Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Dec. 28, 2005

Early calendars relied on diaries

At midnight Saturday, 2006 begins. I wonder how many of our Americans serving in Iraq know that the very first New Year's festival was held there in 2000 B.C. in the city of Babylon. That ancient city is now a ruins but it is near the modern city Hillah.

What better description of the arrival of another year than New Year's Day 1791 written by that beloved Scottish poet Robert Burns.

This day Time winds the exhausted chain,
To run the twelve month's length again.

Once the celebration is past, we mark the happenings of each day and each month in the calendar. For many years the calendar was an important staple in our home. It was the shorthand version of one year's important happenings in the life of our family. Each month was filled with notations of each family member's activities.

Gradually, the children all left and the calendar became much less interesting. Now it was reminders of doctor and dentist appointments for the two of us left tending the empty nest.

Before we had those handy calendars, earlier generations depended on diaries. I was reminded that some people still depend on them when a Christmas letter from a friend we hear from once a year used his diary to sum up his year. This man is a gardener and in March he pruned his fruit trees. In May he used the rototiller, planted seed, 30 sweet potato plants and 8 tomato plants. Rabbits ate 20 sweet potato plants and 5 tomato plants. In June he attended his 67th high school reunion. In July he revisited Camp Ellis in Illinois where he trained for WWII. August, the garden dried up. In December his seventh great-grandchild was born.

My mother-in-law wrote in her diary every day. After her death in 1974 we found three stenographer's notebooks that were her diaries covering 1970 to 1974. I had saved them unread all these years but this seemed the time to open them.

The first thing that struck me was the beautiful, clear handwriting, an almost lost art. First came the date, then the temperature and weather and the time she arose. This was followed by the housekeeping chores she did and the food she prepared. Letters she received and visitors were recorded. When she went shopping, she put the amount she spent at each store. She was a great Cincinnati Reds baseball fan and listened to all the games. The scores were always noted. Each entry ended with the time she retired.

Those years were all written in a very methodical business-like manner. Seldom were there any personal thoughts. She relented on June 11, l970 when she wrote "I was married 62 years ago tonight (first time)." Her second marriage was to her first husband's brother, Walter, and several times she indicated irritation when she wrote, "Walter's loafing."

Her final entry on May 19, 1974 was "Lovely a.m. cool. Got up at 8 a.m. I ate, read paper." Before she took her afternoon nap we played a game of scrabble which she loved. She won that game and I was happy because she wakened from her nap and died before she could get out of bed. That day never was completed in her diary.

Now that e-mail is the preferred way to communicate, diaries and maybe even calendars will be gone for future generations seeking to learn more about the life of ancestors.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday. She may be reached at ebrush@frontiernet.net