Tag: Mary Jane Edwards
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Worth the Walk?
Wednesday, November 7, 1866 Mary Stuart and I opened school this morning in the colored Methodist Church with thirty pupils. The room is quite commodious [and] will accommodate 100 pupils. It is one mile from our boarding house. We will not return for dinner as the walk is rather too much. -Mary Jane Edwards If…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Running Her Poetic License
October 21-22, 1866 This day has been a very cool one. We suffered considerably in the school house: there is but one stove in using order and that furnished all the heat for a large school, but not all that is necessary. Mary Stuart is better: she has not been able to be in school…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: The Black Orphans of Helena’s Civil War
Saturday, October 20, 1866 The Orphan Asylum is quite pleasantly situated about 9 miles from Helena. There are over fifty children here. John Harvey is here [and] has been teaching, but is now going to take charge of the farming. Mary Stuart had a chill day before yesterday and did not feel able to come…
-
I’m in a fight with a robot
This isn’t how I expected my week to go. Nonetheless, here I am. After getting my dander up last weekend about the genealogy workshop speaker who encouraged the attendees to let AI write our blog posts for us, despite her protestations that she didn’t let it write hers–yeah, right–this past week, I decided to go…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Greetings from Scenic Cairo, Illinois!
Tuesday, October 16, 1866 We left Raysville at half past six o’clock [and] arrived at Indianapolis a little after 8. Met all the teachers whom we expected to meet there. We tarried long enough to get tickets for Cairo and get our baggage checked through to the same. [We] traveled pretty steadily until three o’clock…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Travel Travails
Saturday, October 6, 1866 Lizzie & I went in to Richmond this morning to attend a part of [Indiana] Yearly Meeting. Several others of our acquaintance also went in. Cousin Rebecca Harvey and her brother Jesse are here. We also very unexpectedly met Juliet Stanley, a teacher we first met at Jackson. Miss [sic]. I…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: The Battle of Walnut Grove
Sunday, September 23, 1866 Lizzie went to Spiceland meeting to bring Hannah Lymons to our house. She went to Uncle David’s for dinner, then to Jason Williams with H [and] L. Jason and his son Joseph are both sick; their recovery is quite doubtful. Mother went to meeting riding with Lizzie as far as S…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Who, What, Where?
Keeping track of all the names mentioned in Mary Jane’s diary is a real challenge. She interacted with or mentioned over 200 people in the course of this one year in her life that she recorded. Impressive for a rural Indiana woman! Saturday, September 15, 1866 Mother and Milton started out to Plainfield to attend…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Expansion Excitement
Saturday, September 8, 1866 Quarterly meeting today which was large. Several foreign preachers were there: Robert Douglas & Cyrus Carter from Ohio, also Benjamin Fulghum, John Carey & Joshua Jeffreys from different parts of our own state. A proposition for to establish another quarterly meeting to be composed of Carthage and Walnut Ridge monthly meetings…
-
Reconstruction Diary Meditations: My Fair Lady
Friday, August 31, 1866 Milton and I went to the Fair today; saw quite a number of very nice things, among them a knitting machine which knits stockings very completely, and a great deal of fancy work. I saw quite a number of friends whom I was glad to see. [I] heard that Wm Wales…
