part-4

The nearly twelve years from the birth of a first child in January 1914 through the end of 1925, or while Mother and Father went on living at 311 Lyon Street, were their time of fulfillment. Family life would change beginning in January 1926, when Grandma Shafer died, as will be told later.

On the national and world scene the period covers those fatal years of European war (1914-18), the aftermath of turmoil and recession (1919-21), the relief of “normalcy” and high boom times (1922-25). Mother and Father worked, saved, tried new investments, prospered. The peaceful life of the young family went on: birth and infancy of two sons, their initiation into school, increasing independence for boys and mother, greater freedom of movement for the family.

Their first child, a boy, 7 1/2 pounds at birth, with blue eyes and fine, slightly reddish blond hair, was born on Thursday 29 January 1914, probably at 311 Lyon Street^{^[1]}. He was called Edwin Marion, one name for his father, the other recalling maternal grandparents.

The new mother was soon doing housework again along with all the drudgery that goes with a baby. Henrietta Loucks began to come in on Thursdays to do laundry and some heavy cleaning. Father often lent a hand, washing dishes or giving baby a bath. Even so, it was a long day. Baby Edwin had the almost constant care of his mother, who will have nursed him for most of a year.

A second son, weighing 8 1/4 pounds, was born Thursday 20 April 1916. He was called Arthur Raymond, perhaps with a thought for the childless widower Arthur H. Holmes; the names recall no close relatives^{^[2]}. Arthur Raymond was born with the brown eyes now and then to be found in earlier generations.

With a second child, Mother had the additional help of a nurse, Miss Ruth J. Marsh, who stayed just a few months^{^[3]} Edwin could recall her presence, large and white, if not her features or voice. She was helpful, willing even to do the odd job about the house.

On the arrival of a second child, the elder, displaced from the crib near his parents, was allotted the east front bedroom for his own. Uncle Percy, in turn displaced, moved to the farm.^{^[4]} By that time, Edwin could crawl in and out of bed, trot to the bathroom, clamber up and down stairs. That is, he needed less care and almost continuous attention, the which Miss Marsh helped supply. She lived in, occupying the guestroom.^{^[5]} Edwin’s mother still tucked him in bed “as snug as a bug in a rug,” rhymed and read him to drowsiness, softly vouchsafed the goodnight kiss.

By the spring of 1917, Art, too, was walking and needing to be looked after closely. It must have been then that the siblings made their first trials of playing together, long a chancy business in view of the elder’s size and strength and inclination to tease. Some might refer teasing to the jealousy of the first born toward a successor; it may just be that few entirely resist the temptation to exploit a position of strength. Mother prudently kept the boys apart at night until early 1919, when Art had too long outgrown the crib in his parents’ room.^{^[6]}

In the fall of 1918 Edwin had commenced kindergarten at Fountain Street School, a short walk east.^{^[7]} (For that school year, memory comes into focus, and I shall resume speaking in the first person.) My change of status made for some hours of peace at home. It also started the inevitable run of contagious diseases. In late October I “came down with” the mumps. Art was moved at once to his grandmother’s and so escaped for the time.

Dr Shafer kept account of the other childhood diseases and vaccinations of “Ted,” as I was then called at home, and Arthur. What I picked up at school he soon caught:

December 1918 Ted vaccination, successful

April 1920 Ted whooping cough

Arthur whooping cough

May 1920 Ted measles

Arthur measles

June 1921 Ted chicken pox

Arthur chicken pox

May 1922 Arthur vaccination, successful

30 Sept. 1923 Ted revaccinated

24 May 1924 Arthur mumps

We seem to have missed scarlet fever (and scarlatina), also German measles (rubella), the flu of 1918/19, and diphtheria. Colds and other indispositions were liberally interspersed, of course, gradually becoming less frequent.

Father and Mother lived very quietly. The Shafers’ old friends, the Barlows and Treadways, were gone early in the period, as was Catherine (Mrs. A.W.) Meech.^{^[8]} Mother still knew almost all the neighbors by sight and reputation, and on occasion passed the time of day with one or another. But except for close friends, that was about all.

An exception should be made for Emily Murphy, who lived in Ghilda Place, in a cottage with a neat garden, directly opposite the Shafers’ old carriage house. She and her husband Jervois had lived there since 1911; their two serious daughters, Emily and Rosaline (Rosy), though grown by 1920, were still at home through 1925; I barely remember seeing them. Murphy, large and quiet, was a cabinetmaker by trade, long employed in the Leonards’ Grand Rapids Refrigerator Company at the junction of Grandville and Clyde Park Avenues, where he became assistant foreman in the mid-1920’s.^{^[9]} His wife, who exchanged glances, was the talker, in a vigorous brogue that helped to shape my early notions of Irish speech, along with the Mulvaney stories and Father’s anecdotes. She was sociable, rather lonely, I think, with few friends, in part perhaps because the Murphys were faithful Episcopalians, who went to St. Mark’s. I had an idea that might meant something, perhaps connected with their coming from one of the Northern counties (Antrim?). And she probably would have been easily slighted or snubbed; Mother and Father may have been among the few neighbors she saw.

Generally, she and Mother just stopped to chat when they met on the street, or in Ghilda Place. I recall her calling once or twice to see Mother, coming in the back way, in any case the more convenient. And once Mother took me along, as I remember, to take a cup of tea. The house was dark inside, the furnishings old fashioned, plain, looking unfamiliar, as tidy as you please, like the garden.

Father’s old friends, who had become the friends of the family, had started out in villages or in the countryside on the farming frontier. Yet even in youth they had glimpsed the unprecedented opportunities opening up as American capitalism gathered momentum. They had chosen to cleave to the old ways, so far as they could, while adapting cautiously, and variously, to the new order of the world. To be sure, others, before and after, have faced choices of that kind. I mean only to call attention to the specific terms of the choices faced by Father and his friends, which define their generation. (Mother shared their preference for the older ways; that had set her apart from so many of those with whom she had grown up. But younger, townbred, energetic, she was far more adaptable than Father in coping with the new order, and a good thing, too.)

From time to time, Mother and Father would pay a call on Fred Darling, a friend from Father’s childhood. I remember our stopping at the Darlings’ on Andre Street^{^[10]} of a Sunday afternoon; they were not at home, and Father left a note. Mother and Father would have repeated the call, probably not often, and I don’t remember the Darlings’ dropping in at our house or at the farm.

Will Swank and his wife Carrie (née Squier, Mother’s first cousin, as already noted) paid a call at the farm once, at most twice, a year, usually of a Saturday afternoon, on the way back from town. Now and then the Snells looked in on them. Father liked to go for a Sunday afternoon drive about some of the scenes of his boyhood, as we began to do, I believe, only after we had a car (1922). As we were passing a farm, he might allude to the family that owned it, some member, an aspect of kinship. His observations were made as an aside to Mother; I rarely followed them.

Well along in the afternoon we might end up at the Swanks’ 120-acre farm, just north of the old Shafer farms.^{^[11]} If we came from the west, on the road from Bowen station, Mother might nod ahead, pointing to her birthplace, shortly before turning the corner north toward the Swanks’ comfortable house of hard buff-colored brick. Alongside the drive and in front of the house were beds of calla lilies, which seemed to me not to belong there.

Carrie Swank, who had been brought up on that farm, was a year or so older than Father, but conceded nothing. She had hennaed her thinning hair, might be dressed in black, hair and dress setting off a sanguinary (I think it was dead-white at first, but a late—and unique —photo shows her very flushed) complexion, heavily powdered, with a spot of red on each cheek. She seemed to live in a private world, amidst her busy furniture. with her baby grand piano, a suburban housewife strayed in time and place. The Snells were always welcome, and she would start in talking to Mother with animation in a small high-pitched voice. I did not take in what she was saying, about her health, cousins, purchases, Will and weather.

To my inexperienced eye they seemed to be oddly matched. Will Swank, good tempered, kind though rough in manner, had built the house Carrie wanted, left her to furnish it as she liked, and ended by asking not much of her. He loved her, as he loved land and stock. They had no children. His father had begun life as a Bavarian peasant, and Will had a peasant’s good-natured envious scorn of “city folks,” but seemed to make a qualified exception for Mother and Father, as honorary country people.

He was, Father said, a good farmer, and somewhat of that was visible in clean fields, even thriving crops, the small orchard back of the house, above all, in the large red barn, his pride and joy, some twenty-five rods down a sandy slope to the north of the house. Not far from the road, near the north line, was a spring; from it he had piped in water for the stock, including his dozen or so blooded milch cows, and for the 10-gallon tin-plated cans of warm new milk, chilled in running water from evening and early morning milking till pickup. The cooling tank, along with the area for boiling water and scalding cans, was at the south side, on the bottom floor. Stalls for cattle and other stock were on the west, and north. The barn had been built into a slope, and a ramp, wide enough for a team and wagon, led about to the east entrance on the main floor. There was also a direct way in from the road. Everything looked, and smelled, clean, though I suppose it would not do today.

Will worked hard and expected the same of his hired men. I don’t know that he ever bought a tractor, though of course he had a rig to sit on as his huge team drew the plow or harrow. Only Father, tilling small fields for love, still walked behind his plow and old horse. Something Will said a few years later would stick in my mind. Fond as he was of hunting, he would just take his gun into the corn field in November and sit behind a shock, shucking and shelling corn. When the birds —pheasants, recently introduced, quail, or partridge—flew cautiously out to the field, well baited, I don’t doubt, he had only to turn at the right moment to bag a brace. Then back to work.

For me, doubtless for Art, too, the hour or so on Sunday afternoon went by slowly. That did not hold for visits of another kind, beginning perhaps in the winter of 1923/4. On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, after a heavy dinner and a short rest we trudged with Father in the lengthening shadows across the snowy fields the nearly two miles to the Swanks’ to call on Will in his office. We entered by the side door; it was not a formal call. The office was bare, except for an old roll-top desk, a few hard chairs, and a red-hot coal stove.

Will Swank was of medium height, wiry, with a farmer’s weatherbeaten face and neck; he looked and sounded sure of himself, yet remained somewhat boyish in expression. He and Father talked crops, prices, recent changes in the township, troublesome neighbors, old days, going on for an hour or two, while we all had hard cider drawn cold from one of several barrels kept for the hired men in an outbuilding back of the house, by the small orchard. As a good farmer Will Swank put in an hour or two a day reading in the off season. A herd of milch cows did not leave such a lot of time after doing the usual chores. He knew the market reports, thought over new seeds and pesticides, methods of crop rotation and fertilizing; as Father said, he “kept up,” and with more than the Rural New Yorker. I could not have paid much attention, enjoying just the walk, the warmth, the hard cider, feeling that by temporary dispensation I was in a man’s world.

The first year, perhaps the second, Carrie would appear with greetings of the season. In the next two years we must have been by ourselves. She lived for some years, dying only in the winter of 1931/2. I am not sure what ended this series of visits. Was it that Art and I were outgrowing this yearly ritual? Perhaps it was that when the electric line reached the farm, in 1927 or 1928, Mother bought the family’s first radio set,^{^[12]} an Atwater Kent “console,” on which Father could hear the Rose Bowl game broadcast.

As part of their regular social life, Mother and Father might call on Miss Alice James, who lived in the immediate neighborhood till her last years in the high school.^{^[13]} Miss James had the regular, heavy features of a vestal virgin, or a mother superior of public education. (She is well represented in a photograph of the teaching staff in 1907; see above following p. ***) Years of responsibility had added weight, spiritual and corporeal, which she bore with composure. She was evidently able and surely benign, but it seemed to me that one could safely communicate with her only in the simplest terms, as if we could not speak each other’s native tongues with great assurance. The high school that she had long known—since attending and graduating in 1874/5—was no longer the same, yet her feelings may have been mixed on her early retirement in 1923, after forty years of service as teacher and administrator. She and her sister Grace soon left for Redlands, California, where they would grow oranges.

We also went to see Miss Anna Susan Jones and her sister Mary D. in their narrow gabled house at 235 Lafayette Street, on the west side almost to Crescent Avenue, where they had lived since they were little girls, in the late 1860’s. Children were much in evidence; the Jones sisters were rearing an adopted niece and nephew—the children, I believe, of their sister Elizabeth—Jean, a year or so older than I, and Charles, somewhat younger than Art. I just recall a children’s birthday party at their house, then one at ours, of perhaps 1920/1. Jones and Snell children, as it turned out, had little in common. Neither Art nor I can recall that one or the other ever took part in the pickup ball games of the neighborhood in our back yard, though both were active, Jean certifiable as a “tomboy;” Charles as a “tough little nut.”

But I took to Miss Anna Susan, small and dry with shy fearless light brown eyes. Some years after, I should have the pleasure of reading Sallust and Ovid in her class, and of finding that two people could see the same point at the same moment—and more often than had seemed possible. Miss Jones was open as few teachers ever are. It was sometimes hard on her. She and Father esteemed each other, though for whatever reason we never saw much of her at 311 Lyon Street.

Every so often, as in earlier years, Mother and Father received Miss Amanda Stout, who taught classical history in the high school. Less often, they called, on occasion with Art and me, at her small flat just across Lyon and Lafayette Streets in the first house on the corner. Miss Stout, short and ample, wore shapeless, rustly skirts and dresses, always of some dark, smooth material. Even if one tried hard, she could not well be imagined otherwise dressed, or undressed. I judged her to be shrewd, kind, and almost invariably ironic. Her speech was distinct, nuanced, slow, and full of pauses; her voice, husky. She had fine black eyes in a soft white face, rather broad, with well-defined nose and chin. Aside from school, the neighborhood, and of course the world at large, one personal topic recurred in conversation with the Snells: the annual visit to her sister Tish, who was married to a Mr. Bellows, living not far from Frankfurt, said to have money.^{^[14]} Miss Stout, as I recall, regularly attended services, sometimes other gatherings, at the Fountain Street Baptist church, then reputedly the most “forward-loking” of the principal city churches.

As I first remember her, Miss Stout seemed ageless, and indeed in the mid-1920’s looked pretty much as she had for the group photograph of 1907 shown earlier (p. ***, above). Her teaching apparently had changed just as little. At the first meeting of her ninth grade class in ancient history, she always began with a short talk on the Greek city states, their influence, and the lessons to be learned. On opening day in September 1904, her remarks completed, there was a question from Don Denison, an extravert, well enough behaved but inclined to be “fresh.” “How do we know so much about them?” he asked. Miss Stout: “Donald, the Greeks wrote a lot.” I can hear her giving this apposite, specious answer. Mr. Denison recalled it as soon as Miss Stout’s name came up in a conversation of early September 1979, almost to the day 75 years later, of course not at the same spot— on the top floor of the “old” high school —but about 10 minutes’ walk to the south and east in his apartment at 505 Cherry Street. Stanton Todd (‘26), his golfing partner for that afternoon, was also present.

Arthur H. Holmes also remained a frequent visitor. Mr. Holmes, short, lame since a boyhood accident, strong in the shoulders, still wore a moustache, might have been a retired soldier. He became at times glum, or distracted, scarcely surprising in a widower living with his parents, who at this time were on Eastern Avenue a short distance south of Fulton Street. His father, a retired contractor, was a powerful, vain, opinionated old countryman, not always the easiest of company.^{^[15]} A.H. Holmes had grown up near Hubbardstown at the northwest corner of Ionia County; like his father, he had in youth taught district school. Always deliberate, like Miss Stout, he strove to speak sententiously, gave the effect of listening to himself. His sayings, as I recall, ran to the obvious; here is a possible exception: “Meditation on what might be precedes just evaluation of what is.” He was said to be a reader, again like Miss Stout, and likewise attended services at the Fountain Street Baptist Church, drawn perhaps by the preaching of the Reverend Alfred W. Wishart. He also became in these years, for a time, a follower of Émile Coué, who taught that one could improve oneself by autosuggestion: by declaring daily with conviction, “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.” (Tous les jours, à tous points de vue, je vais de mieux en mieux.) Mr. Holmes wrote a lot of verse, some of which I shall have occasion to quote later. He was fond of “spirituals”; his favorite “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” sung in a deep obscure baritone. His rare sudden sweet smile slyly implied complicity.^{^[16]}

Like Father, these two friends will have been troubled increasingly by the war as it dragged on. It made them feel older, and lonely. They took some comfort in one another’s company, perhaps more in Mother’s. She was little affected, being still young, at heart an activist: cheerfulness was always breaking in.

With the Powerses also the war would have come up, if in a different way. They were pro-Allied; Florence, ardently francophile. The only professed Democrats, to my knowledge, among Father’s old friends, they took a more positive view of U.S. involvement in the war, of the Allied cause, and of the outcome, as of the future generally. Father might remain silent, or demur so gently that no one took offense. He and Mother had their doubts. Besides, they had been taught to respect Germans. Though on the defensive, they would have been slow to believe all they heard about the “Huns.” But differences of opinion were respected, and the subject would have changed. Political disagreement would arise again, yet without troubling the old friendship between the families.

Perhaps it was the insistent intrusion of war into people’s thoughts and talk that led Father to subscribe to the Review of Reviews, a conservative journal of opinion, which appeared monthly in the house during the later war years and for a time thereafter. In the early 1920’s, while ransacking the bookshelves, I was to look through the bound volumes. From then on Father would subscribe to some such journal; the immediate successor, The Literary Digest. He may have thought it fitting for an established householder with a family and a stake in society. It’s very likely he had grown anxious over the course of events, not necessarily expecting to understand it, wishing all the same to keep informed.

Except for a slight ruffling of the surface once or twice, I doubt aught was said about politics at the Powerses for several years after the war. I am reminded, however, of a mild evening, Tuesday 4 November 1924, when Father and I walked down to Fulton Street Park after supper to see press bulletins and hear announcements giving election returns—“through stereopticon and the loud-speaking Voice-from-the-Air”—courtesy of the Grand Rapids Press. There was a goodish crowd estimated at “thousands”—quietly waiting and talking. By ten o’clock Father had had enough, for President Coolidge already was assured of the electoral votes for a full term; “aerial bombs boomed out” to celebrate the victory.^{^[17]} The Powerses were of course disappointed but, on that occasion, I should guess, not deeply. Will may have voted, in silent protest, for LaFollette.

The conflict in views between Father and Will Powers was grounded in their lives; they had followed different paths, doubtless reinforcing contrasts in temperament. Those ten years Will Powers had passed as a workingman after returning from the Black Hills—from mid-1892 to mid-1902—seem to have formed, or hardened, his views. He would remain a convinced supporter of legislation to protect workers, even of labor unions. His was not an accepted view in his world, and he must have had to keep a tight rein on himself.

With all their differences, Father and Will Powers had many of the same traits: determination, probity, equanimity, courtesy. Their long friendship was founded on the esteem in which each held the other, and himself, for maintaining such traits through every discouragement.

The Powerses, in my earliest memory, of a summer day, it could only have been in 1917, were still out on West Leonard Road, where they had lived since 1911. I see their little white house, with a porch, hollyhocks in front, standing to the south of the road at the end of a straight walk, well to the back on a narrow plot of at most a quarter acre. In the fall of 1917 or the following winter they settled next door at 315 Lyon Street and began to appear often in our lives.^{^[18]} Marion and Florence, then both teachers at the high school, stayed with them. The Powerses were next door neighbors for six years and some months, or during much of the remaining time when the Snells lived on Lyon Street. In the spring of 1924, as I recall, they bought a house on Crescent Street, no. 235, the second one on the north side west of Lafayette Street, much the same sort of place as 315 Lyon Street, considerably larger, painted white, with its own double garage and a smaller yard, though with room enough alongside the garage for pitching horseshoes, or, as Father preferred to say, quoits. The back yard had plenty of space for an old wooden lawn swing painted white. From then on, while relations remained warm, the families met less often. Some times we were invited for baked bean Sunday breakfast. Now and then they would pay a call at the farm Sunday afternoon. And we should always be invited to “family” get togethers, which would come oftener when grandchildren (Marion’s children) were visiting.

While the Powers family rented 315 Lyon Street, someone was always coming or going to visit, to bring or take a cake or some fruit. Now and then we shared Sunday dinner, joined sometimes by the Art Sparkses. Art, who had married Jessie Powers in 1914, had gone into the Raniville company in 1917 as stenographer, then office manager, following his father-in-law, who soon had pushed him into trying out on the road. He would become the star salesmen, a senior executive, finally a highly successful entrepreneur (A.J. Sparks Company, first on Franklin Street SE), producing a new type of industrial belting (“Gandy” belting).

Two of the earliest scenes of the families together were recorded in the summer of 1922 and in the fall of 1924 (following p. ***). Will Powers, with moustache, was solid, his shoulders often hunched slightly. Though only about 5 foot 8, he looked as if he had been strong when young. His voice sounded tense, or constricted, light in tone, rather flat, questioning; he did not say much, that straight out, though mildly, paid close attention. He and his family maintained a connection with the Congregational Church, possibly from Mrs. Powers’ upbringing, probably in any case from the years in the Black Hills. Will Powers’ parents were Protestants of some description, though by an early marriage he had a son called John, seldom mentioned and never encountered at the Powerses’, who was like his mother a Catholic.

Ett Powers, erect, tall for a woman then, wrinkled with graying hair, may have been very good looking in youth. She generally took a humorous view of human failings, in a way enjoyed them, sometimes cackling with glee. She was unfailingly kind to friends and urgently hospitable, insistent at her table that one take another helping. In the early years of living next door she came once in a while to sit with the little Snell boys, giving Mother a free hour or so, of which she otherwise had not many, from the departure of Miss Marsh in the summer or early fall of 1916 until Art began school five years later.

The Powers daughters were altogether unlike one another. Marion, the eldest, who appears only in the earlier photograph— she left town on her marriage in the summer of 1923 —looked much as her mother may have at the same age. She was of medium height, had a well-formed, mobile face, handsome except for a slight cast to the eyes. Her teeth may have already been replaced partly with the white dentures I recall. She had a richly expressive voice, used to good effect, at times allied with an overwhelming smile. After her marriage to Albert Bates, an engineer and industrialist (the Rockford Foundry Company) of Rockford, Illinois, she would become, in her circle, distinguished for a social conscience, no less conscious of social distinctions.

Florence (only in the second photograph^{^[19]}), the youngest of the three, was tall, gracile, pretty, maidenly; she had a soft rippling laugh and an eye for the social comedy. (Self-conscious, she froze before the camera.) She was attentive to parents and friends, adored her brother-in-law Art Sparks, whom she called “Bubby.” By the mid-1920’s, she would be lavishing attentions on nephews and nieces, and on her Chow, Ching by name (Jing, Jingy-boy, Jing-a-ling). By loyalty a Democrat, she was by sentiment a pious Bonapartist, especially cherishing the memory of l’Aiglon.

Jessie, the middle daughter, short, in youth not bad looking, was by the 1920’s growing stout. She was fond of society— her inquiring brown eyes missed little — and expressed kindly cynical views in a controlled voice with an edge. Jessie lived admiring in her husband’s shadow, never for long unnoticed, however.

Art Sparks, a country boy from Clarksville, near Ionia, Michigan, five months younger than Jessie, learned fast. At ease, tolerant, beginning to be ambitious, he laughed and joked a lot in a cheerful baritone, which always retained (for me) a rural note. He had remarkably quick reflexes, wonderful coordination, as first demonstrated at parlor games, such as tiddlywinks and “caroms.”^{^[20]}

In the early 1920’s he became a scratch golfer. He was one of the founders of Cascade—the “other”—Country Club, formed in 1923, and began to combine business with pleasure on the links. He would be included, on occasion, in a foursome with Al Watrous, Chick Evans, Gene Sarazen, or Walter Hagen, among the noted professionals of the time. In the 1930’s he would enjoy medal play for high stakes, which by then he could well afford. He was also a practical joker, though seldom in the family circle. I recall his singing from time to time a snatch of some humorous tune. One, dating from before the war,^{^[21]} always ended:

It [Hit] don’t matter if he is a houn’ [haoun’],

They gotta quit kickin’ my dawg aroun’[araoun’].

Another ran,

Good morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip,

With your hair cut just as short as mine.

Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,

If the Camels don’t get you, the Fatimas must.

Good morning,…

The grim forecast was set off by a catchy tune^{^[22]}. A third song, once known to nearly everyone— under 40 —was “Barney Google, with his goo-goo-googly eyes” and “a wife three times his size” (c. 1922); Barney had the title role in a popular comic strip. Art Sparks may have known some soldier songs, though he had not been in uniform, but they were not salon-fähig, so some years would pass before I heard “Hinky Dinky Parley Voo” and “Barnacle Bill the Sailor.”^{^[23]} But he sang one of Irving Berlin’s songs, current on the “home front,” about reveille, beginning, “Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning...” (1918).

Domestic life ran smoothly in wartime. Prices started rising, to be sure, in 1916, accompanied by scarcity. Yet even after U.S. entry in the war in April 1917, the Snells hardly felt even the comparatively minor deprivations suffered by most Americans. It was first in the fall of 1917/8 that there were eggs from the farm, in addition to the usual produce; the Shafers had bought White Leghorn chicks in the spring. Earlier Mother had bought butter and eggs from the Ploegs and van Sledrights (as the name seems to have been spelled by them), country neighbors, as she continued to do now and again. Yet she used oleomargarine, too, blaming on it a series of boils suffered by Father in 1918. That is the only comment I recall on wartime supplies. Distribution of sugar and wheat was controlled beginning in 1917; “meatless and wheatless” Thursdays were enjoined; on other days people were asked to do without this or that; and coal became scarce locally in the winter of 1917/18. The Shafers and Snells had their own substitutes—honey, corn, poultry, and wood—from the farm, though the shortages must have caused inconvenience. Everywhere, it appears, families close to the land were better off.

We catch glimpses of family life just after the war from a diary Mother kept irregularly from New Year’s Day 1919 till mid-May. It was personal and local in reference, no notice taken of the momentous public events of that winter,^{^[24]} then well covered in the evening paper, the Grand Rapids Press, always taken by the family in town.^{^[25]}

V.V. Nabokov was to remark, perhaps rightly, that “collecting of daily details...was always a poor method of self-preservation.” Such details are evocative all the same, and the entries are few enough, and mostly so short, it seems worth while to set them all down, with notes:

Wednesday, 1 January Miss Stout here for dinner. Day dark and cloudy, not very cold. Ted’s vaccination beginning to work, has cold in his head. Ted vaccinated December 28, 1918.

Thursday, 2 January L.J.F. here. Bought Ted some <illegible>.

L.J.F. stands for Louis C. <not J.> Falstreaux [spelled various ways below], a linotype operator; see entries for 1 February ff.

Friday, 3 January Ted & Arthur both have colds in head. Ted’s arm sore. Very cold. Zero, he didn’t go to school. Ed went to 1st basket ball game at new gym. Big fire down town Monument Park bldg. Very cold.

The two-story building referred to, on Monroe Avenue at Park Road, housed several shops; most of the damage was to one of them—where the fire started—and to the collection of the Grand Rapids Art Association. The Camera Shop, occupying the west end of the building, and Daane and Witters grocery, standing on the corner, suffered little. The park for which the building was named is directly across the street, a gore of land at the junction of Monroe Avenue and Fulton Street. A monument and fountain had been set there in 1885 to honor the Civil War dead.

Saturday, 4 January Ed went to bank. Washed, changed beds so boys could sleep together.

Sunday, 5 January Took two pictures. 1st one of boys at 6-1 1/2-5.6 Ap. second of group same exposure. Ted arm swollen.

Monday, 6 January Teds arm badly swollen but went to school. Mr. Sledright hurt last Sat. in runaway.

Tuesday, 7 January Ted’s arm swollen and sore but went to school.

Wednesday, 8 January Pyrex cake dish for birthday from Ed. Mr. M. phoned that option was to be extended 60 days and wanted it signed today as Mr. Bliss goes out of town tomorrow. Ted’s arm better. Cold west wind. Signed option extension at 4 o’clock.

Mr. M. was Edwin M. Morris, who had a house on the market at 229 Valley Avenue SW. Emerson W. Bliss was an assistant secretary in the Michigan Trust Company. The family phone number was Citizens 62901; the number would remain the same after Citizens was merged with the Michigan Telephone Company.

Thursday, 9 January Swelling all out of Ted’s arm. Ironed.

Friday, 10 January Cleaned all down stairs

Saturday, 11 January Morton came down with Mrs. Ploeg in machine. Paid her difference between 8.46 and rent in money. Ed fixed door bell. Spent day mending.

Morton Ploeg, like his two older brothers, was an early auto mechanic. The “machine” was one of a series of Fords they owned and worked on in an outbuilding on the hillside west of the barn. The Harry Ploegs, on the north side of Laraway Road just to the west of the Pere Marquette track, had four daughters and four sons. The rent was for 311 Lyon Street, to be taken out to Dr. Shafer. Katie Ploeg (née Modderman) was always “Mrs. Ploeg.”

Sunday, 12 January Florence got telegram of Ruth Tranley’s death. She and her father going to Bay City on 6:35 train. News of the terrible M.C. wreck, five G.R. people killed. Frank Leonard, Harold Sears, Mrs. Remington, Miss Delaney, Mr. Parker.

I don’t know who Ruth Tranley (sp. uncertain) was. Of those killed in the wreck of a Michigan Central train in New York state, Mother appears to have known just the two: Franklin Leonard and Harold Sears— both several years younger.

Monday, 13 January Powers got off this morning. Jessie had to go down to sister-in-laws, Viriginia sick. Mrs. P. came over for dinner and afternoon, Ted & I went to physical training exercises at school. Spent most of evening at Powers.

Art Sparks had four married sisters that I know of; Virginia seems to have been a fifth. Dinner was of course at midday, here and always. I imagine the exercises, in which Mother would have had a certain interest, were at the high school.

Tuesday, 14 January Florence & her father got home at noon.

Wednesday, 15 January Made apron today. Weather warm & snow melting.

Thursday, 16 January Arthur & I walked down to bank today & paid payment on Bond. Went to Steketee’s shopping. Rip up old shawl. J. Martin’s book came today.

The “Bond” was a government bond issued in the war. Mother and Father had bought a substantial amount at 80, probably in early 1918, sold about 1922 at or near par. Steketee’s, as you may remember, was (and is) a department store. John Martin’s Book was our first children’s magazine, which I was by then beginning to read.

Friday, 17 January Cleaned & swept today & baked up. No news.

Saturday, 18 January Mrs. S. brought butter at 70¢, eggs 65. Ma came down with Ploegs. She came to dinner, brought medicine to Florence. Washed. Ed went down to M.E. Church to take tickets.

The van Sledrights had bought the “old Leavitt farm” catty corner to the Martin farm (see p. ***, below). Father did his bit at an evening lecture by one Frederick Villiers, a war artist, accompanied by his illustrations. The lecture, at the First M.E. Church, on Fulton Street at Barclay Avenue, was held for the benefit of the John V. Doran fund for needy teachers.^{^[26]}

Sunday, 19 January First Plymouth Rock Egg. Wrote Howard.

Both entries are in Father’s hand. Plymouth Rock hens, much larger, were thought to be as good layers as White Leghorns, their eggs bigger, brown; being heavier, the hens ate more, but became in turn better eating. Leghorns were later bred larger.

Monday, 20 January Examination week.

Tuesday, 21 January- No entries

Friday, 24 January

Saturday, 25 January Bought new shoes and rubbers. Suit for Art & waists for Teddy. Teddy’s bank acct transferred to School Savings, deposited $2. Went over to Jessie’s party for Bessie H. Ted & Art went over after I came home.

Bessie H. I can’t place, perhaps a niece of Art Sparks.

Sunday, 26 January Went out to see Aunt Ellen. Arthur S. took us over. Mr. & Mrs. Sweet came over in evening for lesson on log. Tried to take picture with camera. Found a screw and tried to put it back but couldn’t.

Aunt Ellen, then going on 83, was the widow of Mason Shafer, Mother’s “Uncle Mase,” who had died in February 1917. They had moved to the Clark Memorial Home (M.E.), primarily for retired clergymen and relicts, dark and sad but comfortable, on Sherman Street east of Norwood Avenue, where she remained until her death in February 1923. I was taken along to see her once in the summer or fall of 1922. Arthur S. was, of course, Art Sparks. The Sweets I can’t identify; “log” would be logarithmic tables. The camera was a new Graflex, which cost, I suppose, roughly $75. It was equipped with a high-grade lens of Agfa or perhaps Zeiss design (as, for example, a Tessar II-B), by then U.S. made. The shutter speed ranged from “time” to a millisecond. The image, 3-1/4” x 5-1/2”, could be seen, right side up, until the instant of exposure. The new Graflex was heavy and clumsy and for most purposes no better that their first camera. They had bought it, I suppose, as suited for taking portraits and action shots of children.

Monday, 27 January Went down to Post Office with Arthur to mail Special Del. letter to Jane Gibson. Mr. Applegate & Son came in evening & I went over to Powers. Ed took camera down town to shop, to be sent to Rochester.

Jane Gibson I can’t identify.^{^[27]} The Applegates very likely were Louis B. and his son Milo L., the former perhaps looking for a way to finance the purchase of 2128 St. George Avenue from his mother. Perhaps he found it for the house changed hands in 1919.

Tuesday, 28 January No entry

Wednesday, 29 January Mr. and Mrs. Sweet came for last lesson. Paid $2. Ted’s birthday. 5 yrs. old. Had letter from his grandfather & A.D. Bill. Card from Mrs. Howard. Song book from Marion & Florence. Stamp Kraft book from Jessie. Pocketbook and 50 cts from Mrs. P. Top & weaving set. Top made a hit. Children at kindergarten made a long chain for him. Birthday cake & ice cream. Ed didn’t come home to dinner. Study hour.

“A.D. Bill” was one $1 bill, sent with a note from Grandpa Shafer, which I still have. I just recall the top, and the fun I had with it. We probably were too young yet to have learned to swat a “birthday boy” the number of years he was old. Father, you will note, still came home usually at noon to eat. Session rooms were closed for the fifth period, but the auditorium was open for “study hour,” each session room teacher in turn keeping order.

Thursday, 30 January Henrietta came back today, washed & cleaned. I went down town & paid rest on Bond & interest. Also paid electric bill. Miss S. came in a while in evening.

Henrietta Loucks, as already noted, did laundry and cleaned house. She came well into the 1920’s, being replaced by Mrs. vanDykes. Miss S. was Amanda Stout.

Friday, 31 January Grandma came down & brought 14 eggs. Hens laid 5 today. Quite cold but bare ground. Mr. P. came over in evening & brought check.

Grandma Shafer must have driven the buggy down by herself. Again, the check would have been to Dr. Shafer for the rent of 315 Lyon Street.

Saturday, 1 February Ed looked up F.P. & got money. Works on Bond Ave. Mr. Falstreau came. Lost his job and got to give up his place. Camera hasn’t been sent yet. Oranges 48, Bacon 32, sausage 22 1/2.

The two men referred to (F.P. was Fred W. Pickell) were buying houses on contract in Wyoming Park. Falstreaux was at 126 Greenfield Avenue; Pickell, at 607 Northgrove Avenue SW. Mr. Falstreaux had had his place ever since it was built, in 1915/6. In the last sentence the prices of oranges is given by the dozen.

Sunday, 2 February Invited over to Powers for dinner. Mr. H. came over in afternoon & stayed to lunch. Talked over Wyoming Park.

Mr. H., Arthur H. Holmes was a fellow investor in houses.

Monday, 3 February Spent day sewing. Camera hasn’t gone yet. Finished Ted’s brown waist. Ted took A.D. Bill to school for stamps. 6 eggs 4 Rocks.

The Camera Shop appears to have taken its time to send the Graflex for repair. “Stamps” were of course savings stamps. Mother had a sewing table by the window in the upstairs hall and a Singer sewing machine with foot treadle. At the east end, beyond the stairs, there was room for work, also for a pier mirror mounted on a base of some sort. Upon the north wall west of the sewing table were exhibited the remains of a big black bass with jaws agape, prepared and varnished by some taxidermist as a trophy. “Rocks” wore from Plymouth Rock hens, due to replace white Leghorn hens, which laid white eggs.

Tuesday, 4 February Figured up balance on Fal. place. Bal. Feb 1 $2,708.51. Snowing, a little colder.

That is, Mr. Falstreaux owed $2,708.51 on his house.

Wednesday, 5 February Falstreaux wants to sell his equity for $250.

Thursday, 6 February Washed, cleaned kitchen wall. Jennie here in afternoon. Ted has cold and didn’t go to school.

Jennie Loucks, Henrietta’s sister, I remember by name, not otherwise.

Friday, 7 February Ted didn’t go to school. Falstraux has sold to man by the name of Pepler. Finished washing kitchen wall.

“Pepler” was Daniel E. Peppler, an electrician.

Saturday, 8 February Ed left insurance papers on L.C.F. place with Wilson. Ironed. Grandma brought 16 brown eggs. Paid 5.98 for medicine. Casc 2.01 iron 1/2 .98. Took rest of med. down to D & W & waited for Mr. Ploeg.

Wilson was S.H. Wilson, head of a real estate firm developing Wyoming Park. The medicine, apparently from Dr. Shafer, was in part for the Snells (cascara sagrada and iron), the rest for the Ploegs. D&W is Daane & Witters, as mentioned earlier, a grocery and market at the head of Monroe Street. Harry Ploeg was “Mr. Ploeg.”

Sunday, 9 February Ted’s cough very bad last night up about 10 times with him. Arthur has cold too. Ed bought atomi. 1.65 Med. .80.

Atomizer and medicine.

Monday, 10 February Ted better to-day but didn’t go to school. Arthur coughs some.

Tuesday, 11 February no entries

Thursday, 27 February

Friday, 28 February Paid ash man for Feb. 75

Saturday, 1 March Mr. Pickell here & paid $25.

Sunday, 2 March Mr. H. here for dinner.

Arthur H. Holmes.

Monday, 3 March no entry

Tuesday, 4 March Mrs. Peppler came and paid $20. Their first payment I gave her a receipt. Mother sick to-day. Rained, turned to snow in afternoon.

Wednesday, 5 March Mother better

Thursday, 6 March Washed, cleaned up & down stairs. Arthur sick held him all afternoon. Helped Ed send out letters for parents meeting & poor work.

Friday, 7 March Cleaned kitchen & ironed. Arthur better.

Saturday, 8 March Baked bread. Miss S. gave me ticket to hear Cyril Maude in “The Saving Grace.” Miss S came over in evening. Ed went down town in morning. Sent $3.65 to Mauls for seeds. Paid for camera. Brought home framed fish and B.B. picture.

Cyril Maude was an English actor/manager, then about 56. Since 1911 he had been playing chiefly in the States; later in 1919 he went back to London. The still life of “black bass and blackberries” had been photographed at Herring Lake in 1912, about 9 August.^{^[28]} The enlargement for years hung in the dining room, on the east wall.

Sunday, 9 March Heavy snow. Ed shoveled snow for over an hour. Went over to see Aunt Ellen. She had been sick but was up again. Stopped into Powers for few minutes when came home. Mr. Morris phoned. Have to sign option tomorrow at 4 P.M. Took two pictures of Ted & one of T. & Art.

Monday, 11 March Arthur don’t feel very good don’t eat much of anything. Morris phoned not to go down to M.T. Co. until Wed. Ed went to Parents meeting.

M. T. is Michigan Trust.

Tuesday, 11 March Went to bask game at Gym with Mr. P. Mrs. P. staid with children. Teddy begins to cough again at night.

Wednesday, 12 March Paid water & gas bills. Went to Mich T. Co. and signed option. Morris offers to sell out Valley Ave. place $3500 for $1200 and we assume indebtedness. Ed sick.

The $3500 figure would be an appraised value; indebtedness was $1,830 (see entry for 31 March).

Thursday, 13 March Didn’t sleep much. Ed don’t feel good. Teddy coughed most of night & he couldn’t sleep. Washed to-day. Phoned Morris that if his proposition was satisfactory we might take it. Fixed up Bichromate of Potash & gave him <Ted> dose every half hour. Clara’s H.’s mother died this P.M.

I think Mother must have written bichromate for bicarbonate. Clara H. was Mrs. Hornung, a friend of the Powerses.

Friday, 14 March Ted didn’t go to school but he slept last night without coughing. Morris took Ed to meet Ira Allen who wants to buy house. Ed feverish. Papers to be made out to-morrow. Father, ill most of the week, went to school anyway, as ever.

Saturday, 15 March Ted on lounge most of day, don’t feel very good. Rained nearly all day. Allen didn’t get money for his place, so deal had to be postponed. Mrs. M. phoned that Building & Loan claimed that Mr. Steketee didn’t pay them up. He claims he did. Grandpa sick to-day. Mrs. Sled. brought butter 60 cts eggs 45 cts.

Mr. Steketee was Jacob Steketee, the family lawyer (no close relative of the department store people). The one clue as to what it was he may not have paid up is given in the entry for 2 April. The old lounge, covered in black leather, was raised at the head to provide a pillow. It stood at the northeast corner of the dining room.

Sunday, 16 March Ted didn’t sleep very good. Warm rain. Rained all night. 60 degrees. Grandpa better. [and in Father’s hand] First Robin.

Monday, 17 March Rained all day. Ted didn’t go to school. Allyn didn’t get money yet. Arthur don’t feel good. Have another cough myself.

Here and below, “Allyn” was the “Allen” of earlier entries—Ira L. Allyn, a foreman at W.C. Hopson Company.

Tuesday, 18 March Fine day. Ted didn’t go to school, coughs some yet. Arthur feels pretty bad. Haven’t heard from Allyn. Pickell here to night his cellar flooded wants us to fix it some way. Ed went to Univ. Club lecture on Miss S. ticket. Young Eng. poet.

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols, about 25, who lectured at the Women’s University Club, was a war poet, now forgotten. He stayed with the Charles Slighs.

Wednesday, 19 March Ted went to school. Arthur better. Saw milkman & he agreed to deliver milk. Miss G. James called. Ed. came just as she went away & Carrie Snell came up the walk. Ed went over to H. School to see Pickell. I had cramps tonight.

The milkman, whose horse clop-clopped about the neighborhood well before I was up, left quart bottles of milk with perhaps an inch and a half of cream on top, for slightly over 14 cents a quart (see entry for 2 April). Grace James, sister to Alice James, was a neighbor as well. Carrie Snell was the wife of Cousin Percy Snell, from Cadillac; I think Mother meant to write the name of her cousin Carrie Swank.

Thursday, 20 March Beautiful warm morning. Grandma came down with Ploegs, brought 1 doz. eggs. Carrie & I went up to school with Ted. Ted came home with ear ache at 10:30 seems quite sick won’t eat any dinner. Henrietta hung clothes out doors for 1st time. Grandma and Carrie left right after dinner. Ted quite sick all the afternoon. Miss S. came over to call.

Friday, 21 March Ted sick & didn’t sleep good slept with me. Wierenga brought cashier check for money today. Teddy better this P.M. Ironed. Powers girl<s> had a dancing party for some of the teachers. Ash man took ashes today.

Wierenga was almost certainly Peter Wierenga, at 222 Marion Avenue SW in Wyoming Park, identified in 1918 as a farmer. He seems to be entered as “Wier” in a list of payments from house buyers and others written on a page at the end of the book in which the journal was kept.

Saturday, 22 March Invited over next door to eat ice-cream & listen to phonograph. Ed went down town. Trying to finish Ted’s sweater & coat.

The family never did buy a phonograph (record player).

Sunday, 23 March Ed went out after old Dan and took us, bag & baggage & grass seed out to ranch. Fine day little cold yet. Finished sweater.

We were going to the farm for spring vacation. Old Dan was the ancient carriage horse, a gelding, kept shod for the road and used with the buggy as needed, though mostly for light farm work. “Ranch” was Father’s Western term.

Monday, 24 March Went down to Rottschafers & got 40# sulphur, 10 cents lb, lime & clover $29 bu. also $22. Didn’t feel good in P.M. Ed went down to Roy, got oats and seeder.

Rottschafers’ (the Silver Creek Fuel and Feed Company) was on Kalamazoo Avenue just south of Cottage Grove Avenue by the Pere Marquette tracks, or more than two miles from the farm; Mother evidently drove there in the buggy. Lime and sulfur mixed in boiling water made a pesticide (“lime-sulfur”), as described earlier.^{^[29]} Mother was perhaps not quite over her period. Roy Hendershott, about 41, born in the township, had a farm down Laraway Road on the south side three quarters of a mile west.

Tuesday, 25 March Fine day. Ed up at day light seeding meadow, finished at dinner. Sprayed in P.M. John came over to pump. Had to take hose apart. Finished just at dark. Ed nearly done up. Children better. Bees flying. Blue birds.

Hand pump and tank were carried on a “stone boat,” a sledge mounted on two half logs; John was the Ploegs’ eldest son, and fourth child, then 17 or 18. No wonder Father was “nearly done up” at night, often enough.

Wednesday, 26 March Rain. Seeded Rye north of railroad. Thrashed bean in P.M. Morris phoned. $500 left at Stek. $100 of it went to Adriance. Agreed to make out papers next Monday.

Navy bean plants, dried over the winter, the beans ready to burst out of the brittle pods, would be beaten against the barn floor. The $500 would be Allyn’s downpayment. Homer Adriance & Son dealt in “real estate, loans, insurance” at 117 Widdicomb Building.

Thursday, 27 March Cold about 22 in morning. Ed about sick. Finished beans.

Friday, 28 March Ed sick. Felt better about 10 o’clock went out and mowed & piled blackberry canes. Finished at supper time. Ed ditching some every day. Water washed out some of strawberry plants.

As noted above, the water table was then high, and low-lying fields often flooded in spring and fall. Clearing drainage ditches, heavy work, was necessary every year.

Saturday, 29 March Ed worked out all day, finished seeding unloaded straw & loaded hay for Roy. Made cutting of grapes & set out in following order 1st Concord, 2nd Niagara, 3rd Brighton, 4th Delaware, 5th currants. Began to rain at dark. Snowing at nine o’clock.

Grape vines were south and west of the house in three north-south rows; the vines were trained on wires strung between log posts. Grapes were all for the table, though wine of a sort has been made from the Concord and Delaware grapes. Concord are good-sized, blue; Niagara a pale green sometimes called white; Brighton, largish, dark blue; Delaware, small, almost purple, called red. Only the Concord grape was bred entirely of American stock (vitis labrusca); the others were crossed with European stock (vitis vinifera). Just to the west stood a half dozen German prune trees, whose fruit, in German called Zwetsch(g)e, was smallish and football-shaped, with blue skin and tart, yellow flesh. Red currant bushes were planted to the east of the vines and the pieplant (rhubarb) patch, south of the bushy quince tree and a pear tree alongside older gooseberry bushes. Immediately to the south of this fruit garden was a row of pear trees, then the old asparagus bed. We had only winter pears, called Kieffer, a large and rather grainy fruit. According to Mother, who did not much care for them, an itinerant salesman had talked the Doctor into buying the engrafted stock, probably not so long after moving to the farm, that is, by 1905.

Sunday, 30 March Cold, ground covered with snow. Put 12 racks of honey on bees, seem to have plenty. Came home in little snow storm, cold northeast wind. House about 40. Didn’t take long to heat it up.

It was surely comb (“supers”) she was putting on, cane sugar syrup being used for food to carry the bees over. The coal fire in the furnace in the basement of 311 Lyon Street had been banked when we left and of course had gone out. But a fire was soon burning, and the hot air quickly rose to the living quarters, through asbestos-wrapped pipes and gratings (called “registers”) set in the floor. Father was good at managing a coal fire. He shook down ashes and clinkers and shoveled in coal first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon. In very cold weather he might check the fire at noon or add coal. At bed time he went down for a last look, perhaps only banking the fire or adjusting the draft. Quite regularly ashes and clinkers had to be shoveled out into an ashcan for weekly removal. Mother could of course tend to the furnace as needed.

Monday, 31 March Ed made contract with Allyn & Morris may deed. Bal at Building & loan 1830.05. Pickell paid.

The “bal” was that owing on the Morris house.

Tuesday, 1 April Ins. policy on 229 S. Valley Ave expires Sept 5 1921 $2000 No. 620459 London & Lancashire Fire Wm. C. Sheppard. [The above in ink] Deposited checks & cash left ins papers with Morris. Signed Allen’s contract & Ed mailed copy to Steketee. Got Ins. & Pass Book from Morris.

The new Morris house finally was numbered 233. Mr. Sheppard was an official of the Mutual Home and Savings Bank, 201-205 Monroe Avenue.

Wednesday, 2 April Started taking Maryland farms milk. 7 qts for $1. Bought $2 tickets. Ed couldn’t get deed recorded because 1918 state & county taxes not paid. Ed went to class in auto repairs. 8 eggs to-day, 5 brown, 3 white.

Evidently Father already had in mind buying a “machine.”

Thursday, 3 April Rainy washing. Went down to bank. Got qt paint.

Friday, 4 April Mrs. Peppler came to day. Teddy taken sick at school. Ed went down to Winegar to see Conklin but he doesn’t work there now is with Burch, on the road won’t be back for two weeks.

Winegar’s sold furniture; Burch’s sold upholstery material and furniture supplies, also did repair work. Conklin was Ernest S. Conklin, a salesman, who seems to have worked at Burch’s from 1918 to 1920 continuously. He had lived since 1914 at 871 Franklin Street SE. I can only guess what business Father may have had with him; perhaps it was connected with an earlier purchase of furniture from Winegar’s.

Saturday, 5 April Ed went to ranch brought home oysters, parsnips & eggs. Painted cold room one coat of paint.

Father had a hankering for buttered parsnips, which I heartily disliked. The “cold room” was a sizeable unheated space at the northeast corner of the house off the kitchen; food was kept there, including butter and milk in the cold months. Mother probably did the painting, with white lead and oil, for the walls were some shade of white.

Sunday, 6 April Ted doesn’t feel very well. Warm 70 . Ed wrote to Howard, I to the Mrs. Arthur Sparks birthday. Went over there to lunch and had some cake.

Monday, 7 April Voting day. Winegar contract for 3598.83. Went down to M.T. Co. with Steketee, Uhl, Bliss and Mrs. M. M.T. agreed to put house in shape provided Morris carries out agreement. They refuse to commit themselves until they consult an attorney.

Election of city commissioners fell on the first Monday in April. Mother still could not vote. The 19th Amendment giving women the vote was declared ratified on 28 August 1920. “Winegar contract” is rather a puzzle. “Wierenga” (partial transformation of “Winegar”) probably is what Mother meant to write (see entry for 21 March). Negotiations with Morris and the Michigan Trust of course had to do with another deal (considered above and below). Uhl was Marshall Uhl of the Michigan Trust, a near contemporary of Mother (Central ’02). From 8 April through 25 April there are no entries, not even for Art’s birthday.

Sunday, 27 April Went down to Wyoming Park. Found house in very unsatisfactory condition.

The Morris house. For details, see next entry.

Monday, 28 April Going to see Bliss at 4 P.M. Order 1 ton Poc. egg & 1 ton Poc. lump of Rotschaffers. Hard coal 11.85 & 12.15. Insists on putting on tile roof fix wall in living room, base board, floor in bedroom. 5 new doors.

“Poc” (for Pocahantas) is a “hard” coal, like Pennsylvania anthracite, from Pocahantas County in the southern part of West Virginia. Lump was the largest size (over 4 inches); egg, the third largest (over 2-1/2 inches). It burns with an intense heat, with little flame, giving off almost no smoke. Like anthracite, it cost more than bituminous (‘soft’) coal, though its B.T.U. equivalent is slightly less. Bituminous coal then supplied the greater part of U.S. consumption for space heating, being cheaper, though dirtier.

Tuesday, 29 April Went down to see Bliss. He won’t change order for tile roof. Went to see Steketee.

Wednesday, 30 April No entries

Monday, 12 May

Tuesday, 13 May Went out to 933 Cottage Grove Ave and got checks.

That is still another house, in the southeast sector of town off Kalamazoo Avenue, being sold to William K. Nickerson, a “laborer.” Mother will have gone most of the way there and back by street car.

Wednesday, 14 May Mr. & Mrs. M here nothing doing.

The directory indicates that the deal finally went through: Allyn is shown living there in 1919, though he didn’t stay long; in 1920 the house is shown as vacant. This entry is the last in the journal, except one on 31 May, when Mother wrote in red ink, “94 in the shade.”

A small set of baby pictures seems fitting here, chosen out of a large number taken; they show Mother and Father as parents, pleased, protective; also Miss Marsh. (Photographs follow p. ***.)

In the fall of 1921, Art entered kindergarten; finally we were both in school at least part of the day, children’s illnesses on the decline. Mother began to have time all to herself and could return now and then to earlier amusements. Once more she could spend an hour with her stamp collection. Fascinated by the speech of the Hansons, farmers of Danish origin near Herring Lake, she began a story about their hard life, dropped it and outlined a story about a character (the “Poet of Fruitland”) based on J. H. Howard, together with his wife and her family (the Hunts), the family into which her sister married (the Gavigans), the Hansons, and other local people.^{^[30]} These beginnings, collected by Suzy with “Camping Journals,” seem to have been carried no further.

Another revived occupation was playing the piano. Some pieces of sheet music suggest that she first resumed playing on her own. Among them were “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” (1912), “There’s a Long, Long Trail” (1913); “Keep the Home Fires Burning (Till the Boys Come Home)” (1914); Ernest R. Ball (and Al Dubin), “All the World Will Be Jealous of Me” (1917). Before long she realized that she was rusty, and she soon decided to take lessons. From 16 January 1922 through the rest of the winter and the following spring, Mother took lessons, sometimes weekly, oftener every other week, generally on Monday and otherwise on Thursday, with a few exceptions. She went to Miss Mary Lourena Davis in the Gilbert Block, a protégée of Marguerite Colwell, who as a former neighbor may have been consulted.^{^[31]}

Mother was not a beginner and was soon given easy pieces along with the old drills of Carl Czerny, followed by those of Charles Louis Hanon, exercises in rhythm by Hanna Smith, various routines for stretching the fingers and relaxing the wrist, and simple work on harmony. Her “lesson record,” if incomplete and not always easy to interpret, provides a good idea of the music she studied. The pieces are listed here, in the order of first known date assigned.^{^[32]}

Monday 16 January-

Monday 24 April 1922 Lucy Nord, “Two Hearts,” Auld Lang Syne (Songs of Nations), Copyright 1896 (?), Louis Retter Music Co., St.Louis.

Monday 13 February-

Monday 24 April 1922 “Rainbow,” Auld Lang Syne, cited above.

Monday 20 February-

Monday 24 April 1922 L. van Beethoven, “Nouvelle Bagatelle,” revised and finger ed. by Wm. Scharfenberg (in the series Album Leaves for the Piano), Copyright 1882, G. Schirmer, Inc. New York.

Monday 10 April -

Thursday 14 Dec. 1922 Lucy Nord, “Spinning Song,” Auld Lang Syne, cited above.

Monday 1 May 1922 -

Thursday 25 Jan. 1923 I. Paderewski, “Menuet,” from Six Humoresques de Concert, Op. 14, no.1, Edited and fingered by L. Vollmer, Copyright 1899, G. Schirmer, Inc. New York.

Thursday 19 December 1922 -

Thursday 22 March 1923 -

Monday 20 October 1924 J.S. Bach, “Bourrée”^{^[33]} First Lessons, Book I. Compiled and Fingered by Walter Carroll, [1918] B.F. Wood Music Co., Boston.

Thursday 24 May 1923 -

Fall 1923 -

Monday 26 November 1923 J.S. Bach, “Polonaise” (in G minor), First Lessons, Book I, cited above (from Anna Magdalena’s first Klavierbüchlein).^{^[34]}

Monday 17 December 1923 P.E.V. Wachs, “Nadia, mazurka de salon,”^{^[35]} Copyright 190***, Boston Music Co., Boston.

Monday 24 December 1923 J.S. Bach, “March” (in D major), First Lessons, Book I, cited above (from Anna Magdalena’s second Klavierbüchlein)^{^[36]}

Monday 25 February 1924 -

Monday 10 November 1924 “Préambule,”^{^[37]} from another text (piece unidentified, but doubtless from Wilhelm Friedeman’s Klavierbüchlein).

Monday 14 April 1924 Georg Eggeling, “Minka Mazurka,”

Monday 13 October 1924 Copyright 190***, Arthur P. Schmidt Co., Boston.

Monday 12 May 1924 Edvard Grieg, “Morning Mood” (Morgenstimmung), from First Orchestral Suite from the music to Peer Gynt, Op. 46, No. 1,^{^[38]} B.F. Wood Music Co., Boston.

Monday 26 May 1924 - J.S. Bach,^{^[39]} “Minuet” (in C Minor),

Monday 26 January 1925 First Lessons, Book I, cited above)^{^[40]} (from Anna Magdalena’s second Klavierbüchlein).

———- ——“Musette” (in D major), First Lessons, Book I, cited above (from Anna Magdalena’s second Klavierbüchlein).

Monday 22 December 1924-

These were of course among the pieces then commonly assigned to pupils early on, though Mother somehow missed out on one or two that seemed almost obligatory. But not required to satisfy fond parents, Miss Davis could give Mother a greater variety of music to work on than to a child, expected each year to learn by heart and play with a certain facility some one recital piece.

In the same years Mother also began tutoring on a fairly regular basis. She worked with her pupils at a card table in the “den,” a smallish room straight back from the front hall on the east side of the house. They sat by the window, looking out on a strip of scuffed lawn and the bay window of 315 Lyon Street. In the background were a roll-top desk, a glassed-in bookcase, framed enlargements of camping photographs on the walls. Some of her clients were preparing for College Board examinations, needed for admission to several Eastern colleges; one or two might be prepping before “going away” to boarding school; and every so often there were the inevitable laggards.^{^[41]} They were in general capable enough, even if disinclined to learn theorems in geometry, quadratic equations, or trigonometric functions. Students, as ever, were apt to find such things “irrelevant,” although they had not yet learned the term. One, whose name escapes me, asked Mother what was the point of studying English: the adults he knew seemed to get along all right.

I don’t remember that Mother did substitute teaching in these years, though it’s possible. Tutoring added variety to the day, she was very good at it, and it gave her satisfaction. As I have often said, her secret was to retreat to the last stage well understood by the student and go on from there.

Other changes in domestic life began with the purchase of the first car, a Ford “touring car”, in the spring of 1922. Prices had leveled off, and it became less and less practical, as automobile traffic increased, to use a buggy or wagon for marketing produce, hauling supplies to the farm, and moving back and forth. Besides, old Dan was too long in the tooth. What was more, Grandpa and Grandma Shafer were getting on; he would turn 84 in August. Mother and Father evidently saw a need to go to the “ranch” often on weekends, as we began to do, and to be in a position to hurry out on short notice.

The Ford served other uses as well. Father’s Saturday duty at fall football games became easier with the car, and could be fitted in with staying at the farm weekends. As noted earlier, we could take Sunday afternoon drives, make calls. We could go on longer trips—to Herring Lake in the summer of 1922, and in later years about the state and to Ontario. Mother did the driving: Father was perhaps too used to horses, in any case was absent minded and had slow reactions. Mother in her turn took a night course in auto mechanics, in the fall of 1922, I believe.

The car also permitted my entry in St. Mark’s choir the next year (described just below) without disrupting weekends at the farm. Mother left me at Saturday morning rehearsal, shopping while we sang. Afterwards we stopped at the Public Library, while I picked out several books to read during the next week. And we came to Sunday morning service, which she willingly attended. She drove home out Madison Avenue, stopping at Riordan’s drug store, at Brown Street, a little less than a half mile north of Burton Street, where she bought the Sunday Herald (the Press had no Sunday edition) and a cone of orange ice for me. In the summers of 1924 and 1925 the car likewise served to bring Mother, Father, and Art to the Sunday afternoon open house at choir camp on Little Bostwick Lake, to the north of Grand Rapids, and east of Rockford.

So although we lived during the week within easy walking distance of school, shops, most close friends, music lessons, and choir practice (Tuesday afternoon and Thursday evening), and would always walk rather than drive, the Ford became an indispensable convenience, as for so many other families.

The first step taken by Mother, in the fall of 1922, to broaden my horizon was to take me down by appointment to see Miss Mary Lourena Davis, with whom I was duly enrolled as a second pupil from the family.^{^[42]} Usually we went to lessons at different times, and Mother strictly limited her practice to the hours when I was in school—those she had free. Nor did she press me overmuch to practice, beyond a rare gentle question, nor try to help, her inclination and Miss Davis’ advice in accord, I dare say. In the early years I kept at it, with minor lapses, willingly, and being, up to a point, apt, made exemplary progress. Art, inducted in 1925, would find the piano less congenial, studying only a year or so before rebelling. Mother’s initiative has led to a great deal of pleasure for me— less, I fear, for others.

Art and I owe her far more for having introduced us to the boys’ choir at St. Mark’s. I wonder how she happened to think of it, growing out of a talk with Mrs. Murphy? She presented me, by appointment, one Tuesday afternoon in October 1923, before rehearsal. The director, Harold Tower, about 34 then, short, brisk, going bald, fond of boys, tested me a little and cheerfully accepted me.

Days in the choir and at its summer camp are to be considered elsewhere. Here I shall tell only what the church came to mean to Mother. Apart from satisfaction in seeing us exposed to music, religion, and wider associations, she herself, over a couple of years, became very attached to St. Mark’s. The minister was then the Very Reverend Charles E. Jackson, Dean (St. Mark’s was serving as “procathedral”), a Yankee from Marblehead, only just above middle height, yet a presence of authority. Some were put in mind of his descent from a line of sea-captains. He was reserved though easy in manner, independent, deeply religious. A well-modeled head, rather long, was dramatized by a piercing gaze from deep-set dark eyes and a resonant voice, which helped carry off his rambling sermons, long on “inspiration,” short on doctrine. As that might suggest, St. Mark’s during his tenure was “low church” (“low and slow” rather than “high and dry”). Dean Jackson was widely admired and had attracted a considerable following among the congregation as well as the settled dislike of a few “socially prominent” purse-proud parishoners. It was then small wonder, even if (I fancy) to her surprise, that Mother came under his benign spell.

Late in 1925, so discreetly that I knew nothing of it, she began attending confirmation classes and was confirmed on Saturday 14 February 1926. She had need of comfort and strength in that season of her mother’s death. She did not refer to what she had done, either then or thereafter. Very like her to take such a step without a word about it—apart from whatever she may have said to Father—in no way pressing her needs and decision on her young sons.^{^[43]}

Father’s day, changed less to begin with by having small children in the house, was less affected by our conversion into schoolboys. In any case, his duties as treasurer of the high school athletic association took much of the time not given to teaching, business, and farming^{^[44]}. Many Saturdays in football season and evenings in basketball season he had to be on hand to supervise payment for and collection of tickets. Afterwards the money was to deposit. He disbursed funds as required, and had accounts to keep and render. The rest of the family had a small bonus from his duties in that we could attend games. Football games through the fall of 1922 were still at Island Park^{^[45]} or at the field in Ramona Park, in East Grand Rapids. I recall seeing at Ramona Park the 1922 football team, captained by Lowell Palmer—later to be coach at Ottawa Hills High School—defeat Plainwell 113-0 on 24 September; and, later in the season, the stocky Union High School star quarterback Rocky Parsaca at Island Park. In the two years that followed, Father had in addition, to handle disbursements—$13,000 to $14,000 in 1923/4—for construction at Houseman Field on land given to the city by the younger Julius Houseman, class of ‘08 at Central^{^[46]}. Beginning in 1923, Central’s home games were played there.

Father still had time to begin reading aloud to me. For periods during the years 1923 to 1925 he read from Bryant’s Homer and Timayenis’ two-volume history of ancient Greece, both, as noted earlier, in use at Valparaiso. He read several books of the Odyssey; the story stayed with me, but of the readings I recall only the entrance of “rosy-fingered morn” to inaugurate a new day. The history of Greece we did not get through; as I remember, we did the chapters on the heroic war against the Persians and those on the golden age of Athens, but not the later story, more applicable to our time.

Father also enjoyed occasions when the new activities of his boys were on display. Though he usually did not attend church, I recall his joining Mother at Christmas and Easter services. Of course he went to my first choir show, “H.M.S. Pinafore,” at Powers Theatre on the afternoon of Saturday, 16 February 1924. He surely attended the earliest of a series of piano recitals on Tuesday 19 June 1923 at the Williams’ house on the south side of Fountain Street just east of College Avenue; their daughter Margaret (Peg) Williams was a pupil of Miss Davis. I assume that he was in attendance on the evening of Tuesday 17 June 1924, at Miss Marguerite Colwell’s studio in the Gilbert Block, across the hall from the more modest quarters of Miss Davis and again on Wednesday evening, 17 June 1925 at the St. Cecilia. And as already mentioned, he joined Mother and Art at open house at choir camp on Little Bostwick Lake. In those days they drove north through town, out Plainfield Road across the river and up the hill, after a couple of miles swinging right onto the road to Grattan Center.

He was pleased, we may assume, to take part and “proud,” as people said, of his sons. Yet he might have thought to himself, once in a while, “How different from what I knew, how easy, not quite real.” Such musings, I imagine, moved him to tell stories of his early life, oftenest at table as we finished supper. Most of the episodes I have retold of his youth and early manhood Art and I first heard then, he sitting to the east, I sitting to the west of the round oak pedestal table. Many of them Father repeated, but they so held our attention, anyhow on first hearing, we might well have kept them in mind anyway.

From this period dates also my earliest remembrance of familiar sayings and turns of expression used by Mother and Father, so I shall record some of them here, those not quoted in another connection. I risk giving you a wrong impression by throwing together so many traditional phrases, old saws, familiar quotations, and illustrative stories. They formed a small part of what Mother and Father said at home or at the farm, and only rarely entered into their conversation elsewhere.

I could hardly list all the time-honored formulas— some idiomatic phrases and many metaphors —used sparingly by one or the other— e.g.