October 19
Laura M., age 15, North Carolina
October 19, 1997
Dad came at 12:00. Did homework. Went 2 Juice Shop and Barnes & Noble with fam. Went 2 Renée’s 4 couple hours. Mom came. Ate dinner. T.V. and Courtney and homework.
Anna L., age 75, Illinois
October 19, 1960
It rained in the nite and it was a most miserable day dark and gloomy until later when it turned cold. Snowed quite a bit and melted. Salvation Army came to Mrs. B.’s while I was there. Carrie not feeling a bit good. Her arm ached and she was real sick for a while in the PM. Did seem to get over it but looked badly. Finished my ironing.
Marcy S., age 14, Tennessee
October 19, 1938
Practiced. Went to chapel. Usual classes. Mary was sick during Latin and part of Home Ec. but she helped me with the machine. She said I was the sweetest girl she knew. Algebra. At noon talked to Mary awhile. Home for dinner. Mary back. Walked to school with Elma. Usual classes. After school Mary walked home with me to put my books up. We freshened up and then Mother talked to Mary awhile and then just as we were leaving for town Jim called Mary and they divided the candy. Charles, George and Helen crowded around. I did too, but only to wait for Mary. Jim and Mary both offered me some but I can’t eat candy. Finally we left for town. Mary had to go to Cate’s, the 10-cent stores and I had to go to the Drug Store and the Grocery store. We walked as far as the hotel together. When I got home George borrowed the rake. I studied and practiced. Daddy came. At 7:00 (after supper) I listened to One Man’s Family. Listened to music till 8:00. Then dishes, bath and to bed. [In upper margin: “Very warm. Daddy went out on a fire. Windy and rained at night.”]
Henry S., age 26, Michigan
October 19, 1887
I cut posts for our cellar today, and got Fred Neill to draw a lot of lumber up from the saw mill for me. Mr. Morris was here just before I went to work this afternoon and told me that the County Poor Superintendents wanted my help tomorrow to start their accounts in new books. I don’t know how I will come out about them as they are different than Mercantile books.
*(R. Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville)
Cornelia H., age 26, North Carolina
October 19, 1862
Rather cool this morning but bright & warm now. Mr. Henry still improving. I hope he will be well soon. He had a very slight chill yesterday evening & complained of headache a good deal when he first got up but it is better now. Dinner will soon be on. I must stop & draw off the P. O. return. Mr. Henry assisted me with the return, got it ready to leave with the mail tomorrow. Old Tanner Smith was here part of the day. Nothing new going on in the country, all quiet along the Potomac.
*(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
October 19, 1667
At the office all the morning, where very busy, and at noon home to a short dinner, being full of my desire of seeing my Lord Orrery’s new play this afternoon at the King’s house, “The Black Prince,” the first time it is acted; where, though we come by two o’clock, yet there was no room in the pit, but we were forced to go into one of the upper boxes, at 4s. a piece, which is the first time I ever sat in a box in my life. And in the same box come, by and by, behind me, my Lord Barkeley [of Stratton] and his lady; but I did not turn my face to them to be known, so that I was excused from giving them my seat; and this pleasure I had, that from this place the scenes do appear very fine indeed, and much better than in the pit. The house infinite full, and the King and Duke of York was there. By and by the play begun, and in it nothing particular but a very fine dance for variety of figures, but a little too long. But, as to the contrivance, and all that was witty (which, indeed, was much, and very witty), was almost the same that had been in his two former plays of “Henry the 5th” and “Mustapha,” and the same points and turns of wit in both, and in this very same play often repeated, but in excellent language, and were so excellent that the whole house was mightily pleased with it all along till towards the end he comes to discover the chief of the plot of the play by the reading of along letter, which was so long and some things (the people being set already to think too long) so unnecessary that they frequently begun to laugh, and to hiss twenty times, that, had it not been for the King’s being there, they had certainly hissed it off the stage. But I must confess that, as my Lord Barkeley says behind me, the having of that long letter was a thing so absurd, that he could not imagine how a man of his parts could possibly fall into it; or, if he did, if he had but let any friend read it, the friend would have told him of it; and, I must confess, it is one of the most remarkable instances that ever I did or expect to meet with in my life of a wise man’s not being wise at all times, and in all things, for nothing could be more ridiculous than this, though the letter of itself at another time would be thought an excellent letter, and indeed an excellent Romance, but at the end of the play, when every body was weary of sitting, and were already possessed with the effect of the whole letter; to trouble them with a letter a quarter of an hour long, was a most absurd thing. After the play done, and nothing pleasing them from the time of the letter to the end of the play, people being put into a bad humour of disliking (which is another thing worth the noting), I home by coach, and could not forbear laughing almost all the way home, and all the evening to my going to bed, at the ridiculousness of the letter, and the more because my wife was angry with me, and the world, for laughing, because the King was there, though she cannot defend the length of the letter. So after having done business at the office, I home to supper and to bed.
*(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.)