“If I could go somewhere sometime, I might be able to write something in this diary that would be interesting, and not have every entry full of stale doings.”
Helena Muffly, July 24, 1911
Sixteen-year-old farm girl Helena Muffly lived between Watsontown and McEwensville when she kept her diary from 1911 to 1914. She lived with her mother and father, her older sister Ruth (“Rufus”), and her younger brother Jimmie. Her diary reveals the thoughts of a girl eager to experience more than what she saw as the tedium of rural life in the Susquehanna Valley. Helena wrote again and again about how boring her days were, about how she had nothing to report in her diary, and about how everyone seemed to be leading more exciting lives than her. When she stopped keeping a diary at the end of 1914, she wrote that it was because she had nothing to write about.
But a closer look at the diary shows that she was a remarkable mobile person for someone who thought of herself as trapped on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Writing in the years before the automobile transformed mobility for farming households in places like rural Northumberland County, Helena walked, rode on wagons and sleighs, and took trains to fulfill obligations and pursue leisure. She rode in an automobile three times during these years, always on the roads close to her farm. During the years of her diary, the farthest she went from her home was Toronto, over two hundred miles away. That August 1914 family trip, which required day-long train rides, began in a rowboat on the Susquehanna River.
In the map below, we’ve marked the places that Helena mentioned in her diary between January 1911 and December 1914. Zooming in on and out of the map and clicking on the icons shows brief descriptions of what she did at those sites.
Helena’s top ten most frequent destinations, in order of frequency:
- SCHOOL: Helena wrote about school fondly. She missed it during summer breaks, mostly because of the work she had to do around the house when she wasn’t at school. Her school was in McEwensville, on the edge of the town cemetery.
- CHURCH: Helena went to Sunday service and Sunday School most weeks. She noted in her diary those rare occasions when she missed either, usually due to bad weather or sickness. On days when the roads were particularly muddy, Helena walked to church along the railroad tracks.
- WATSONTOWN: Apart from school and church, Watsontown was where Helena went most during the diary years. This was her main shopping destination, as well as the site for plays, movies, and other entertainments.
- McEWENSVILLE: This was the closest thing Helena had to a “hometown.” Her school was here, a Lutheran church with frequent programming was here, and she had several friends who lived in town. When her parents sent Helena out on errands, it was typically to McEwensville.
- MILTON: This was Helena’s second-most frequent shopping destination, the home of her family’s dentist, and the site of a yearly fair. Milton was also the place where one of the biggest intrigues of her diary played out. In August 1914, she bought a Brownie camera here and hid it from her mother outside their house.
- OAKES FARM: At some point during the diary-keeping, Helena’s sister Ruth might have been courting with James Oakes, Jr. Helena went here about once every three months, always with Ruth. This is the place where Helena first heard a Victor Victrola, and it was the place she played croquet.
- CARRIE STOUT: One of Helena’s best friends, Carrie Stout appeared every week in the diary. Although Carrie visited Helena more often that Helena went to Carrie’s house, Helena still went there regularly. This was especially the case when school ended. Although Helena complained about the boredom and work of summer, that was when she and Carrie went for walks, visited each other’s houses, and enjoyed fairs and festivals.
- TURBOTVILLE: With McEwensville less than a mile from home, Watsontown a mile and a half away, and Milton two miles away, Helena went to Turbotville (three and a half miles away) only five times during her diary days. She never went there to shop, just to pick up her cousin from the train or to wander with Carrie. She also went to her grandfather’s funeral in Turbotville. When she walked there and back with Carrie in March 1911, she wrote “we were rather weak in our feet by the time we got home.”
- MESSIAH EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH: Although this was not her church, Helena attended Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve services here each year. She also attended Children’s Day services here in the summer of 1914. This is where Helena got married in 1921.
- HELEN WESNER: Another close friend of Helena’s, nicknamed “Tweet.” Helena was here often, though seemingly not as much as she visited Carrie Stout’s. When Ruth went to a party here in March 1911, Helena wrote that she expected her to be out until dawn.
See Sheryl Lazarus’s site A Hundred Years Ago for day-by-day commentary on the Muffly diary.
Return to the CENTRAL SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY HISTORY PROJECT.