Tag: hundred years ago

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.

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)

A Dry Book About the Doings of the Greeks

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

Friday, April 12, 1912:  It rained this afternoon. I got rather wet coming home from school this evening. I’ve started to digest a dry book about the doings of the Greeks.

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

What book was Grandma reading? This diary entry sent me searching for an old book on the Greeks.

I found a dry –I want to call it mind-numbing–book called Greek and Roman Civilization by Fred Morrow Fling, Ph.D. that was published in 1902.

Amazingly on the inside cover there was a stamp which indicated that it once had been in a public school library (though the library was in the wrong state). But  it provides an indication of the types of books that were in high school libraries years ago.

No. 1800           Price _____

Public School Library

Dawson, Minn.

Library Rules— No person shall have more than one book at a time, nor keep that more than two week, and if kept longer a fine of five cents shall be imposed.

If a book is lost or injured, the price of the book or set shall be charged.

Here’s how Chapter 1 begins:

THE HOMERIC AGE

Homer probably never lived, and the Iliad is evidently a national product, not composed by one man at one time, but by many men at different times. As a record of the Trojan War, the poem has practically no value. Its real value to the student of history is due to the fact that it unconsciously reveals to us the manners and customs of the age in which it was composed. While the imagination may construct wholes that are not really, the real elements with which the poet or novelist works are drawn from experience. It is possible, then, for the historian to sift out these elements and make use of them. . .

“I Am An Aunt No Longer”

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

Tuesday, April 9, 1912:  I was an aunt for one brief half a day yesterday, but didn’t know it until this morning. I was so disappointed when I heard it was dead. My little nephew was buried this afternoon. The baby I never saw. I feel like crying, when I think I am an aunt no longer.

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

I also feel like crying as I write this post, even though the birth (and death) happened a hundred year ago. It’s never easy when a baby dies.  . .

I’ll give you a bit of background information. Grandma’s oldest sister Besse was married to Curt Hester, and they lived a several miles from the Muffly farm.

Surprisingly, Grandma never mentioned her sister’s pregnancy in the diary.  There’s just this entry about the birth—and death of her nephew.

Besse only had one child who survived beyond infancy–D. Curtis. He was born in 1915.

This has been a rough April for Grandma. This is only the second death mentioned  in the fifteen months that Grandma had been keeping the diary. The first one was mentioned  just five days earlier on April 4, 1912 when a girl from her Sunday School class died.

An aside–I looked through the old microfilms of the Milton Evening Standard and could find neither the baby’s death (which didn’t surprise me) nor the friend’s death (which did surprise me). Milton is about 6 miles from McEwensville and maybe the death of a teen after a long illness just wasn’t considered important enough to put in the paper–though I have seen other McEwensville obituaries in the paper.

Need to Gather Eggs

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

Monday, April 8, 1912:  I have to gather the eggs now, and I don’t like it any too well. We had our exams today. I wonder about what some of my marks could be.

Source: April, 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine

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

Why was gathering the eggs a new task for Grandma? Who did it before—her mother? . . . . her father? . . .  her sister Ruth?

Maybe the hens had just finished molting. Chickens periodically molt—and they lay few eggs while molting.

. . . or maybe the family had just bought some new chickens.