December 7
Laura M., age 15, North Carolina
December 7, 1997
Ray took me to work 7-12. Em and Cap picked me up. Went 2 Tarboro 4 Mema and Pop’s 50th anniversary. Cake.
Anna L., age 75, Illinois
December 7, 1960
Mrs. B. went to her grw. circle. Mary Pierce came in P.M. Also went down to Loie’s, met Vi in drug store. Went to cabin had steak. Came home quite early.
Marcy S., age 14, Tennessee
December 7, 1938
Practiced. Went to chapel. Band played. Nice day. Usual classes. Home for dinner. I changed my skirt and after dinner Mother heard my reading. Then just before I left she telephoned someone. As I was leaving Helen came to see if I was ready to go to school. She also invited me to go the movies with her tomorrow afternoon to see Shirley Temple in “Just Around the Corner.” She said I’d taken her so many places that she wanted to take me some place. I was thinking tomorrow was Friday and I told her maybe I could go. We walked to school with Betty Scarbro and Bobby Butler. Usual classes. Nancy and I talked a little in last period study hall. P.S. During the first period after dinner the Drill Team had to practice and Mildred Tilley, who is in it, didn’t have her English paper finished. Since English came the next period she wouldn’t have a chance to get it so I offered to do it for her. I wrote as near like her as possible. She thanked me a lot and said she owed me something although she didn’t really. After school Mary and I walked up to the old building for Music Club. I invited Mary as my guest. Mother and Mrs. Moore also came as guests. Mrs. Gollihar and Ruth Sadler were in charge. Only Carol, Margaret K., June and I were there as regular members. Quite noisy in auditorium. I was first on the program and I gave my Christmas reading. Wasn’t scared but I think I talked too fast although everyone said it was good. [In left margin: “Yesterday I told Helen that a certain girl (I didn’t give any names) said she liked a certain boy and I told this girl that Helen liked the boy, too. The girl said she’d have to be stepping fast to keep up with Helen. H. is begging me to tell her who the girl and boy are but I won’t. They really are Nancy Wallace and Bobby Morris.”] The others played the piano. Since there were so few there we had a very short meeting. Mrs. Moore brought “Beautiful Lady in Blue” for me to practice a little. I talked to Mary awhile afterwards and then Mother and I drove up by Mrs. Winslow’s and Mother saw her a few mins. Then home. I went up to H.’s to tell her I couldn’t go to the movies but she wasn’t home. I came back and practiced and studied. Soon I saw H. and her daddy coming home so I went out and told her. Quite sorry. Got thru supper early. Daddy not home. After supper (about 5:30) I helped Mother and read Dickens’s “Christmas Carol” to report on next week. Then at 7:00 I listened to One Man’s Family and cracked nuts. Then read till about 8:20 when Mrs. McClure came over for something. A fuse blew out in the kitchen and shocked her. After she’d gone all the fuses in the back part of the house blew out and we had to borrow 2 from the Waterhouses. I was afraid they’d shock Mother. They, too, blew out so we borrowed some from the Johnstones. They worked and I finally got to bed.
Henry S., age 26, Michigan
December 7, 1887
It tried to snow some this morning but quit before any amount fell. I sawed up some chunks for the big stove, this forenoon, and then I put a window light in the stable door so as to admit light for Jimmie. There was no school this afternoon on account of the dedication of the Church. I went up to the exercises and got my mail before coming home. It has not been a very pleasant day and is growing colder.
*(R. Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville)
William B., 19 years old, P.O.W. in Delaware
December 7, 1864
Weather cloudy + rainey [sic] during the day encouraging news still about Sherman + his chances diminishing daily.
*(William Hyslop Summer Burgwyn Private Collection, North Carolina State Archives)
Cornelia H., age 26, North Carolina
December 7, 1862
Water froze in my room last night, the first time in two years. It was a dreadful cold night & but little warmer yet though the sun shines bright. I pity the poor soldiers this cold weather. So many of them needing clothes & shoes. The sawmill caught on fire last night about 1 o’clock from fire left there yesterday as Jim was sawing. I intend going down soon to see the damage that is done. The negroes say ’tis but little. Mrs. Fanning came up & told Sam of it. I knew nothing of it till this morning. I will stop now as I want to eat some walnuts & apples & after dinner I will go to see the sawmill. It was so very cold I did not go to the mill. The wind big all day. Boyd came this evening.
*(Fear in North Carolina: The Civil War Journals and Letters of the Henry Family, Eds. Karen L. Clinard and Richard Russell, used with permission.)
Samuel P., age 34, London
December 7, 1667
All the morning at the office, and at noon home to dinner with my clerks, and while we were at dinner comes Willet’s aunt to see her and my wife; she is a very fine widow and pretty handsome, but extraordinary well carriaged and speaks very handsomely and with extraordinary understanding, so as I spent the whole afternoon in her company with my wife, she understanding all the things of note touching plays and fashions and Court and everything and speaks rarely, which pleases me mightily, and seems to love her niece very well, and was so glad (which was pretty odde) that since she came hither her breasts begin to swell, she being afeard before that she would have none, which was a pretty kind of content she gave herself. She tells us that Catelin is likely to be soon acted, which I am glad to hear, but it is at the King’s House. But the King’s House is at present and hath for some days been silenced upon some difference [between] Hart and Moone. She being gone I to the office, and there late doing business, and so home to supper and to bed. Only this evening I must remember that my Lady Batten sent for me, and it was to speak to me before her overseers about my bargain with Sir W. Batten about the prize, to which I would give no present answer, but am well enough contented that they begin the discourse of it, and so away to the office again, and then home to supper and to bed. Somebody told me this, that they hear that Thomson, with the wooden leg, and Wildman, the Fifth-Monarchy man, a great creature of the Duke of Buckingham’s, are in nomination to be Commissioners, among others, upon the Bill of Accounts.
*(The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S., edited by Henry B. Wheatley F.S.A., London, George Bell & Sons York St. Covent Garden, Cambridge Deighton Bell & Co., 1893.)