"Dear Diary........"

Look what my mother found and gave me .... my DIARY from 6th grade !!!! What a HOOT !!






Let's open it up and see what fascinating observations a 6th grade girl from Hometown, Pa made in the year 1970....
.....oh.... sewing class .... finishing up a skirt (hemming, fixing the zipper and some hand stitching) .....



.......and then there's this page ....

......this riveting entry tells how my friend Cindy and I finished sewing our skirts and that was good since it was our last sewing class anyhow. Then later that day my mother took me shopping and I "got a pattern for myself. It has bell bottoms and a tunic, and there are three easy dresses. I was going to make quilted lounging pajamas with a zipper up the front but I decided not to." (........oooooooo ..... quilted LOUNGING PAJAMAS ..... don't they sound hot and uncomfortable!) OMG ... was I a BORING 6th grader OR WHAT ?!? .... (actually, I guess this just reminds me how much I really love to sew ... even back then .... I was a SEWING GEEK !!!)

....anyhow, there is some fun stuff in my diary about dances and some boy on the bus I liked, and homework, and teachers, and pajama parties, and riding bikes, etc .... nothing earth shattering, just a record of day to day life from a 6th grader's point of view in 1970 .... of no value to anybody but me ..... or IS IT?!? Just think, 100 years from now my diary might be read and found to be an interesting peek at life "way back when" ..... and somebody will say "thank goodness girls wrote in diaries; and thank goodness somebody kept them for future generations " ..... just like the pioneer women who wrote letters and diaries about daily life traveling across the country in a covered wagon .... think about it ... in history class we learned about things from what men kept track of in their "journals" (I'm guessing they didn't call them diaries .... or at least they didn't start out their daily entry "Dear Diary... today me and the guys explored the north branch of the river where we encountered some friendly natives ....") Anyhow, if pioneer women like .......


this lady hadn't kept a diary, we'd never know how hard it was to take care of a family while living out of a covered wagon .... cook meals over a campfire, search for water everyday to camp near, take care of a sick kid, etc ..... (by the way, this picture is from the front of a book I have "Trail of Thread" Historical Letters 1854-1855 by Linda K Hubalek)







.....and, if it weren't for the diary of this
very happening girl, future generations might never know the fascinating details of the life of a 6th grade girl in Hometown, Pa in 1970!!!

.....and come to think of it .... all of you blogger gals out there are carrying on the diary tradition .... in cyberspace! You're all writing about your daily lives, family stuff, cooking stuff, business stuff, and creative stuff ... all the daily little and big stuff that will someday be a peek back into women's lives in the early 2000's ! Carry on , bloggers !!!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)