My Great Grandmother's Journals

I've written about these before, you can catch up quickly here.

I thought I misplaced most of them, and I looked through several closets, boxes, and drawers over the last couple of years.  I only had the most recent two or three years worth, not the older ones.

Then last week Mom, (Granny Tea), revealed that she had them- I had brought them over to show my aunt, and learned Mom had never read them either, so I left them here for her to read.

My great-grandmother and her husband had four children, two girls and two boys.  I think he was a supervisor in a steel mill.

Her oldest child was my mother's mother. Her youngest child was quite a bit younger than the rest. He'd served in WW2, and married an out of state girl when he came home, but they settled down not too far from his parents. In fact, at least at first, they rented from his parents.

Her youngest son and his wife had one little girl at the time this journal begins, and she and this grandmother would always be very close. She is the baby mentioned in this 1951 entry for January on the anniversary of my great-grandfather's death:

"Dad left us today. The year has been long and lonely. Have tried to do as he would want me to.  So glad to have Rogers and that darling baby."

Other entries that week- she paid the milk man (3.13), the light bill, the telephone and water bills (total of about 8 dollars), spent 6 dollars on groceries, and 4.59 on meat, put in five tons of coal (no price given) and 'rec'd back from Social Security' 50.70

Her daughter-in-law was expecting their second child, and my great-grandmother wrote on the day that she went to the hospital to deliver, she (my great grandmother) had her little grand-daughter to stay as her guest. When the new mother came home from the hospital, my great-grandmother went to stay with the family, helping with the older girl (who was 'so good'), and getting supper and dinner for the family, and getting up at 7:30 with her grand-daughter.

She helped her son do the laundry  and he helped her figure out her taxes.  By the time the baby was three weeks old, she was babysitting both baby and his big sister while his parents shopped.  A notable entry was when they went out and bought a Frigidaire refrigerator.

For more on refrigerators and advertisements, you should really check out this blog. It's fascinating