Marion and Jacob Masters with baby Gordon ~ 1929

I spent much of my youth on my great-grandmother’s home. Nana llived on the family farm that had been in the Stiles family for generations. The 1977 picture of me on my pony, Snoppy has the same building as its backdrop as the 1929 photo of  Nana and Grampa Jake in front of their first car. This was the place where much of my imagination was born. It’s also where my interest in family history and creativity was forged. The farm is gone now; I was too young to save it, but Nana gave me the greatest of  inheiritance before she died… she entrusted me with family photos and the diaries she and my great-great grandmother kept while living on the farm I loved so much. It is a historical record of a simple life. There are no duals or political adventures… there is, however, a great deal about “wash day.”

I am tied to these penciled scrawlings, and in a way I can see them. For I lived in the shadow of these events… One entry speaks of Nana receiving her fur coat. This was no small purchase for a family who sold dairy as a living, and there was no shame in owning one at that time. I remember playing in the closet where this coat was hung decades later and being told to be careful, “Those coats are expensive.”  My playground was found in the echo of these entries.

And so I cherish them.

From time to time I would like to share those entries with you and while they may mean little to you, we should remember that history is not made up of a series of events, but of the people who lived them. We can learn from the way they lived… even in the most simple of tasks. I am struck by their contentment. As we whine and argue about bail-outs and the economic crisis, I find little in these diaries complaining about the depression. They learned to live simply and share what they had with others. Take this entry for example, very few people could afford their own equipment, but neighbors would share the equipment they had with eachother.

72 years ago today.
Marion Stiles Masters

Tuesday March 30, 1937
They moved the sawing machine up to Cleary’s today. Mamma  and I went up to Aunt Dora’s.