July 28
Laura M., age 15, North Carolina
July 28, 1997
Up at 10:30. Watched some of “Rosie” and “90210.” Went with Steven to Manhattan Bagel to get pay check. Cashed it. Went to Kerr. Got nail polish. Came home and ate lunch. Me, Steven, Bryan went to Curious Goods. Got a little shirt. Went to mall and got a Phish tape. Came home and did some chores. Watched story. Em and Cap came over for dinner. Cousins left.
Anna L., age 75, Illinois
July 28, 1960
Really hot and so tired. Mostly from Wednesday’s trip. Cleaning Lo’s car. K.J. did tires. Frank and Elaine came wanted to see folks so called them at noon. Stopped for Carrie and took her along with us to Lake. Home by ten. Listened to convention.
Marcy S., age 20, Tennessee
July 28, 1944
Another hot day. Cloudy off and on but no rain. Had to do the contracts over — Mrs. Davis (bless her heart!) wanted some things changed. Mrs. (very deaf) Goodman came in and yelled at me till Mr. H. could see her. People were in and out all morning. About 11:30 Mr. H. left to go out to the country with some men. I worked till 12. Pop gone again. Announcement of Bob Dunn’s marriage. Guess I’ll have to break down and get married — if I can break a man down! :) Mr. H. didn’t return till nearly 2. Mr. Edwards came in and gave me the necessary information and I typed a letter for him. Seems Felton Sanders “done him wrong.” Pretty busy all afternoon. Off at 5. Sprinkling a little and very threatening-looking. Went up to Dress Shoppe to get a cool dress but the only one Clure had was too extreme for the office. Nothing at 5 to 5 either. On home. Decided to have picnic supper Sunday. Took bath. Called Kimmie and she and Pan can come. About 6:30 called George and he agreed to let us know by 9 in the morning — he might have a fishing engagement! Supper and then I dressed and about 7:30 went down to Kimmie’s. It had all cleared off and was a lovely evening. They were still at supper so I sat me down in the swing and waited. Mr. Young came out presently and we visited. Pan and Betsy departed for the show. Finally Kimmie appeared and we walked over to Mrs. McCluen’s. She had already sold the knitting needles but K. and I went in and we visited for quite awhile. Mr. Mc is so sweet and pretty. She was making a dress. We left about 8:45 and walked back through town and up to Kimmie’s. Sat on porch and talked. Family had gone to show. A bug got down K.’s dress and she jumped up and gave an excellent hula-hula dance. I yelled in sympathy. Oh, we had quite a time! Then went upstairs and she showed me what she’d bought in Chattanooga. Started home about 9:45. We had fun. Mum was sewing. I got fruit juice and cake for us all and we sat around a talked. Then I walked up to Tarwater’s with K. We made plans for tomorrow night. Beautiful moonlight night. To bed late. Pop didn’t come. Before going to bed I read some verses from the Bible. They are some of the most powerful and yet most mysterious. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; and that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend…what is the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” I wonder what the love of Christ is and how it is that He can dwell in our hearts by faith. And what would it be like to be filled with all the fullness of God? There is a divine (potentially anyway) nature in man and the mind is a wonderful thing but to “comprehend the length and depth and breadth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” seem to me beyond our finite minds and human hearts. I wonder if I shall ever “comprehend” — I don’t even know how Christ could dwell in our hearts by faith — or at least in my heart, because I never did get straightened out on that point… I was thinking tonight after supper — when the sun was shining through dark clouds on the luxuriant green trees and the rocky cliffs across the river — about death. We all take life so much for granted. Death, I believe, is only glorious for those who have lived greatly and given their best. Think of the billions of people who have died and no one has ever come back to tell us what it’s like. I think it shall be a great adventure — I am not ready to die but I’m not afraid of death. But just to be free of this physical body which is a prison-house of pain for so many — to be completely free and unbound forever. It is a good thing to think of death sometimes. It makes you stop and judge yourself and the way you live. Oh there are such “unplumbed depths” and unreached heights. How can we ever know them? We are so weak and small and sometimes the spirit is too large for the body. I feel as if I were in a great hall and there were hundreds of closed, locked doors all around me. I know that beyond these doors are all the secrets of life — the breadth, the depth, the length, the height — but alas! I have no key and I stand bewildered with the sense of the nearness and yet the farness of these things.
Henry S., age 25, Michigan
July 28, 1887
I went up town this morning and mailed two postal cards and did some trading. Coming home I stopped at Mrs. Neill’s and got all the canned fruit of ours that was in their cellar. Did some hoeing in the garden. Went out to Fred’s farm and bound oats all the afternoon. It has been quite a cool day. I took Jimmie out with me.
*(R. Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville)
Cornelia H., age 25, North Carolina
July 28, 1862
Made Hanes’ pants & sewed some on Lonzo’s. Willie very fretful. Mail brought no news of importance. A clear warm day. Mr. Henry went to Asheville, brought no news.
*(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
July 28, 1667
All the morning at the office, and after dinner with my wife and Deb. to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “The Slighted Maid,” but a mean play; and thence home, there being little pleasure now in a play, the company being but little. Here we saw Gosnell, who is become very homely, and sings meanly, I think, to what I thought she did.
*(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.)