17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, August 10, 1912: It didn’t rain this afternoon; it poured. Our front porch was a sight, sod covered it tonight. Ruth went up to Bryson’s on the train. Had to help her get ready. And now we’re here all alone, just we three. Seems so quiet and rather lonesome.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
With a drought over much of the country this year, rain sounds wonderful (even if Grandma was less than enthusiastic about it). Did the wind somehow blow grass or weeds up on the porch?
The tracks for the Susquehanna, Bloomsburg, and Berwick Railroad went along the edge of the Muffly farm. Ruth probably got on the train at a nearby feed mill. There was a whistle stop there.
It’s funny how Grandma gets so frustrated with Ruth—yet almost immediately misses her when she goes somewhere. I guess that’s just the way things go with sisters.
Why does the diary entry refer to three people being at home? It seems like there should have been four: Grandma, her mother, her father, and her little brother Jimmie.
