17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, December 24, 1912: Cleaned this morning. Trimmed the tree this evening and await the coming of tomorrow’s dawn impatience.
Lightweight glass balls on tinsel strands gives the effect.
Ladies Home Journal (December, 1911)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
It’s almost Christmas!
What did the Muffly’s trimmed tree look like?
The butterflies are of spun glass in myriad colors and marking. The birds are lifelike celluloid models.
The tree of snow is the latest contribution to the science of Christmas festivities. The tree is bleached white, made fireproof, and chemically preserved so that it can be used year after year, thereby aiding the campaign against the devastation of our evergreens. The decorations of rose garlands is as unusual as the tree, and the crimson of the flowers forms a brilliant contrast to the dazzling whiteness.
Ladies Home Journal (December, 1911)
Who would have guessed that some people had reusable trees a hundred years ago!!
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, December 12, 1912: My eyes are getting better, but everything looks misty to me now. Expect tomorrow to be a busy day for me.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—I’m glad that you’re finally getting over the pink eye. Stay healthy!!
—
As many ailments as the Muffly’s have had, I hope that they had a well-stock medicine cabinet.
I found a hundred –year-old list of what should be in a family medicine cabinet (or as they called them back then “medicine closet.”) The list was in the appendix of a book called The Care of the Baby.
List of Articles for Medicine Closet
Those liquids marked with an * are for external use or are dangerous. They should be in poison bottles.
Glass graduate marked with fluidrachms and fluid-ounces
Minium glass
Accurate dropper
Hard-rubber syringe
Small druggist’s hand scales for weighing medicines
Camel’s-hair brushes
Small straight dressing forceps
A pair of scissors
Absorbent cotton
Several one-inch and two-inch roller bandages, one to three yards long
Patent lint
Old linen
A spool of rubber adhesive plaster
Court plaster
Paraffin paper or oil silk
*Alcohol
Whiskey
Olive Oil
Ammonia-water
*Turpentine
Glycerin
Distilled fluid extract of hamamelis (witch-hazel) for bruises
*Soap liniment for sprains
*Tincture of iodine
*Solution of boric acid for washing cuts
*Solution permanganate of potash, 4 grains to the dram
Flaxseed meal
Mustard
Magnesia
Vaseline
Castor oil
Zinc ointment
Soda-mint
Baking soda
Sweet spirit of nitre
Aromatic spirits of ammonia
Bromide of potash in 2o-grain powders to be divided according to the age
*Tincture of digitalis
Syrup of ipecacuauha
Tannic acid for use in poisoning
Epsom salts for poisoning
Vinegar for poisoning
Jeaunel’s antidote for poisoning
What the heck are most of these items? . . and how do you use them to treat illnesses and wounds?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, December 9, 1912: Get in the Spanish Needles and had to pick them off of my clothes.
Source: Wikipedia
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Spanish Needles are so annoying—
I have often gotten Spanish Needles on my clothes, but when I read this diary entry I couldn’t picture what the plants looked like . I never seem to notice the pesky plant until after tiny barbs are embedded in my cloths.
I googled Spanish Needle and discovered that it is part of the Astor family. There are several different closely related plants that are called Spanish Needle. Some have yellow flowers. . others have white flowers.
Spanish Needles (Source: Wikipedia)
Grandma probably was just distracted and bumped against the Spanish Needle plants, but there’s a slim possibility that she was trying to gather Spanish Needle leaves (Are the leaves still on the plants in December?) to make tea and got the needles on her clothes.
For the past week or so, Grandma’s been sick with a bad cold and sore throat—and Spanish Needles are an old-fashioned remedy.
Its leaves are chewed for sore throat or boiled to make a tea that is said to help with upper-respiratory infections.
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, December 4, 1912: Will be glad I think when vacation is here. Have ever too many things to do then.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I can read this diary entry two ways.
There’s so much that needs to be done in December, and sometimes I feel like I’m being pulled in a thousand directions –so it seems like Grandma must have felt the same way. When I first read the diary entry, I thought that Grandma was very busy with school and looking forward to her upcoming Christmas vacation.
But. . . when I read carefully, I don’t think that is exactly what she meant.
It almost sounds like she was bored now, and was looking forward to her vacation when she’d be busier. . . with shopping? . . . with holiday baking? . . with Christmas parties?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, November 30, 1912:
It often seems the best comes last,
And so it must be with December.
As the end of the year recedes into the Past,
We see her last holiday, Remember.
Wanted to go to McEwensville tonight but Ruth won’t, so I didn’t. Made me feel sore for awhile.
McEwensville at dusk on a December evening
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
The first day of each month, Grandma began the diary entry with a poem. I’m still trying to figure out if she wrote them herself or copied them from somewhere. This month it almost seems like Grandma struggled to find a word to rhyme with December—so I’m leaning towards her writing the poems herself.
Why did Grandma want to do in McEwensville on a Sunday evening? . . to visit friends? . . . to attend an evening church service ? (Though, based on the diary, I don’t think that there generally were evening church services.)
And, (I guess I have more questions than answers) why did Grandma feel like she couldn’t go if her sister Ruth won’t go with her?
17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, November 26, 1912: Ma’s so sick. Hope I don’t have to miss school. That would spite me something dreadful.
Her mother probably needed help with both housework and barn work
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I wonder what’s wrong with Grandma’s mother. Maybe she caught whatever ailment her little brother Jimmie had the previous week. On November 19 Grandma wrote:
Poor little Jimmie got sick last night and had to miss his first day of school.
It seems like Grandma’s parents were quicker to consider having their children miss school when extra help was needed than parents today. For example, on November 18, 1912 Grandma also was concerned that she might need to miss school:
I’m half way out of something I’m worrying about since before school started and that was that I was afraid I’d have to miss school when Pa had his threshing done. They started today and well I went to school today too. So glad I don’t have to miss, that would be too bad for me.
(A positive note about Grandma’s parents–Even though Grandma periodically worried that her parents would make her miss school for one reason or another, I don’t think that she ever actually missed school because they needed her at home.)
Lightweight glass balls on tinsel strands gives the effect.
The butterflies are of spun glass in myriad colors and marking. The birds are lifelike celluloid models.
The tree of snow is the latest contribution to the science of Christmas festivities. The tree is bleached white, made fireproof, and chemically preserved so that it can be used year after year, thereby aiding the campaign against the devastation of our evergreens. The decorations of rose garlands is as unusual as the tree, and the crimson of the flowers forms a brilliant contrast to the dazzling whiteness.
