June 4 thru June 7, 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. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and NEW -picture of the whole family circa 1900-1910???

Friday - Sarah and Henry go to Ingleside to help clean the meeting house. I had wondered if they met for church at people's homes, or had a "church" building. Now we have an answer. I'll have to do some research to see if I can find the location..... maybe it was at the current location of the Ingleside Christian Church? Sarah stays longer and later walks back home from the Blodgetts. Henry goes home and helps the boys plant more corn. Henry finishes "blacking" the buggy. Sarah varnishes the buggy, and the Democrat buggy (waggon).

Saturday -- Sarah goes to Bloods - presumably to the train station - to pick up Elder Hibbard to preach on Sunday. Henry stays home and paints the well room. Again - more information - looks like there was a hand pump in the house on the well located under the house? Early form of indoor plumbing! Omar and Mills clean out daisies from the knoll field. Sarah and Henry go to fellowship meeting in Ingleside in the afternoon, and Lodge in the evening.

Sunday -- Sarah, Jen, Omar and Ettie go to meeting in the morning. Sarah and Henry go in the evening. Henry comments that Elder Hibbard preached a good sermon in the evening, "but not so good as in the forenoon". Omar drives John (horse) "somewhere". I'm not sure if this is another of Henry's odd comments about Omar? They get home pretty late - 11PM, and are "tired and sleepy". Henry borrows 25 cents from W.E.Weld. His ledger entry notes "(paid back to him)" next to this entry. Henry keeps pretty close track of accounts... he actually notes this 25 cents loan twice - once in the body of the day's entry, and once scrunched in at the top of the page above the date. No indication of why he needed to borrow 25 cents? Maybe to put into the collection plate?

Monday --- Henry goes to Ingleside in the forenoon, and returns a mare to Horse -- after some discussion with Dad we concluded this was probably taking one of their female horses to be bred with a stallion owned by somebody in Ingleside? There was a similar reference earlier - Monday May 17th Omar took "Old Moll" to Horse in Ingleside. (Horse is capitalized in both cases.) Gestation period for horses is aroung 340 days, so we won't know if there is a colt born next May - this diary ends in December. There are 3 weeks between the two attempts at breeding..... probably arranged in a definite time frame to insure pregnancy?

Omar cultivates the corn. Mills works in the berries, and Sarah and Henry go to Naples in the afternoon. They take the last of the wheat they have to Lyons & Woodruff mill - 11 bushels - 8 pounds. They pay him $26 on a balance for wheat of $55.05. This leaves a balance of $25.68 due to Henry - this ovbiously includes other stuff? They use the money to pay $7.00 to Stoddard & Son on their drug bill, and $10.50 on their balance at Storey Brothers. Henry also notes an error of $1 on a transaction at Reed & Tobey. According to his ledger entries, they paid $7.38 for a suit of clothes and a hat. Not sure if this is a new purchase or a payment on the bill from a few days ago? According to the ledger entry and Thursday's diary entry, they get the $1 back on Thursday - June 10th.