Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Upon Which I Tell You About Lennie's Diary in Year 1898

These days nobody writes anything on paper. It's email or twitter or blogs or whatever. And little of it is printed out for posterity. (Sure, you think just because it's on the Net that it is forever! But that's what you thought about your VCR movies, too!)

We have in our possession a shoe box full of letters that Hubby's mother wrote home to her mother. A huge lot of them. But this post is not about those letters.

Instead, I am writing about Hubby's grandfather's diary. It was a simple little pocket-size book with a couple lines set apart for each day. Each day in 1898 Lennie (his name was Charles Leonard) wrote succinct notes about his day. He was seventeen. He was in high school and worked on the neighbor's farm. He played in the town band and liked girls. His transportation was either a horse or a bicycle. There were no cars yet.

I have a fondness for Lennie. My hubby very much resembles him physically, and although I never met Lennie, I'm thinking their personalities were similar as well.

I hope you will click over to Lennie's diary and follow along as I post his daily notes nearly 113 years later.

And, maybe, perhaps, it will inspire you to begin a diary of your own.

Happy New Year, Everybody! Happy New Year!
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Today's Word: succinct [səkˈsɪŋkt] adjective
Definition
1. marked by brevity and clarity; concise
2. compressed into a small area

5 comments:

Caroline said...

In the town where I live, there is an unofficial town wide email list that has several thousand members. One person is a local historian and one year he posted the daily entries of a journal of a relatively famous local man each day. Then he went on to a young woman's diary daily. This year has been the second year of her diary. It is followed and commented on widely throughout the town and is very popular.

Nancy's Point said...

WhiteStone, How wonderful you have that box of letters. Also, to get your hands on such a diary, what a treasure. It's like getting an extra glimpse of your own hubby too in a way. It is kind of sad we don't write stuff down much anymore. I actually received a new journal from my daughter for Christmas, so guess I'll have to continue doing some old fashioned writing as well as typing away on my computer! Happy New Year!

Kelly said...

Believe it or not, I do still use a handwritten journal. I've kept one (though not daily) since I was in the 7th grade (many moons ago). I recent years I've had both a prayer journal and a regular journal, but I'm going to phase them into one journal during the coming year. I find I use my prayer journal far more than the other.

I think it's wonderful that you have both the letters and the diary. Truly a treasure!

Relyn Lawson said...

I was stopping by because I wanted to wish you a happy new year and thank you for being a follower of my blog. It means a lot to me. Thank you. May your new year be filled with laughter, more joy than sorrow, peace, and wisdom. Blessings to you. Happy new year!

John said...

Happy New Year to you, too!

I love reading old diary entries, by the way.