Changes in Time: Reading Grandma's Diaries

Dappled Sun by Roberto Lomardi

Her diaries began when she was 19 years old and spanned approximately 80 years. It was very interesting to see the changes in society that formed the mood of these diaries. Prior to 1965, regular entries record weekly visits from friends and church members who came by for pie. Interspersed evenly with these are the words, "We went out for pie at Viola's (or Pansy's or Rose's) house for pie. Their husbands were named "Joe, Jim, Frank or Fred." Every day she recorded at least one sentence about the day. If she didn't go anywhere she noted that she had baked something or written a letter to her sister. These were not diaries used to express resentment or inner anxiety. They were for the record.

The first 40 years of these diaries gave a sense of innocent happiness, as she and her husband and children interacted with others in her community and the church. It seemed like they were often at each other's homes for pie! She often told where the pie was served: someones front porch, the kitchen, the living room. The adults played horse-shoes outside, in the summer. There was no need for youth groups in those days because everyone came to visit and they got their socialization within the families that intermingled so well. She also recorded a number of marriages that took place in the church where they served, and every baby that was born was given a brief write-up in the tiny daily spaces in her book. It made a kind of routine: visitors, wedding, dropping in on someone else, a baby being born, a recipe tried, ironing done, visitors, pie served, wedding, etc.

They also used to dress up for each other to visit in their homes. Children were made to change clothes and wash their faces and hands and comb their hair before they accepted visitors. They were happy to sit on chairs and take pie with the rest of the company. In her diaries, she would briefly express her feelings with words like, "I really enjoyed that couple. They had nice children," or "The Jones are so interesting. Mr. Jones is always telling jokes." "My husband won, at horse-shoes." Reading this was a peek into the happy times of the century, that even I experienced as a child.

As we read further into the last 40 years, the tone of her diaries changed. There was a sadness expressed, without words. In the 1970's, instead of the usual, "Friends came over for pie tonight," the entries, for the first time, begin to sound rather depressing. She writes: "Mrs. C. came to visit and ask how she could get her son out of prison." "We went to call on Mr. B., whose teenage daughter is in trouble, " or something like: "Mr. J. came to see us because his son is on drugs."

One can only imagine how bizarre the events seemed to a woman who had spent most of her life in a friendly routine of a typical family, visiting friends and neighbors, going on trips to see their aging folks, shopping, cooking, and taking part in her own personal hobbies and interests. Though she wrote of various problems in the church before the 60's and 70's, they were minor, compared to the family-splitting problems she faced during the last 40 years of her diary.

Instead of visiting church couples to encourage them, they now visited families that were torn apart by alcohol, drugs, music, irresponsible handling of money and crazy life styles. One entry described an interesting visit, followed by the words, "Some people!" A great amount of the problems had to do with the "new" morality of the 60's, the drug problem, immodesty, and the worldly philosophies that weakened the family and the local churches.

Near the end of her diaries, her world had gotten so strange, that she pens these words: Mr. S. wanted money so he could leave town; Mrs. M. wanted money because she needed gas to go and visit her husband in prison.

One 9 year old girl told me that she was living with her father's girlfriend's mother, because her father couldn't take care of her and her mother was not responsible. Even while living with someone she was not even related to, she says, "We are a really mixed up family, but we are just like all the other families in the world."

It is sad that she really believes this and that a whole generation thinks it has to be this way, because it does not. I hope the next generation will have the determination to insist on giving their families a life of friendship and pie and family visits on the front porch. To the cynic and the jaded, it seems simplistic and unintelligent. A few years ago I wrote about a visit from a woman in England, who said she had grown tired of listening to young women boast about their degrees. "That's very nice, dear," she would tell them, "But can you bake a pie and serve coffee?"