16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, January 20, 1912: Ruth and I went to Milton this afternoon. We both had our pictures taken. I hope mine won’t be any bigger than what I am, but I won’t know for a whole week yet.
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Old postcard of South Front Street, Milton. (Source: Milton Historical Society, Used with permission.)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Sounds like Grandma was worried that she’d look heavy in the photo. I wonder if she’d gained weight over the holiday season.
The Muffly farm is about 6 miles from Milton—but the sisters probably used “mass transit” to get there.
Ruth and Grandma probably walked the two miles to Watsontown—or maybe they took the train to Watsontown. (There was a whistle-stop for the Susquehanna Bloomsburg and Berwick Railroad at Truckenmiller’s Feed Mill which was located near their farm.) Once the sisters got to Watsontown they would have taken the trolley from Watsontown to Milton.
It amazes me how many transportation options were available in a relatively remote area of Pennsylvania a hundred years ago. And, how trolleys and passenger rail service vanished a little later in the 20th century as automobile ownership proliferated.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
