Friday Favourites - Grandma's Journal

I have my Grandma's journal. I'm not really sure how I came to be in possession of it, but I have it. It's one smallish soft cover notebook that my Grandma scribbled her thoughts in from January of 1958 until September of '64. I also have a small notebook she used as an accounting book in 1978. This is where she'd list her purchases at stores that have long since gone out of business. To an astute reader it's proof that my Grandpa enjoyed his liquor, that my Grandma thought that a single dollar bill was a more than adequate birthday present, and that she loved to spend money on Avon. Mike and I flipped through her "ledger book" tonight, passing it back and forth. Chuckling at the prices ( $3.50 got you 5 dozen eggs) and reminiscing about restaurants that are long gone (pizza from Nero's for $6.25).

Of course the really interesting stuff is in the journal, which probably isn't a journal in the truest sense of the word. My Grandma didn't sprawl herself across her bed and pour of her feelings onto the page. Just a few hastily written disjointed sentences that described how she had passed her day. To be fair, I'm sure she didn't have time for anything more than that. My Grandma was a stay at home mother of 5, two girls and 3 boys. They lived in an old farm house with no indoor plumbing and no electric heat source or stove. As busy and as full as her house already was there was always room for one or two or five more. Everyone congregated at that house, squished around the table, waiting to be fed some fresh hot cross buns or home made perogies.

In the beginning of her journal the entries are longer;

Sunday March 9, 1958
Went to church for 8 in the morning. John sure didn't want to get up. Ed was getting ready to go to Soo Saint Marie to work. Helen went back to Delhi for 12. We went to Woc.....ski's but they weren't home so when we got home Mother phoned to say she saw Lucy so we went back to Woc....ski's. She gave some clothes for Diane she said that Josie had her baby on the 21 of February. It weighed 7 1/2 pounds a boy. Jenny and Kurt were also down. We also had some coffee and ham sandwiches. John had a couple of beers. Josie went to Trinity young people.

By the end of 1964 her entries were little more than a single line, scrawled across the page with a pencil that definitely needed to be sharpened.

Wednesday September, 2 1964
Did 14 jars of peaches.

I love being the keeper of this family record. I love having the opportunity to read about my Mom as a young girl.

Thursday July 15, 1964
Diane and Judy went to a dance party at CHCH-TV.

Love reading the chronicle of day to day life. In a house of 7 people, that mean a lot of laundry. So it's not surprising that a lot of entries start:

Tuesday June 11, 1958
I washed clothes. I can't remember doing very much. I did some ironing. Also patched Diane's jeans.

In a house with no indoor plumbing laundry meant using the hand pump to get water from the well, filling up the wringer washer, filling two rinse basins, wash/wring/rinse/wring/rinse/wring and finally hang on the line. I'm sure she spent half her life doing laundry.

It also appears my Grandma may have invented the sideblog. Sometimes in the margin you'll find a tiny entry. Like on Saturday February 22, 1958 she wrote beside her regular entry about playing Bingo and winning a door prize a small notation that says Gordon started walking today.

I think the entry that I find the most poignant is this:

Wednesday March 19, 1958
Today is St. Joseph. The kids were fussy. Ricky threw a dirty rag in my clean rinse water. I could have crowned him. I just felt like bawling. The kids came home at noon because teachers had a meeting. Josie washed the floors and we gave the place a going over.

Yeah, that one. The one that is proof positive that my Grandma the most patient and even tempered person I had ever met was more like me than I thought, a frazzled Mom who some days found herself at the end of her rope.