More about Journals

I have two of my mother's journals, or diaries. One is from the year 1916, when she was 16 and still in high school. The second one is dated 1921. These charming bits of writing have given me a glimpse of a young woman that I never knew. I am the youngest of her children, and she was 36 when I was born.

The 1916 diary has entries that are a full page long, and I will talk about them at some later time. The 1921 diary is full of sketchy one or two sentence accounts of her life at that time. Mother was 21, and working for her dad. As I have mentioned before, he was a very mechanical minded person, and owned a car repair garage in down town Anderson. In fact, the building still stands at 9th and Jackson, but was long ago remodeled into an office building.

Mother ran the office at the garage. She sent out statements and wrote any letters.
If must have been a very informal arrangement, because she seemed to go in at any time of day. She often slept late. And sometimes she stayed late at the garage and came home with her dad as late as midnight. She tells about the stories he has told to his friends at the garage. I remember my grandpa as a very independent minded man. I don't think the women (gramdma and my mother) could ever depend on him to do as they wanted. He definitely lived life as HE wanted.

It seemed that he must have stayed at the garage every evening, because most evenings Mother and Grandma seemed to eat downtown at one restaurant or another. And to think that I thought my generation was the first to adopt that habit! Mother also talks of taking a china painting night class. And, indeed, we still have some of Mother's hand painted china. It is very delicate, sweet, and well done.
She also talks often of going to the movies with her mother and Aunt Loretta.

At this time she is also dating my father. BUT she is not sure that she wants to.
She must have made his poor life a mixture of misery and happiness. She seems to waver between really liking him and really wishing he would go away. When I think that they didn't marry until 1925, I feel very sorry for him. In the diary it seems he is forever sending her flowers, letters, candy, or gifts.

I compare her ease of life at 21 with the hard-working years of her marriage. She raised five children, lived through the depression, and never had much money. I'm happy that she had those carefree days of painting, reading, shopping, and going to movies.

I have read my Grandmother Green's account of her life. She is my Father's mother.
She taught school at 15 or 16, married my Grandfather Green when she was quite young.
And he was quite a bit older than she, a widower, and had one daughter. Grandma Green spent her married life moving from one place to another every year with her minister husband. She raised her own family, kept on teaching school, and looked after Grandpa Green who suffered poor health, all the while moving and moving and moving! I didn't know this grandmother until she was much older and a widow. But she always seemed so serene, happy, and at peace. She must have been a saint.

Then I think about myself at 21. Don and I were married. Randy was born when I was 21. We were busy working, Don was finishing college, and we were having great fun with our new baby. We were years and years working at both of us finishing our various college degrees and working and having two more children. Until this retirement time of my life, I never had the time for movies and eating out every evening. Neither did we ever have the stress of going through a depression (maybe right now we are close to one).

So, as I reflect on these three generations of women, who all raised families, lived in Indiana, but lived a great variety of life experiences, I realize that women just adjust to life situations. Or they must adjust if there is to be any happiness, and that peace and serenity that I always saw in Grandma Green's face. And I am thankful for these little bits of written insights that have been handed down to me.