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

Saturday, November 23, 1912:  Was pretty busy today. That’s usually the way on Saturdays.

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

Since not much happened  a hundred y ears ago today, I’m going to go back to a post from two weeks ago—

Sometimes I post an entry—and then find additional information and think—I could have written a better post if I’d known that.

Well, that’s what happened after I posted the November 10, 1912 diary entry. Grandma had written:

. . . This afternoon I went over to see Margaret. Such a time as I had getting there a crawling under fences and so on.

I thought it seemed really odd that she crawled under fences rather than walking on  the road. But it apparently it was common a hundred years ago to take short-cuts through under fences and through fields. I recently was browsing through the December 1912 issue of Good Housekeeping, and it contained this tip to make it easier to traverse fields with barbed wire fences.

Cork the Barbs

In taking cross-country walks, provide yourself with a couple of dozen, medium-sized corks. When coming to the inevitable barbed-wire fence, protect each barb with a cork until you are safely under the fence. The corks may be returned to your pocket and used a good many times. The cork-safety device may be used to good effect on the barbed-wire fence between country neighbors. We have found it a most grateful saving of torn garments.

Whew, it sure is easier today to just hop in the car when we want to visit friends.. .

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

Wednesday, November 14, 1912:  We are having such an awful time at school a getting the kids to practice their dialogue. I didn’t think it would be so hard.

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

I’m always excited when a diary entry has lots of information; but then sometimes , like today, I end up  being frustrated because I can’t put the pieces together.

Hmm—Obviously Grandma is having difficulty getting some group of students or children to memorize their parts for some sort of presentation.

Many recent diary entries have discussed the new Literary Society that was started at Grandma’s school in late October. She was very excited to be a committee member—and several recent entries have discussed how busy she’d  been reading books and preparing for the Literary Society meeting. I’m not really sure what the Literary Society did—and, in past entries, I’ve leaned towards it being a book club. But, maybe the members really were supposed  orally present parts of famous works .

. . . or maybe I’m headed in totally the wrong direction. . .

Maybe Grandma was helping  downstairs in the primary school (the high school was on the second floor of the school building and the primary school was on the first)  and working with the younger children to prepare for some sort of show or presentation.

or. . .

In any case—I can empathize with Grandma. It’s frustrating when people won’t do what you want them to do.

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

Sunday, November 10, 1912:  Went out to Sunday School this morning. This afternoon I went over to see Margaret. Such a time as I had getting there a crawling under fences and so on.

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

Whew, it sounds like a lot of work to crawl under fences and so on (whatever that means) to visit a friend.

I don’t know who Margaret was; I don’t think that she’s ever previously been mentioned in the diary.

Until this diary entry, I’d always assumed that Grandma walked along roads to when visiting friends.