, and to thank the Lord for, the bountiful harvest.

Often people decorated the church for the service with fruits and vegetables from their farms and gardens. After the service the food would be given to a needy family. Did Grandma and her sister Ruth take any produce to the service?