Having just finished reading As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, I have been in the mood for correspondence and diary-style reading of late. When Sara approached me about sponsoring for the month of April, I was quite intrigued as her site isn’t the usual sort that advertises here. She isn’t selling a product per se, but sharing a passion for history through her blog Her Five Year Diary, in which she publishes entries from a diary she unearthed at an estate sale. Posting entries fifty years ago to the day, this diary shows an interesting peek into the life of an average woman of the past. Being a fan of histories that tell the story of ordinary people, this project has captured my attention (and my feed reader). I hope you’ll enjoy this peek into a diary of the past, as well as the short interview I did with Sara about the diary.
What inspired you to start this project? Have you always been interested in history?
I wouldn’t call myself a history buff, but I’m fascinated with “regular people” who lived in the early- to mid-twentieth century. My mom has taken me to garage and estate sales practically my whole life, and I’ve always been drawn to ephemera from those periods. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to all those smiling ladies in the advertisements and pamphlets I’ve collected over the years. I guess I have a bit of empathy for folks from periods gone by. I think about how one day WE will be those people and I would love for us to be thought of and remembered as “real people” and not just old-timey folks in pretty dresses who are long gone. So in my way, I’m doing the best I can to keep this woman’s memory and existence alive.
What made this diary stand out to you? Have you been able to track down any information about the original author?
I found the diary at an estate sale near where I live in Northern California. First of all, the cover is absolutely gorgeous; I think I fell in love with it even before I knew it had writing in it! But when I opened it up and saw that the entries were filled in, I just had to have it. And at $5, it seemed like a steal! One thing I really love about the diary is that – while it has a lock on the front that isn’t locked – there is a little envelope attached to the inside back cover and the key is still in there! Something about that stirs my heart.
I have no information about the author’s identity, though it’s clear she lived in the Seattle area and was a teacher for at least some of the time during which the diary was written. She didn’t record her name in the diary, and any clues she has revealed in her entries so far haven’t led us to find out her name. When I say “us,” I mean a small band of loyal readers, some of whom are proving themselves to be great detectives! Thanks to the internet, we’ve been able to figure out a lot and see her life more clearly. Using tools like Google Street View, for example: on February 5, 1961, she mentioned renting a house at a certain address and since that house still stands, we were able to take a look at it. She also talks about having supper at the Paul Bunyan Room in the revered but now-shuttered Seattle department store, Frederick & Nelson. I was able to track down a photo of the inside of that room, which is just marvelous and so wonderfully designed. You can really imagine the diarist and her roommate eating supper in that room. That kind of thing makes the diary really come alive, I think.
I try to use the Twitter account to include links to more information about things she’s mentioned in that day’s entry, or news events that happened on that day. I hope to one day incorporate those kinds of things into the blog itself, but so far I just haven’t had the time to make it happen.
The idea of posting an entry to coincide with the current date is really unique–what inspired you to do this format? Was the original writer very consistent about daily entries, or have there been any gaps?
I bought the diary about four or five years ago and after skimming through it a bit and being a big fan of vintage-style blogs, I thought there might be other people out there who would be as interested in it as I was. (I have to make a confession that even I have not read the entire thing! The diary itself is not in terrible shape, but there is one section of it that is coming a bit loose and I hate to page through it more than I have to. Also, I love a surprise!) So I always meant to create a web site for it and post the entries, but when my husband reminded me that we were coming up on the 50th anniversary of the day she started writing in the diary, posting an entry exactly 50 years later to the day seemed like the perfect thing to do! I think following this blog is great for a lot of people because there were only four or five lines for her to write on each day; that makes it a quick, easy read but you still get the flavor of her life, especially if you follow along and start to see the same people and things pop up on various days. Plus, I thought it would make it extra fun to have the seasons and holidays coincide with what we as “modern folk” are living day-to-day. When it’s Christmas for us, it’s Christmas for her!
As far as gaps in the diary, there are none, which is pretty amazing. The only entries left blank are the ones from February 29th in non-leap years. I think that tells us a lot about this woman – that she was motivated, committed and maybe a little anal-retentive. She has actually inspired me to start a five-year diary, which I did at the start of 2010. So far I haven’t missed a day, either, so maybe that tells you a little something about me!
What is your favorite entry (that’s been posted thus far)?
Most of the entries are pretty humdrum and unemotional; the diary was not a place where she poured her heart out. She talks about washing her hosiery, going out to eat Chinese food, teaching classes, traveling a little around the Pacific Northwest, sewing…nothing earth-shattering. But that’s kind of what I love about it. She was just a regular woman doing regular things, like most of us. There have been a few entries that raised my eyebrow or made me giggle. A recent one that comes to mind is the day before her spring break started. She wrote, “Last day of school before spring vacation. Dismissal at regular time. Awful!!!!!” She had NEVER used any sort of emotional punctuation or language like that so far; she usually kept very cool, but you could tell that she just really wanted her vacation to start, which I thought was funny because we’ve all been there, right?
She is also often very specific about the times of the day that things happened. In the March 25, 1961 entry, she travels to Southern California and almost the entire entry is made up of how long things took, what time her various travels began and ended, etc. It’s a bit of a quirky and cute thing about her, and she does it a lot. I’m not sure why she thought those kinds of things needed to be written down for posterity, but I love that they’re in there. There are also some entries coming up – from what I’ve skimmed through – that are pretty great. Stay tuned!
What is your vision for where this blog and reprinted diary will go?
Well, my one simple goal is to keep it going – posting daily entries exactly as written – for the full five years and have at least a few other people be able to find it who would be interested in it. During or after that, I really have no idea! As I said, I just wanted to preserve this amazing artifact and have her work – keeping up a daily diary IS work! – and life remembered beyond being a dusty diary sitting on a bookshelf or in a box in someone’s garage. I didn’t want her to be forgotten, but I also see her as a symbol that all of us are human beings and that we deserve to be remembered.
Be sure to stop by and subscribe to the feed of Her Five Year Diary, as well as the Twitter account for additional links and information!
A big thank you to all my lovely sponsors for their support!
