Tag: genealogy

Memorized Speech

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

Tuesday, April 23, 1912: What an extraordinary thing for a dummy like I am. I know all of my piece from beginning to end. I learned the larger part of it this evening. There are almost a thousand words in all.

I can picture Grandma sitting in this house a hundred years ago trying to memorize a presentation.

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

Grandma was memorizing a speech that she needed to present on the last day of school. The previous day she indicated that she’d completed writing it.

Assuming that Grandma spoke at about 150 words per minute, a 1,000 speech would take a little less than 7 minutes to present.

Today students don’t generally memorize speeches. Instead it is considered better to use notes to provide reminders about what to say.  I wonder if students were encouraged to write and memorize speeches back then, or if it just was something that Grandma decided to do on her own in an attempt to make sure that she said what she wanted to say.

Little Brother Recovered from Whooping Cough

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

Sunday, April 22, 1912: I now have that wonderful oration the way it suits me. I finished copying it this morning. Jimmie started back to school today. So far I don’t have any symptoms of the whooping cough. Don’t want it for two weeks yet.

Jimmie Muffly, 1912

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

Grandma was working on a speech that she needed to present on the last day of school. On April 16, she wrote that she was trying to find a topic; and, of the 17th she wrote that she’d found an interesting topic.

I’m surprised that Grandma’s 6-year-old brother Jimmie had apparently been out of school for almost a month with whooping cough. On March 24 she’d written:

Jimmie threatened with the whooping cough. I don’t want him to get it, nor do I want to get it myself. I would have to stop school if I do, and that I shouldn’t like to.

But, Grandma never again mentioned whooping cough, so until this entry I’d assumed that Jimmie hadn’t gotten it.

Whooping cough was a bad illness a hundred years ago. According to Wikipedia:

Symptoms are initially mild, and then develop into severe coughing fits, which produce the namesake high-pitched ‘whoop’ sound in infected babies and children when they inhale air after coughing. The coughing stage lasts for approximately six weeks before subsiding.

So even though Jimmie was out of school for a month—it’s sounds as if he recuperated more quickly than the typical person.

Women’s Hats a Hundred Years Ago

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

Sunday, April 21, 1912: Went to Sunday School this afternoon. Wish I had my new hat. I’d wear it if I had.

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

Did Grandma want a hat like one of these hats that were featured in a hundred-year-old issue of Ladies Home Journal?

With the coming of summer one turns instinctively to the flowers, and there is an overwhelming desire to have them around us, in our gardens, and even on our persons. The desire to be personally adorned with them can find best expression in the use of the artificial. In these hats are shown what lovely artificial flowers can be had and at small cost.

“When Flowers Look Well on a Hat”, Ladies Home Journal, June 1911

Moved Sister to Own Bedroom

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

Saturday, April 20, 1912:Locked Ruth out last night. I spent the afternoon cleaning house. It was my room. Rufus got stubborn and I had to do nearly all.

Picture of a bedroom in the April, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal. It probably doesn't look much like Grandma's bedroom--but it does provide an indication of what really nice bedrooms looked like a hundred years ago.

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

When Grandma was upset she called her sister Ruth,  “Rufus”.

This is the second day in a row that Grandma wrote about moving Ruth to another bedroom. They shared a room during the cold winter months—but had separate rooms during the remainder of the year.

Grandma apparently had the better bedroom because Ruth did not want to move—or maybe Ruth wanted to make her little sister do all of the work involved in the move.

Trying to Get Sister Moved Back to Own Room

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

Friday, April 19, 1912: Dear me, I haven’t anything worth writing. I’m trying to get my sister to moved back to her own room.

Picture of a bedroom in April, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

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

Grandma and her sister Ruth sometimes shared a bedroom—and other times didn’t.

Based on previous entries, I think that there probably was a double bed in Grandma’s room—and that they shared it during the winter months because there was no heat on the second floor of the house and it was very cold. But now it was spring, and Grandma wanted her sister to move back to her own room.

The previous year Grandma had similar problems getting her sister out of the room. For example, on June 29, 1911 she wrote:

I moved Ruthie’s belongings into another apartment and she herself is going to occupy that room for a time. Don’t know how long it will be though. I’m so tired now, I can hardly stand upright.

Speech Written–But Too Long

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

Thursday, April 18, 1912:O– And I have it all written now, but I got it most too long. I know the introduction so I don’t want that to be changed very much.

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

Grandma was working on a speech that she planned to give on the last day of school.

The previous day, she wrote in the diary that she’d selected an interesting topic, but provided no hints about what it was.  Was it humorous? . . . . serious? . . . about a controversial topic? . . .

Recent early spring view of some flower beds on the farm where Grandma grew up. I bet that Grandma would have preferred to be outside on a nice spring evening instead of being stuck in the house writing a speech. (I just realized that I'm making an assumption--she actually could have been outside when she wrote the speech.)

School Year Was Shorter in 1912

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

Wednesday, April 17, 1912: At last I have managed to get a subject that I think will suit me. I read it over this evening. It was very interesting to read.

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

The previous day Grandma wrote that she was trying to find a topic for a presentation on the upcoming last day of school. What was the interesting subject that Grandma came up with?  I wonder what types of topics were considered appropriate back then.

The school year was shorter a hundred years ago—and length varied a lot between one school and the next.  For example, the school year at the one-room school-house where Grandma’s sister Ruth taught ended on March 27.

SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY

ARE NOW CLOSING

Schools in the rural districts of Northumberland county are closing for the vacation of several months, and will not resume until the fall. In the rural districts many of these schools closed this week, and the various teachers will be seeking employment elsewhere until time shall travel over a course of perhaps several months, when they will be found behind the teacher’s desk, instructing young minds and in some cases wielding the rod, urging some tardy loiterer along the paths of knowledge.

Seven months is the average school term in the rural districts, and at the close of March and the beginning of April the school boy looks for the close of the school, and incidentally helps his father in the preparation of the soil for the planting of the crops.

Milton Evening Standard (April 6, 1912)