Dessie's Diaries

Years ago my maternal grandmother showed me the diaries her mother used to keep.  Each entry was only one to three lines with few hints of emotion -- mostly a record of the day's chores or the weather.  Yet I was taken with those little volumes.  I loved peeking into an old-fashioned life but also found comfort in being able to picture my great grandmother a little more vividly.  (That's Dessie below on her wedding day in 1919.)

When Grandma heard that I wrote a thesis about diaries in graduate school, she offered her mother's to me.  Unfortunately, she then couldn’t find them.  Towards the end of her life, Grandma's mind wasn't what it had been.  Thus for almost a decade I assumed the diaries were lost or had been accidentally thrown out.  Then on a visit to see family in Oregon this February, my Aunt Georgene and I explored some boxes from her mother's house.  We found the diaries.  Aunt Georgene graciously gave them to me and I promised that I would transcribe them in order to share the contents with the rest of the family.  Does that sound like a lot of work?  Yeah, well, don't throw me into the briar patch!

  

Now that my book project is at the press, I have some breathing room in my work schedule.  Every afternoon while Eli is napping, I pull out a diary and get to work typing up the contents.  The first few volumes are in tiny books with stiff bindings, so there was no way they would stay open while I typed.  Needing both hands for the keyboard, I had to build a frame out of cardboard to safely support the diary being transcribed.  To hold the diary open, I use a glass tealight candle holder as a paperweight; it is smooth against the old paper and doesn't create a shadow.  

 

The first volume of the diary is from the spring of 1924.  My grandmother was about the age Eli is now.  The last volume is from 1958 and has an entry from just days before the car accident that would take my great grandmother's life.  In between are entries about travels, family life, and a sprinkling of historic events.  Great Grandma Dessie noted blackout drills and big updates from World War II.  And she also noted the birth of my mother.

 

The first volume records a car trip in the days before interstates.  In 1924, Dessie left Portland with her husband and young daughter, heading east for a new life in Indiana.  But first they dipped southward for a little sightseeing.  With a big grin, I realized they came within a few miles of where I now live.

 

How funny to be reading this little diary right now -- when my child is the same age as Dessie's child and when we are gearing up for a long drive east this summer.  After her accounts of flat tires, dust, shabby campgrounds, and roads that Dessie called "muddy gumbo," I think I will be more thankful for super highways and Holiday Inns.  At the very same time, however, I'll wonder how much more wild and full of regional flavor America was back in my great grandmother's day.

Stay tuned.  I'll post some of Dessie's adventures in days to come.

(And in the meantime, click HERE to see a map of their route.  The full route is on multiple pages, so you have to click a few times to get Dessie all the way to Indiana.)

Comments

[Marci Severson]

Valerie, how beautiful! What a wonderful treasure for you, especially the notation of your mother's birth. I don't know that I have seen that picture of Grandma and Grandpa Greene's wedding photo.

[Valerie J. Frey]

Thanks, Marci! I look forward to sharing the family materials with you and your brother.