A New Blog for an old Diary

It's now 2015 and I'm going to revive this blog which has lain dormant for so long, using it to post my grandmother's 1907 diary, with photos and recollections of her.

I've had this small red book for years, kept it safely tucked into the top shelf, but age and desert dryness are crumbing the edges, so I want to transcribe the contents before they disappear. What's interesting about this little book is that it's also my mother's diary from 1937. My grandma was 11 when she wrote her entries, Mom was 12.

There are mysteries here, beginning with the title page, where my grandma writes her name as Dorothy M. Willyoung, very clearly. But we always knew her middle name to be Carpenter, after her mother's mother, Ella Louisa Carpenter, who was born about 1833. Ella married Charles Morris, and their third child was Eliza Victoria Morris, b 17 Dec, 1861, in New Jersey. Eliza was my grandmother's mother, so perhaps she adopted the M for Morris, to honor her mother.

I have a napkin from my grandma's trousseau, with the initials DCW embroidered in a corner. It is wearing thin at the folds, but I use it occasionally. When I was photographing my breakfasts for Irene, I used it in June, 2009, but the fork partially covers the initials.

So, there's that mystery. Another is the house at that address. I know that four of the five children were born in PA, and the youngest, Elmer Grant Willyoung, Jr, called Grantie, to distinguish him from his father, was born in 1901 in NY. So the family must have moved from PA to NY sometime between 1898 and 1901. My grandma have lived in the Mt Vernon house for some years before she began her diary.

I have several photos of the family. For this first post I've chosen a family grouping from a house I haven't identified yet. Three children and their parents, on a front porch, my grandma, the youngest, on her father's lap. I don't think this is their house in Mt. Vernon, however.

I Googled the address, 5 N. Fulton, Mt Vernon, and found a photo of two houses, each three story, but the porches and door alignments don't match. Checking on Zillow, I found that the house had sold in 2004, with a link to the realtor. I called him and had a wonderful conversation. I did tell him first that I was not a potential client, but that I was looking for information about a house on Fulton Ave. He was very helpful, told me that the house is now a three-family residence, and that the front porch had been enclosed, but the front doors were in the center of the front, not to one side as in the family photo. He offered to email me the listing photo and more info. Alas, this house was built in 1935, so the old Willyoung house must have been destroyed. Another mystery.

So, that's the beginning. I hope to transcribe all the entries, both of my grandmother and of my mother, and post them. Grandma Dot kept her diary through April, then set it aside. Mom began her entries in October. Grandma Dot's are in ink, blotted at times; Mom's are in pencil. Each girl added occasional drawings, which I will photograph.

Several of the opening pages have been cut out, so the diary begins on Page 7.

Page 7
Jan. 6, 1906, Mon.
Today I woke up and began to read. I finished a book. I was late for breakfast. After breakfast I went to school. It was very warm. In the afternoon after I had come home from school, we went down to the sawmill and stayed about fifteen minutes. Then papa called me up. Margaret, Beatrice and I took a ride and rode all the afternoon. When I came home I took my music lesson. Ate my supper and read a while. Then went to bed.