When I began writing this blog, almost 4 years ago, one of the first posts I wrote was about my Grandpa Reed's journals and the influence they have been in my life. They've been sitting on bookshelves or packed in boxes, and moved from household to household, for the last 30 to 40 years.Recently (actually, at the end of February) I was inspired to begin transcribing them for publication.
 |  |
Fortunately, back in the 1980's when my dad was discovering new uses for his Osborne computer almost every day, he took the time to transcribe and print out the complete set of journals, from 1927 to 1959. These transcriptions were printed with a dot-matrix printer, each year headed by a list of significant events, and slipped into page protectors. It was from these transcriptions that I wrote and illustrated my newest book, At Home in Lansing: The Journals of Maurice L. Reed, 1927-1931.
As I typed the words Grandpa wrote with a fountain pen on lined paper, almost 90 years ago, I was amazed all over again. At his thirst for self-education, and the record he kept of the books he checked out of the state library, one of the benefits of living in Lansing. At his hunger for hard, physical work, and the details he set down of digging out a basement underneath their bungalow home. At his passion for weaving, which began in the late 1920s, was set aside for a time, and then taken up again to become his retirement work at Reedcraft Weavers. And at his joy in camping, and in taking his family and friends to explore new areas around Michigan and the US.
Here are some excerpts:
April 11, 1928
Signed a contract to teach next year at $2305. Summer school will add a little to it.
Dec. 18, 1929
One of the most severe snow storms Lansing has ever seen began about noon today. I got the car out & drove to Evening School but only 2 in first class & 3 in second, one of them Miss Norton’s. One of my students had no way to get home. I took her, got tuck for an hour on Willow, sent her on as soon as I saw I was to be there some time, got a horse to pull me out for a dollar. Had to park on Main St. as couldn’t get in garage. All schools were closed all day Thurs.
March 21, 1930
Went to the closing exercises of Evening School last night, and ducked out at 8:30 to go to lodge, hoping to get some knowledge of the ritual. Have made no visible headway at it yet, and feel so disgusted. I dislike intensely to spend such oceans of time learning such utterly useless material. Had I known one must learn thousands and thousands of words of ritual in order to become a common 3rd degree Mason, and that it must be done from another Mason, as it doesn't exist lawfully in print, and that it must be accompanied by the inhalation of second-hand tobacco smoke, carbon dioxide and bad lighting; I fear I should never have attempted it.
July 4, 1930 (camping at Yellowstone National Park)
Dinner was the biggest success yet. I invented out of sheer imagination a pot roast of Mackinaw trout and it was delicious, with bacon, vinegar, salt, pepper & sugar in it, and steamed. Another big feature was the successful initiation of my reflector baker. I baked a batch of biscuits and they were perfect, browned to a turn, done through & through in only 12 min. cooking. M.H. made shortcake of them with the fruit, and ate his full quota of the trout beside.
Nov. 29, 1930
Ruby and I and Jane are pretty bored over it all. We have had to sit for hours in stifling, overheated rooms, facing glaring lights, and listening to no end of gossip, unable to read or be comfortable days, and in misery one of the two nights. Nothing against the folks we visited. They did all they could to show us a good time, but hereafter we stay in town all winter unless it be for a long trip South some time. Other people are accustomed to keep their house hotter than we enjoy, they do not have any common interests with us, have religious scruples against a game of bridge, and we are getting older probably, and do not so easily adjust ourselves to their ways. The annual trip, which we have made every year since 1924, I think, has almost become a custom, but it is too severe, and too hazardous, at the time of year, and we feel it had better be dropped.
Here are some excerpts:
April 11, 1928
Signed a contract to teach next year at $2305. Summer school will add a little to it.
Dec. 18, 1929
One of the most severe snow storms Lansing has ever seen began about noon today. I got the car out & drove to Evening School but only 2 in first class & 3 in second, one of them Miss Norton’s. One of my students had no way to get home. I took her, got tuck for an hour on Willow, sent her on as soon as I saw I was to be there some time, got a horse to pull me out for a dollar. Had to park on Main St. as couldn’t get in garage. All schools were closed all day Thurs.
March 21, 1930
Went to the closing exercises of Evening School last night, and ducked out at 8:30 to go to lodge, hoping to get some knowledge of the ritual. Have made no visible headway at it yet, and feel so disgusted. I dislike intensely to spend such oceans of time learning such utterly useless material. Had I known one must learn thousands and thousands of words of ritual in order to become a common 3rd degree Mason, and that it must be done from another Mason, as it doesn't exist lawfully in print, and that it must be accompanied by the inhalation of second-hand tobacco smoke, carbon dioxide and bad lighting; I fear I should never have attempted it.
July 4, 1930 (camping at Yellowstone National Park)
Dinner was the biggest success yet. I invented out of sheer imagination a pot roast of Mackinaw trout and it was delicious, with bacon, vinegar, salt, pepper & sugar in it, and steamed. Another big feature was the successful initiation of my reflector baker. I baked a batch of biscuits and they were perfect, browned to a turn, done through & through in only 12 min. cooking. M.H. made shortcake of them with the fruit, and ate his full quota of the trout beside.
Nov. 29, 1930
Ruby and I and Jane are pretty bored over it all. We have had to sit for hours in stifling, overheated rooms, facing glaring lights, and listening to no end of gossip, unable to read or be comfortable days, and in misery one of the two nights. Nothing against the folks we visited. They did all they could to show us a good time, but hereafter we stay in town all winter unless it be for a long trip South some time. Other people are accustomed to keep their house hotter than we enjoy, they do not have any common interests with us, have religious scruples against a game of bridge, and we are getting older probably, and do not so easily adjust ourselves to their ways. The annual trip, which we have made every year since 1924, I think, has almost become a custom, but it is too severe, and too hazardous, at the time of year, and we feel it had better be dropped.
RSS Feed