I will be traveling without internet access until the end of December! I'll update all the entries. The end! I am so sad our journal year is over. I have a journal from John from 1928, which he finishes in March and doesn't continue. I have another journal from Virginia from 1931, which she keeps pretty consistently, and then one from 1932 with just a scattering of entries. Any votes for what you want to read next?
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After school again - This time you came in for a tiny moment - a dance - a question for Alice - and home again. If I could close every day with a dance with you I would not mind working and going to school.
Did I say "no" to my pal and sweetheart? Oh, how could I! No further? Never any further? I kept my promise of Wednesday - for you. Was it really for you, after all. "So soft" "Much softer" - with the promise kept. Tonight you made me cry - because I hurt you - and because I did not trust you. But you still love me and I may still call you my pal and sweetheart - I may forever - my own.
CANNING FRUIT - IV Fruit Time for boiling (minutes) Quantity of Sugar per Quart (Oz.) Wild grapes 10 8 Plums 10 8 Ripe currents 6 8 Tomatoes 20 -- My work has "gone" beautifully all day. As finance committee chairman - I felt quite important explaining our new budget and making a plea for dues.
I walked out to the cars to meet you, pal, and waited from twenty of ten until quarter after. I wonder what detained my "old reliable." There was no one here but Brother when I came in - I have enjoyed myself living over the past year or so and wonder what the next will bring. You have met me again after school, pal o' mine. You seem sweeter than ever. You are going to help me with my schoolwork - Wednesday and bring me a calendar and - my promise. All day I have been in a trance - thinking of last evening - and our wonderful weekend together. It has been so perfect - it will have to be balanced. CANNING FRUIT - III Fruit Time for boiling (minutes) Quantity of Sugar per Quart (Oz.) Peaches (halved) 8 4 Peaches (whole) 15 4 Small pears (whole) 30 8 Gooseberries 8 8 Breakfast at the Hotel Bethlehem - leaving for home at 11:10 - arriving in Philly at 3:30. But even the motor trouble was fun - an experience to remember. Two promises. One - that if you should die before I - I will keep on living - for you. And now while you are living I am living for you. The other - you are right there are more ways than one - of committing suicide. But a promise is a promise - I will keep it and help you to kill yourself by so doing. I will not go further - not because I do not trust you because I love you. It would be safe for me but not for you - But some day when things are okay I will be yours, then you will be free to love me.
Oh what a day. Up early - worked hard until 11:00 then downtown - home again, dressed, and off for Bethlehem with Alice, John, Fred and "Moon." Dinner at to the hotel to dress for the dance. My pal looks wonderful - so aristocratic with his tux. But it is so hard to see you dance with other girls. Twelve o'clock - the dance is over (Phi Delta Pi) and the car is not fit to bring us home. Our room is lovely and the view from our window down into the Leigh Valley peopled with lights and the mountains outlined against the clear moonlit sky. I wonder pal if (or when) we will be together in a room like that? You are wonderful - wonderful to give me such a week's end.
CANNING FRUIT - II Fruit Time for boiling (minutes) Quantity of Sugar per Quart (Oz.) Sour Apples 10 5 PIneapples (sliced) 15 6 Quinces (sliced) 15 10 Whortle berries 5 4 Why do I feel that I must write something in this book each day? I feel as though it were a sacred duty (though it is not). To write my secrets here is as telling them to someone dear to me - as though I were confiding in a friend.
It is hard to work in such an atmosphere, Walt. S. has not said a word to me since Tuesday evening. I have done nothing to hurt you, Walt. Someone said it is jealousy. He is jealous of John.
CANNING FRUIT - I: General Rule: Add one pound of sugar to four pounds of fruit. Add water sufficient to keep from burning. If fruit is very tart, use more sugar. Whether glass or tin the cans must of course be air tight. A peep into the future! Goodbye, dear. "Don't stay late, haven't you forgotten something?" You gave it to me so willingly - just as all tactful husbands would do - you brought back a peace offering. Not candy or flowers but cakes. "The softest pillows in the world" - just for you (and yours). All you have to offer me is the love of a bank teller? That's exactly what I want - your love and your best. No more and no less than your best and you.
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ContextThis is the journal of Virginia Lee Scott, my grandmother, written when she was seventeen and first dating my grandfather, John Arnold Wilson. It's a dairy published by Media Drug Stores and includes space for two entries per day, with facts about the era printed at the bottom, which I have included in italics. Following, 1928, is the journal of John Arnold Wilson, my grandfather, at age nineteen and in love with my grandmother, followed by my grandmother's journal in 1931. Archives
April 2018
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