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Ramona's Ramblings

Grandma’s diary July 1913, part 2

Ramona Jan
Posted 7/19/22

Grandma’s diary July 1913, part 2

My grandmother, Lina Dreher, was sixteen when she kept this diary. She was bribed, by her father, with a bank account of $200 to quit school and work in …

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Ramona's Ramblings

Grandma’s diary July 1913, part 2

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Grandma’s diary July 1913, part 2

My grandmother, Lina Dreher, was sixteen when she kept this diary. She was bribed, by her father, with a bank account of $200 to quit school and work in the family bakery alongside siblings Mary, Tillie, Joe and Em (now deceased from tuberculosis). She misses school and the boy she had a crush on, Sylvester Sheldon.

July 18th

Had a dream about Sylvester Sheldon.

July 21st

Had another dream about Sylvester. I dreamed about going to school again and that he was talking real nice to me.

July 22nd

Tillie took suddenly sick this afternoon. She got feverish and chilly and then hives broke out all over her. She then hurried home and no more than got in the door when she ran to the toilet and vomited and passed out at the same time. Then she got up and tried to go to her bed, but she could hold out no longer, and so she collapsed, bumped her head against the doorpost, bruising her head. Joe called the doctor and he said she had Cholera Morbis, which often proves fatal. He said she was out of danger though.

July 24th

I dreamed about Sylvester again. I dreamed we both went to the Orange High School and that he had an awful fight with Daisy Matson. I’m beginning to miss Em more and more.

July 25th

I’m reading the book entitled, The Wandering Jew. It has 1,298 pages. Tillie has the same book, but a later edition and it has 1,470 pages. I wonder how long it will take me to read it.

July 27th

Closed the store as usual at midnight. Went to bed next to Mary who I was talking with till about 2 A.M.

July 28th

Got up at 4:20 A.M. That’s going some! Mary got up with me and helped me clean the [bakery] cases in the store.

July 29th

It’s awful warm out. You almost smother it’s so close. Had a terrible [rain] shower about 4:30 P.M. and before it rained, it got so dark that you couldn’t tell a jelly doughnut from a loaf of bread.

July 30th

Castle’s Ice Cream driver treated us to a brick of cream. Very warm again. The temperature now (6:30 A.M.) is 80 degrees.

July 31st

The people who lived under us moved out. My, but they were a noisy and dirty crowd! Why, the landlord had to take their hall carpet out and clean it for them. And one day they took an old carpet out of their rooms and started to clean it, and it made so much dirt that the people next door closed all their windows. Now you have a faint idea how dirty they were.

One day Joe was practicing his piano lesson (before Em died, poor soul) and they came up and said we should please stop playing piano, because their girl was sick. We did so, but about ten minutes later you could hear them singing to the top of their voices, and they were running around as if they were playing tag.

About two hours later, they came and told us we could play. But this is the worst of all. When Em was laid out in the stretcher, they ran about laughing and carrying on so that Mama and Tillie were all nervous for the stretcher shook awful and it looked as if it would fall any minute. They kept this up until Mr. Graulich [the landlord] came up and told them that they ought to respect the dead, and not act like children. So I don’t thing there’s any loss by their moving out.

They left about four or five barrels of dirt scattered over the floors! Pigs! Joe said that some people believe the more dirt that they leave behind, the more luck they have.

To be continued…

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