June 12-14, 1910

June 12, 1910


Cleaned up around the house. & put in some onions & r, B & I over home to dinner. Clara Merle up & all up over home in the after. Mr & Mrs W & Martha and Uri & Cora & Dem. Mr & Mrs. Tel----.


W. Fine
R. 10


June 13, 1910


Bess walked down to Roberts and stopped with --- in A.M. I did some spading after supper and the West Shore Depot burned at 9:30 and Bess and I went down. Also saw the Italian Fire Works. 


W. Fine, Warm
R. 11:20


June 14, 1910


Up home to supper and the mosquitoes nearly ate us. Very warm all day. 


W. Warm
R. 10:30 

I like that he's so precise that he mentions it was warm all day and still has to comment on the weather in his W. at the end of the entry.

 Have I mentioned that in the Diary Of Martha Ballard, she also reports on the weather every day? I find that interesting they both found the need to mention this fact. Is it because their lives were so much dictated by the weather (Certainly Martha's was as it related to things she did around her house.) and Adam's does to the extent that he does not have a car and spends a lot of time going places.

I have more thoughts on this but they are not coming together too well at this time. My first day of work was today and while it was very nice, I'm beat.

W. Fine. Warm
R. 10:55.

Working Girl!

So I have a job!

I'm starting tomorrow!

I remember back when I quit work to stay at home with my daughter. At the time I felt like I had 2 things that I wanted, my job and to stay home and raise my daughter and that I had to let one of them go. Clearly I was not going to let my daughter go, but the choice to stay home with her came at the expense of a well paying job that I liked and did well at. I was also pretty exhausted by doing it with a baby. Many people manage that situation well. I did not. My sleep deprivation combined with my longing for my baby girl was hard to manage in the corporate world. There is no easy answer to that question.

I remember sitting in my bosses office and telling him that I was clear on 2 things. The first was what I was going to do immediately-That turned out to be going to Florida and sleeping for a week. What I remember most about that vacation was sleeping when other people were at the pool! The other thing I was clear on was what I was going to be doing when my daughter started school, and that was looking for a job.

What I was unclear on, I told him, was what I would be doing in that gap in-between. This blog chronicles a lot of that, though I did not set out to do that at the time. For the most part it's been a great experience-I've met new people, participated in my community, and read a lot of books. I started an ebay business, chaired my daughter's school, started a garden club and wrote a blog. I spent a lot of time in my jammies drinking coffee on cold winter mornings. I took a lot of naps. I made a lot from scratch.  I did not clean nearly enough. I am still constantly faced with a menacing pile of laundry  it has always been like this) I used a lot of butter, grew a lot of food and composted it. I spent a year not buying anything. We bought a new house.  So many things happened that I could not have planned or predicted. (including two bathrooms practically falling into the rooms below them...)

Part of me missed the old me. The working a grown up job me. And that part of me worried about how I was going to get that back. (especially this past year)

So the job.

I will be working on projects for the museum that I blog for. I'm thrilled because I can combine my love of the past (and of this particular place) with my set of professional skills.  It's almost like the old me and the more recent me have found a way to co-exist to become to become the next me. I'm also starting part time which will be a nice transition back to the working world.

I'm very excited. 

I wish I had not worried so much about how this was going to turn out.

June 8 -June 11, 1910

June 8, 1910


Sun shining bright and early. Kathy up to supper. Babcock off from 2 to 5 to the state shoot. B, K & I walked around to the new houses & up Roubek-- Hill & sat on our front porch. First nice day in a long time. 


W. Fine. Warm
R. 11

I think the rain has really been getting to him.

June 9, 1910


I picked some cinders after supper and B & I sat on the back porch awhile. 


W. Fine Warm
R. 10:15

June 10, 1910

Went to the gym from work at night & me , Johnny, Roy sch---- & John Oswald played hard ball. I did 
31' 2" in the shot put at noon


W. fair
R. 11:30
Met Bess from home

Shot Put! That's a new one. 


June 11, 1910

Rained hard. Took the car. Worked in the garden & put in 18 tomato plants. Bess sick in the A.M.


W. Fair
R. 10

Really, I think I love this man.  I have 12 tomato plants this year. I wonder what kind he grew. Whatever it was, it probably was not a hybrid and was probably something considered an heirloom today! I really wish he would have said.

June 5-7, 1910

June 5, 1910


Up at 8 and went to BAC.  ------ at the ---- gym. Clara Merle graduated & it poured & we did not leave till 2pm. I took B to the cars & came back for the rest. Clara Merle, Lucille Martie, Ed Schrai- & B & I over home to dinner. 


W. Poured from 11 till early morning. 
R. 9

Clara Merle eventually marries his brother Oscar. (But not in the diary)


June 6, 1910


Caught in a shower coming home. Developed a roll of film, ironed my aprons 7 read. It poured steady till late. Mrs W. & B & her ladies up in the afternoon. 


W. Rain at night, shower. 
R. 10


June 7, 1910


After supper I started to build a stone wall along the line side of the driveway. It rained some.


W. Rain
R. 10

Although I feel like I could do a few more entries tonight, This is a logical stopping point because of something I noticed in the entries this evening. They appear begnin and focus inordinatly on the weather. 3 days in a row.
What could I have possibly noticed?

The weather does not appear unseasonably bad or noteworthy (meaning, he's not stuck home in a 3 day blizzard or anything like that.) and yet he has talked about it 3 days in a row. Why?

These entries actually answer one of the big questions I have about the diary-When does he write?

Notice in the first entry he goes to bed at 9 but that it rains until early morning. Obviously he is not writing this at 9, as I sometimes imagine he does. He then talks about the rain 3 more days. This is because he is writing the entries all in one day and thinking about the weather and reflecting that it has rained for 3 days.

I've noticed before that he changes pens and sometimes uses pencil and sometimes uses a fountain pen. However, I've never paid attention before on how often he makes that change or when 3 in a row will be in one format and then changes to another.

 Additionally, I've never quite paid attention to the fact the his handwriting stays the same for a block of entries at a time (all big, all small, neat, sloppy, etc...) I mean I've seen this but it just was not registering with me. Tonight it hit me over the head.

Duh....

Looking back through the diary I see that this is the case for a number of the entries. This would also explain why he knows things like the Custiss flight on the day they happen. He's writing after the fact.

I also learned something tonight. I've been troubled by his use of the word till, for until.  In the diary he uses very good English and punctuation. He's rarely makes mistakes. Except for the use of the & symbol, he does not take shortcuts.

I have always assumed that till (for until, not for an actual till) was slang. It is not.  Is this an embarrassing mistake for me to have made or am I telling you something you don't know? I've never discussed this word with anyone before. If it's an embarrassing mistake don't berate me too badly!

 Till vs. ’til. vs Until

Since it looks like an abbreviation for “until,” some people argue that this word should always be spelled “’til” (though not all insist on the apostrophe). However, “till” has regularly occurred as a spelling of this word for over 800 years and it’s actually older than “until.” It is perfectly good English. 

June Giveaway at The Genesee Country Village & Museum

Hey Everyone!

Head on over to my other blog where we're giving away a brand new 1803 Fat Ox Ale Mug made right at the museum or 2 Free Admission Passes!!!  You don't have to be local to win!  

I know I'm terribly behind with Adam and Bess!!! They are calling my name. Really. But so is the rest of my life!! I hope to catch up this week!

Breast Left Alone

Today at Target my 5 year old noticed these really tiny bras in women's underwear and said,

"Look Mommy, those look like they would fit me if I had a breast!"

Later at dinner she asked me if I could draw some breasts on a piece of paper so she could cut them out and tape them on her shirt!!!!! ( I was too dumbstruck to mention that I don't wear my breasts on the outside of my shirt...)

I'm not-at-all squeamish about talking breasts, where babies come from, etc.... But I just had no answer for that one.

She's going to hate this story when she is older. 

Beary Strange

I'll just add one more note to this whole Bear saga.

I think it's interesting to note that all over the news they keep saying things like "If you see the bear do not approach it or try and provoke it"  while the Animal Control Guy told me to CHASE IT. Run at it with a stick...

It's a good thing I was not on TV because I probably would have told that whole story.

I'm starting to get the feeling that the Animal Control Man didn't like me.