17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, September 25, 1912: Was rather surprised at the mark I made yesterday. Didn’t think I would hardly get that. Twas the kind that dummies get.
What did Grandma consider a bad grade? . . . D? . . . F?
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Whew, I’m surprised that Grandma did poorly on this geometry test. She never worried about the upcoming test during the days preceding the test, and the previous day she’d merely written, “I had a test in geometry.” and then moved on to other topics.
Usually Grandma had a pretty good sense of how she was doing in classes, and if she needed to study—though sometimes she never actually got around to studying.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, September 23, 1912: Walked the muddy way to school this morning. Don’t have much to write these days.
Recent photo of the road that went between McEwensville and Watsontown in Grandma’s day. . . Once dirt, then brick, and now paved. . .
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
With all the mud, it’s a good thing that Grandma got new rubber overshoes the previous Saturday. September, 1912 must have been a rainy month. On September 18 Grandma also wrote about the muddy walk to school.
1912 was the last year that Grandma had to walk the entire way on dirt roads. She lived between McEwensville and Watsontown, and a brick road was apparently under construction that would replace the old dirt road.
According to George Wesner in History in McEwensville (1976):
The brick road leading from McEwensville to Watsontown was one of the first of its kind to be built in Pennsylvania. Construction was begun at McEwsville in 1912 and completed the following year. . .
It was built by the construction firm Fiss and Christiana of Shamokin, Pennsylvania. In grading, the ground was moved by horse-drawn dump wagons which were loaded by manual labor. While some local people were employed most of the laborers were Italian immigrants. Very few could speak English. They were quartered in a labor camp which was located in a ravine on the farm of Isiah Elliot, now owned by Samuel Raup. All the materials, sand, gravel, brick and cement were hauled by teams and horses. The only mechanical equipment used was a steam roller. . .
On an occasion when a period of bad weather had caused the operation to run behind schedule, the contractors, in an effort to catch up, requested that they work on Sunday. . . .
I wonder if the wet days that Grandma wrote about during September 1912 were when the road-building crews got behind schedule.
Grandma would have walked this road to school every day while it was being transformed from a muddy dirt road to fancy brick one. It sounds like a major activity to me, yet she never thought it worth mentioning in the diary. Sigh. . .
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, September 17, 1912: Had to walk to school through the rain. Also through the mud. Our class is deciding upon a class pin, but we’re making such slow progress in making up our minds as to which pin to take, that I doubt we’ll ever get them at all.
Recent photo of the building that once housed McEwensville High School.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Yuck—a mile and a half walk to school in the rain on muddy dirt roads. It sure doesn’t sound like fun. Did Grandma wear galoshes to school?
Did Grandma and her classmates have a catalog that they were going to order the class pin out of? . . . or were they planning to order it from a sales representative or at a nearby jewelry shop?
Grandma’s class was small. Only six students graduated in Spring 1913 from McEwensville High School. It’s amazing how much effort they put into creating a class identity. A few days previous to this diary entry, Grandma wrote about the differences in opinion about class colors and now they can’t seem to agree on a class pin.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, September 16, 1912: I don’t feel very good these last few days. I don’t know but I really think that it is likening to be near a grape vine. Alas all mortals have to suffer for their errors.
Concord Grapes (Source: Wikipedia)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
If I could have a conversation with Grandma, this is what I’d say:
Grandma, what were you thinking!
Of course, you couldn’t have known we’d be reading it a hundred years later; but what kind of role model is that for your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren?
. . . Actually, given your later strong stance against alcohol, my sense is that some are smiling.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, September 14, 1912: I made a cake this afternoon with mater’s assistance. She did the baking and put him together. It got real nice.
Black Walnut Cake
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
If Grandma’s mother put “him” together and baked him, it sounds like she did most of the work. What did Grandma do? Maybe she found the recipe . . .
It’s interesting that Grandma gave the cake a gender—I would have referred to the cake as “it”.
When I try to replicate one-hundred-year-old cake recipes, I find that I need to make a lot of adaptations—as compared to candy recipes which haven’t changed much.
A hundred years ago cakes were made in wood or coal stoves with ovens that had difficult to regulate temperatures. Baking powder was a “new-fangled” product and had not yet standardized across brands. And, recipes had not yet been standardized for 9” X 13” cake pans.
You might enjoy some of previous posts about cakes:
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, September 13, 1912: Found a pocket knife on the way to school this morning. Wonder who lost it?
We chose our class colors this week. Think it was last Wed. They are maroon and gold. They don’t suit me very well. I preferred to have green and white, but didn’t get them.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
It’s too bad that Grandma wasn’t able to convince her classmates that green and white would be better class colors. . .though two schools that I attended had maroon and gold (or orange) as their school colors so I have somewhat of a personal affinity for the maroon and gold.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think that we had class colors—just school colors. Does anyplace still have class colors?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, September 10, 1912: Such a time as I have been having a digging at my studies.
Picture of Roman Temple in An Elementary Latin Course (1909)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Which subjects was Grandma having difficulty digging into? Latin is the only subject that she’s mentioned since school began in late August.
Maybe she needed to memorize some Latin vocabulary words.
A Latin textbook from the early 20th century gave teachers the following pedagogical advice:
Have the material in each lesson taken up and learned in the order in which it comes. The vocabularies are so short that the pupil can be required to learn them before attempting to translate the sentences.
In assigning the lesson, pronounce the new words to the class before they have seen them, having each word pronounced in turn by some pupil; give the meaning and call for English cognates if there are any. Then have the pupils read the words and commit them to memory. They will have a better command of words learned in this way than when they are learned merely as they are met in the sentences. Drill the class constantly on vocabularies past and present.
An Elementary Latin Course (1909) by Franklin Hazen Potter
(An aside—I don’t think any textbooks today would direct teachers to “drill” the students. I guess that pedagogical methods have changed over the years.)
