Trip down memory lane today!!! Old Journals

My wife kept a daily journal since her 12th birthday (8-8-1962) when she was given a daily journal. NOT a diary a journal. She wrote about the things that happened on that day in her journals. She kept writing them until she could not longer hold a pen to write with about two weeks before she died. The last entry she wrote was on 9-10-1995. She passed on 9-28-1995. So there are 23 years of daily journals of her/our everyday life. She did not write about her personal feelings or emotions. Just normal everyday stuff.

I found them while moving some stuff in the attic of the farm house this morning. I did not come down out of the attic for 4 hours. I just sit there and read her account of our daily lives. (Darn screen is blurry)

I stopped by the bank and put them in a safety deposit box. I talked to all the kids early this evening. I am going to have a copy of all of the journals made for each of my kids and grand kids. I feel that these may help them remember their Mother/Grand Mother and also explain just what our life together was. I will also have some additional copies made for some others that would like to have then too.

I also found out she kept a record of every single foster child that she cared for in these journals. She wrote their names and all the information she had for them on the day they came to her. Then she wrote about when they left and where they where going.

I am going to have the one Grand Daughter, that is real good at record keeping and computers, make a complete list of all the foster kids she cared for. This can now be done on a computer so that we have the names and the time spent with us all organize.

Some examples out of the journals:

Nov. 15,1964:
Mom showed me how to make curtains today. We made new ones for my bedroom. They really look nice. We had a nice Beef roast for supper. Aunt Dot gave us a side of beef for helping them butcher last week when we had the first good cold spell.

Jan. 20, 1065
Father sold four hogs today. He broke the back door when Mom locked him out for being drunk. Mom told me to not worry as he had paid the bill at the store. She would give me a grocery list to buy at lunch and bring home on the school bus.

July 15, 1967
Ronnie worked 14 hours at the Feed Mill today. I rode to town with Pops and took Ronnie some lunch. After we pay all the bills and keep out this week's living expenses we will have $29.50 to put into savings. This will put our savings over $1000. We now will start setting some money aside for a car for this winter. We are hoping $200-300 will be enough.

April 5th, 1978
The first of the new sows pigged today. They all look to farrow in the next few days. We hope the weather will stay warm and dry. Robert drove Pops tractor today for the first time. HE is a proud ten year old tonight.

August 8th, 1988
The hot dry weather continues today. Even if we get rain it will be too late for most of the crops. I took my first treatment today. I was not be able to help do chores tonight. Hopefully I will be able to help tomorrow. Not my favorite birthday.

January 4th 1992
Cold today but not too bad. Ronnie worked most of the day on the tractor he bought. I stayed out of the shop as things where not going well with it. Amber came in and told me Dad was using a lot of bad words. She thought I should go wash his mouth out.

August 8th, 1995
I was able to drive the Gator out to feed the cows. The calves seemed glad to see me. It was a nice afternoon. This has been a good birthday. I hope not my last.


These are just a few short things out of literally thousands. I figure there are over 5000 pages in all of these journals.

So close your eyes and think back to times gone by in your life. May they be happy thoughts.

I have had a good day of memories!!!!

JDseller,

Wow. What a remarkable find, a look into her life, but with the honesty of her day to day living.

That's a true treasure.

D.

JD, thank you for all that you share with us.

That is priceless. My Grandma kept similar journals and its amazing to reach back into the past.

priceless for sure,,,thanks so much for sharing that with us,,

JD Seller,

That's really special stuff. Will be powerful reading for your children.

Dennis I knew she kept them and I did save them deliberately but I had forgotten about them. The years right after she passed where kind of a blur. With four kids in the house and her gone things got hectic.

Very moving. Your idea of making copies is wonderful and so meaningful. I can so relate to your feelings though I've never worn your shoes and I hope you don't feel I'm hijacking your thread with my own story. It just brings back some strong memories.

When our daughter passed her three little girls were 2,4 and 6 years old. A few months after she passed we were approached by a lady we know who's mother passed on when she and her two sisters were 2,4 and 6 years old just like our granddaughters. Her mother died in a car accident when their dad lost control of the car. Her dad never spoke of their mother again and he got rid of all of their mother's possesions. They have nothing to remember their mother by. No pictures, nothing. She tearfully advised us to show our granddaughters pictures of their mother and to tell them stories about their mother and what their mother was like. Marilyn followed her advice and got out the pictures for the three little girls. She did really well. I didn't have the guts. Now I do but it took ten years.

Thank you for thinking of your family.

Not trying to hi-jack your thread either. Your post reminds me of my Mom who passed Jan 3 this year. Reading your made brought a tear to my eyes remembering my Mom.

Thanks for sharing.

Wow....almost left me speechless. One of the best stories to read on here. Thank you for sharing. Shows us the importance of every day memories we often take for granted.

What a great story. My parents were foster parents to about 100 kids. My mother had a talent for writing poems. She wrote a poem once that included their name and something about each of them. Thanks for sharing.

rbhuntn Write about your MOM we would all like to hear about her. Your not hi-jacking anything. I want us all to remember those important to us.

So share the memories.

Wow, that is wonderful. I would never have the focus to do it every day. Really neat to pass along to the children/grandchildren. I like to learn about my grandparents that I never got to meet, makes me learn and connect the dots a little on myself too!

You are the MAN. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for sharing. Amazing stuff.

Very special. gm

JD Seller thanks a lot for sharing! I think that is a very good thing to have and hopefully the kids and grandkids will be thankful to have copies years down the road.

That is something really special and I am sure your children will cherish those journals as well. I did the diary or journal thing for several years. Maybe ten or more. Then my boss sold the dealership and I was so upset with the situation the way the new owners did business I never wrote in them again as I knew it would be just totally negative. I know where they are as I came across them last week while helping the wife do some house cleaning. Didn't look at them though.

My mother kept a journal that put light on servel things that affected me. I have a older brother that a childlesss aunt and uncle(dad's brother) kept a lot and he was their favorite. Mom would say that she went to Weldon to pick him up and they wanted to keep him some more. So being the low person in the family she came home without him. In later years after parents were dead, 2 neighbors said this aunt and uncle wanted to adopt my brother and my dad was for it but mom was strongly against it. That never happened but my life would have been better if it had. I guess that is why my brother got 85% of this aunt and uncle's trust and I got 0. I have no regrets as I am my OWN person. You can pick your nose and other parts but you can not pick your relation unless reincarnation put you there for a lesson.

I have a loose leaf notebook that my mother titled "The Way Things Were", and filled with hand written stories about everything from her childhood to when she met my father, stories about neighbors, etc.

She was the middle one of nine siblings, and she wrote about how hurt she was when her father (my grandfather) refused to let her go to high school because she was needed at home to help take care of her younger siblings. She made up for it by educating herself throughout life. I won't denigrate my grandfather, though. I sometimes think he had a more positive influence on my life than my own father. He just did what he thought was necessary for the good of his family at the time.

No particular order, she just wrote stuff as it came to her. I've always wanted to re-type it on a computer and sort it out in chronological order.

I started doing the same thing when I started farming. I look back at those journals a lot for dates of things and important happenings. You have a gold mine there in memories and life lessons. The money you spend in copying them will come back 10 fold to those who read the words of somene who went before them.

There is (IMHO) a great book called The Diary of Noah Blake. It is the daily journal of a maybe a 13ish - 14ish boy just after the Revolutionary War with his parents as they settle on a piece of land and start farming and erecting a grinding mill.

The author took this journal, about 9 months of notes - which he found in a desk in an old house and expanded on Noah's notes to tell/show from a historical point of view what was going on during that time and why.

It is a GREAT read.

Thanks,
Bill