In 1873 my ancestors in Sherman had a good treat on the May weekend of Saturday and Sunday – 17th and 18th: Elizabeth Betsey Barnes was visiting a neighbor, and took dinner with Mr Camp’s family. Going home, Urial Hungerford and his team came along and took her home. They had with them Mr Stevens, “the singing teacher.” They apparently had the teacher for a visit and she reported “he gave us good music until 10 o’clock.”

The next morning a group went to the church where “they gave us a good chant to open the service.” Mr Stevens promised a concert in the evening, so “Betsey, Urial, Helen and Swan and I got to hear him. It was all that anyone could desire to the great quiet chords.”

The singing teacher then went home and “gave us another singing before retiring.” An eventful occasion in the small village over 100 years ago.

Other things Betsey reported during that week included “we are all weary but we had life enough to pick and cook a fine fill of greens for dinner.” By the next weekend “Julius had the stove moved out into the sink room today,” as it was no longer necessary to keep the wood stove going until fall. She also wrote, “Helen busy all the forenoon in the tobacco, weeding the plants.” Mention is made after in the diary, about the cultivation of their tobacco fields.

By the next week Betsey notes that “Urial went to Dover and I went with him. I brought back some things and a featherbed.” She also noted “it is very warm for this season and I found Clive planting the pole beans.”

Helen had finished weeding the tobacco plants and the next day all the women did a very large wash and hung it out. By dark it had gotten dry and they “took it in.” A brief addition notes “the poultry is hatching.”

Most families raised a few chicks and each spring had new chicks which they raised by incubating the eggs. A few days later Betsey and Julia were “alone today and hatching the goslings.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

A day later the women were ironing the clean clothes and then Helen was back out in the field, weeding the tobacco plants. The next week the diary reports “Mrs Boorlao has thirty-eight young turkeys in her kitchen today. The whole neighborhood is planning ahead for the fall and winter meals – roast duck, chickens and dumplings and turkey for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

So May ended, with a variety of chores for everyone, and Julie began with a Sunday church service that included “a fine sermon, today.”

With very few things to help them, the families in 1873 worked hard each day.

My friends Roslyn and Lois from Wethersfield visited last Tuesday and brought some beautiful slides to show me of the orchid show they visited in Florida during the winter. They were so beautiful and very many kinds I had never seen.

Friend Joy from Minnesota was here a few days, visiting friends. She brought a slide show about the sandhill cranes and other wildlife and we also watched the one she gave me about wolves. Introducing them back into various wilderness areas is a long and very difficult process. Trying to restore the balance of nature is a great effort of the gifted men and women who are involved with both cranes and wolves in an official capacity. This year, a long dreamed attempt will be made to eventually help the come back of whooping cranes in this country. It will be a very special program.

The column ended last week with words from American  Names by Stephen Vincent Bernet.

Who said “The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has”?