Wednesday, November 11, 2009

November 11 thru 14, 1886

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Additional information can be checked out with the links to the right.

Thursday, November 11, 1886 - Omar, Mills, and Henry finish putting all their potatoes in the cellar by noon. In the afterenoon, Omar does some plowing, and Mills pulls beets. Henry works on the hog house some more. A peddlar stops by and Sarah buys some cuff buttons and collar buttons to make a shirt for Mills. Henry buys 3 Rogers Brothers plated spoons for $1.75. No way to know what pattern these spoons might have been, but below is a common Rogers Brothers setting from 1847?
Henry records the spoon purchase in his ledger in the back of the diary, but not Sarah's purchase of the buttons - an indication that Sarah has her own money from egg sales, etc??? Sarah goes to W.E. Welds and from there to prayer meeting. (W.E.Weld family is Henry's younger sister Ellen and her husband William Eber Weld.)

Friday, November 12, 1886 - Wild geese fly over. Bart came home last night from his 7 1/2 month stint of working for Leicester Fox. Omar starts working on a ditch by the road on the Terney lot that they rent. Mills husks corn, and Henry works some more on the hog house. Sarah is making a dress for Lois. Toward night, Omar, Bart, Mills, and Henry transfer the pigs into the new hog house.

Saturday, November 13, 1886 --- The first big snowfall - snows all day and drifts! Henry works inside on fixing shoes for Bart and Ettie. Bart must have worn his shoes out while working for Leicester Fox. Bart and Mills husk corn, and Omar splits some wood for winter fuel, and does some chores (another mention of chores?) The boys - Bart and Mills - carry 45 bushels of husked and sorted corn to the corn house. A corn house would be a sort of slatted building that would allow air to move through to dry the corn -- see below. Omar, Bart, and Sarah go to Naples and buy some clothes for Bart at Tobeys - including an overcoat, some underwear, and some socks? A full foot of snow has fallen today!

Sunday, November 14, 1886 ---- Henry comments that it is "clearing off fine but cold and looks like winter for good." Sarah and Bart go to Ingleside to church, but church is canceled due to the weather - the roads are badly drifted in. Omar goes to "see somebody across the fields". Henry comments that it is "probably something of an interesting nature". Henry also comments that Bart goes to see somebody too - "lots of business to be done". Henry seems to making some more of his comments on Omar's behavior, but this time includes Bart in his comments? Being off on his own at Leicester Fox's for most of the past year has probably made Bart a bit more independent and grown up?