what a difference a year makes

I think I've figured out how I'm going to organize my posts about Mildred's diary, at least for the first year, where her writing looks like it's more organized. I'm going to post a month at a time - they're very short entries, so they don't merit individual posts. But they're so interesting you guys, just you wait!

I prefer to do this chronologically, but I wanted to share what I see on the first page because the juxtaposition is really interesting to me. January 1 only has two entries - one from 1924 and one from 1925. Here they are:

Jan. 1, 1924: Cold, but glorious day. Slept late after watch party. Played pinochle with Warners. Attended show "An Unwanted Child" with Mama and C.H. Kiddies in fine health.

Jan. 1, 1925: We are living in another year - existing rather. Plenty to eat but so much unhappiness in our family that real living, for me at least, is impossible.

The 1925 entry continues for pages so I won't include all of it here, but it's clear that her mood and her life circumstances have changed pretty drastically. The fact that she even mentions that there is plenty to eat seems to me an indication of worry that that might not always be the case.  

But! We will save that for later. For now, here are some of my thoughts on the 1924 entry:

• What do you suppose a New Years Eve watch party was like in the early 20s? Probably radio-oriented, right? Although maybe 1923/24 was too early for a working class family to have a radio? No idea, really.
• She mentions C.H. quite often - if I ever find out who that is, I'll let you know.
• The kiddies she mentions are Roger and Norma (Granna). Granna had just turned one year old in October.
• Before I read very much of the diary, I was excited to see that she went to a show on New Years - I thought it must have been a big special thing! So I tried to do some research about this particular show, and found a little bit of information - but it looks like she went to shows all the time, so I won't be researching most of them. Unless I get a wild hair.  Anyway, here are some partial reviews I found online:

UNWANTED CHILD A PLEASING SURPRISE - If there are any who did not have the pleasure of witnessing "The Unwanted Child" at The Majestic yesterday on account of its title being somewhat suggestive, they should by all means avail themselves of the opportunity of seeing the play today. There is absolutely nothing suggestive and it is a comedy that will b (and then it's cut off).  I think this is funny - the idea of an unwanted child is so suggestive that people might avoid seeing the play and instead sit in their parlors clutching their pearls and fanning themselves.

The Unwanted Child "Unwanted Child" a Strong Play Florence Edna May's most distinguished success 'The Unwanted Child’ the sensational “woman's" play which set the theatrical world to talking and theatre-goers to buying seats to see it over and over again, comes to the Majestic theatre for two days starting Monday matinee and with a matinee daily for ladies only. "The Unwanted Child" Is in four acts, laid in the country and in New York and concerns persons who meet, look and love; the man a member of society, the girl quite the other end of the social ladder. The story of their love is told by Miss May with a force and [garbled text] so direct, the play is produced by the Unity Play Company with such exquisite delicacy, and the portrayal of its heroine is done with such a depth of understanding and emotion that the performance takes rank as one of the most notable in recent years.  

UNWANTED CHILD AT THE WALKER As the sophisticated playgoer will probably have guessed. "The Unwanted Child” presented at the Walker theatre last evening (we cannot speak of the "ladies only" maimed performance, as we were not present) had nothing whatever to do with sociology. Almost any other of 100 titles would have fitted the comedy equally as well, and we can recall 100 other plays that might with equal justification have been named "The Unwanted Child." It is an old-fashioned play in which city folk and country folk come together, and the country folk give the city people [garbled text] to prove that "Pilgrim's Progress" has not been lying on the parlor table for over 10 years for nothing. A rich young artist, his sister, and a designing young widow spend the summer at a farm [garbled text]. The artist falls in love with the farmer's adult daughter, and the sister likes the farmer's simple-hearted son. The artist's mother tries to break off the affair but eventually he marries the girl. This is a fairly long synopsis, but most of it is really garbled and I can't translate it. Really, the main thing I took away from this is that the writer described a performance he didn't see as "maimed", presumably on the basis that it was for ladies only. Unless "maimed" is not really the word he used, and it was transcribed incorrectly, as much of the rest of the review was.

I think these little hints at history are truly, truly fascinating. I could sit and read this diary for hours and hours and hours. And hours.

    

Mildred's diary

I have decided that this is Mildred.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm about 95% sure.  Maybe 98%.  Who is Mildred? Well. Here is what I know about her:

• Mildred A. Wells was born on August 23, 1901 in Hardin County Ohio to Mollie Hamilton Spring (1882-1926) and Denton S. Wells (1874-1935). 
• She married Merritt Dukes (10/13/1891-1/5/1976) probably on March 1, 1920.
• She had a son, Roger Dukes, on September 26, 1920 - she had just turned 19.
• She had a daughter, Norma Belle Dukes, on October 4, 1922.
• She was divorced in 1924 or 1925. 
• She married Roy Smith on December 24, 1926. They had a baby on 12/6/28, who died. They had a son, Tom Smith, on September 13, 1933.
• Pop called her Nana.
• She died on October 18, 1982 in Findlay, Ohio. 

This is Nana's diary.

Granna kept it, and I am lucky enough to have ended up with it. She wasn't particularly organized with her writing, and didn't follow the "page a day" concept, but went on writing binges where she would fill up pages and pages and then stop for half the year. The diary begins on January 1, 1924 and the last few sporadic entries are from 1932 and 33. She seems to have been much more enthusiastic about writing in it during the first months of every year, usually tapering off in June.

So I'm going to blog about it from time to time because it has some really interesting (to me) things in it.  It has an inscription in the front that says:

To Mrs. Mildred Dukes

From

Laurence A Brown

Dec 25 [19]23

(1)

Now that the day is over, 

The sun gone down in the west, 

Our bodies so tired and weary

Are ready for peace and rest.

(2)

And if by the will of the father

We rise to another day,

We pray He may find us ready

His will both to do and obey.

(3)

But if 'ere tomorrows dawning,

Our journey here shall be past,

May we say "Good morning" in Glory,

Home Sweet Home at last.

That's sort of nice, isn't it?  Who is Laurence Brown, I wonder?  A pastor?  A relative or a family friend?  A potential suitor who knew her marriage was troubled?  A couple of pages in, she wrote her name, "Mrs. Merritt E. Dukes," which might indicate that she still at least wanted to be married to her husband... or maybe it was just a perfectly conventional way for a married woman, in whatever state of marriage, to refer to herself.  Before the diary starts, she writes:

And so has ended the year 1923 - a year of sunshine and sorrows almost equally divided. So can or should we complain? God has seen fit to reunite a divided family and has permitted us to live prosperously and in comparatively good health, and we have not been sufficiently grateful to him to be as kind and considerate of each other as we might have been. But with the coming of the new year, I for one will try ever so hard to make life a little easier, a little more pleasant every day. MD

a memory

Granna (Norma) was an operator for AT&T.  I'm not sure for how long, or when she retired, but she was definitely retired by the time I became conscious of the world.  She collected old fashioned telephone miniatures, which I wish I'd kept.  And upon retirement, she received a little clock that sounds like a big loud grandfather clock, which I did keep.  She also kept a little souvenir for herself, which she shared with me and my sister...

When I was little, Granna lived on Westmoreland Street in McLean, VA. At the corner of Westmoreland and Kirby Road, there used to be a little farmer's market.  Maybe it was more of just a vegetable stand.  (Now it's just houses).  Granna was diligent about going for a walk every day for her health, and so we would walk up to the vegetable stand on the corner, maybe buy a few things, and walk back.  One of the houses on the street had a long chain-link fence in front, and Granna would always give me her keychain to hold and run along the fence to make a clanging noise.  She did this with Shylah too--I'm not sure why either of us thought that was super fun.

This is the keychain:

I never really knew what it was - it just looks like an incomplete piece of something, doesn't it?  I don't remember how, but I found out eventually that it's a sort of plug that telephone operators would plug into the switchboard to connect people.  Like this:

When we were cleaning out our grandparents' house after Grandpa died, we found the keychain in a little box, and that tiny insignificant memory came flooding back.  I love that ugly old keychain, I always will.