gave me a box of my mother's family papers. Among those papers
were three old notebooks. Two were daily diaries of my great,
great, grandmother, Josephine Jordan. They span the years 1892
to 1898. Grandmother Josephine wrote only a line a day.
Occasionally she wrote two. On a few rare occasions, she penned
three lines. I don't think she missed a day of writing in those seven
years.Here's what the diaries look like:
As I read the 1892 diary, I began to learn about this ancestor who I
previously knew absolutely nothing about. I discovered that, within
the constraints of only a few words each day, Josephine could not
elaborate. Nevertheless, as the chronicle of days and months and
years pass, a life story develops. Because of the lack of details,
the story is something of a puzzle. It can only be assembled by
understanding the historical setting (more about this later), the
cultural context, picking up little clues in the entries, reading
"between the lines," and employing some imagination.
There are people who will, undoubtedly, find the diaries to be
boring. But the combination of genuine humanity, unpretentious
writing, seven years of continuity(I will be posting all the years if there is an interest), and 115-year-old agrarian setting
will be of interest to many. I believe that if you read the first year of
Josephine's diary entries (a line a day doesn't take long to read),
you will be drawn into the story of this woman's life. You will find
yourself putting the puzzle together, wanting to know more,
wondering what will happen next.
One thing is abundantly clear right from the very first entry.
Josephine is a Christian woman. Her faith is rooted deep. It is the
central focus in her life. It is the well from which she draws hope
and joy. It is what sustains her through the difficulties and
disappointments she encounters along the path that God, the
Great Orchestrator, scripted for her.
Josephine and her husband, who she refers to as "Husband" or
"Hubby" (I have not yet discovered his first name) had a farm in
Aroostook County, Maine. That's way up in the northern part of the
state. It appears that they lived somewhere around the town of
Presque Isle. Like every other farmer in that region, they grew
potatoes. Farming was all about potatoes in Aroostook county
back then, and it pretty much still is.
But the Jordan farm was surely not like the typical farm of these
days. Farms back then were smaller. They were also more
diversified and self sufficient. Farm folk provided much of their own
food, and fuel from the forest. The community they lived in was
more closely knit than communities of today. People relied on, and
cared more about, their neighbors.
Josephine and her husband had four children. When the diary
begins in 1892, Blanche, the oldest, is 19 years old. Three years
later, she would marry a local farmer named George Lang. They
would have a daughter, Gertrude, who would grow up and marry a
local farmer by the name of Percy Philbrick (the man pictured with
me on the cover of this book). Gertrude and Percy were my grandparents.
Josephine's other children were Frank, who is 18 years old on
January first of 1892. Another son, Laurie, is 14 years old. And the
baby of the family, Gertie, is 9 years old. It is a small family
compared to many farm families of the time.
It's worth noting that Josephine was not a doctor, scientist,
inventor, entrepreneur, or politician (women could not even vote in
1892). She did not travel the world. She was not directly involved in
any great historical event. She wasn't even a good writer. The fact
is, she never distinguished herself in any notable way outside the
little circle of her home and family.
Which is to say, Josephine was an ordinary farm wife. As such she
devoted herself to helping her husband, caring for her home, her
family, and, at times, others in her community when they were in
need. She dealt with great tasks of cooking, washing, ironing,
feeding, churning, sewing, and so forth--day after day, month after
month, year after year.
It is the commonness of her life, her hard work, her self-sacrifice,
her hospitality, and her devotion to faith and family that
distinguishes Josephine--especially when viewed from the
perspective of our modern culture where so many woman have, by
choice or circumstance, refocused their daily work away from
home and family.
The fact of the matter is, Josephine Jordan demonstrated her love
for her Lord and her family by her devotion to the work of being a
wife and mother. That is one of the things that stand out when I
read the lines of words that chronicle her years.
Another thing that stands out is what appears to be Josephine's
greatest desire in life. It is not for any personal or material
gratification. It is, rather, that her children would know Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior. Time and again Josephine speaks of this
spiritual burden she has for her children, and her great hope that
they would follow in the faith.
As I write this introduction to the diaries, I have read only about two
years into the seven. I do not know exactly how Josephine's life
unfolds. I do not know if all her children embraced her faith. But in
the one other notebook among my mother's papers is a line-a-day
diary from daughter, Blanche. From Blanche's diary it appears that
she did hold fast to the Christian faith. Blanche's daughter,
Gertrude, did too. So did Gertrude's daughter, Mary, (my mother).
And I have also. So, to a degree, God gave Josephine the desire of
her heart. That is something to keep in mind as you read about her
life.
There was one more item among my mother's papers that is
pertinent to this story. It is a small page of yellowed notebook
paper with a faded pencil-scrawl. The words touched me deeply
as I read them...
In Memoriam
Oh Josephine, thy gentle voice is hushed.
Thy warm true heart is still.
And on thy pale and peaceful face,
is resting death's cold chill.
Thy hands are clasped upon thy breast.
We have kissed thy marble brow.
And in our aching hearts we know
We have no Josephine now.
Through all pain at times she smiled,
A smile of heavenly birth.
And when the angles called her home,
She smiled farewell to earth.
Heaven retaineth now our treasure.
Earth the lonely casket keeps.
And the sun beams long to linger,
Where our sainted mother sleeps.
Husband
Presque Isle, June 28th, 1914
Why I am Posting These Diaries to The Internet
When my mother, the great granddaughter of Josephine Jordan,
lay dying of cancer, she asked me to read her Psalm 103. There,
in part, it says:
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he
flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
The flower that was Josephine Jordan's life faded generations
ago, but a precious piece of her remains in two old notebooks.
Now, one hundred and fifteen years later,wonderfully, amazingly,
providentially, that fragile remnant testifies of my great, great
grandmother's love and trust in Jesus Christ. And, more than that,
in entry after entry, Josephine's humble writings glorify God.
With that in mind, I have decided to share my grandmother
Jordan's diaries with you beginning where the first note book begins.
It is a way of honoring her memory and the simple agrarian life she lived--a life focused on faith and family. I think we can learn some things from this common, but remarkable farm wife of 1892.
I am also publishing these diary entries so I can copy them off, put them in a binder and keep them for my children (perhaps even my grandchildren) to read one day. Josephine's old style of penmanship takes some effort to understand and it's easier to read in this format.
1892 Historical Perspective
As you read Joephine's diary, keep in mind that in 1892 she does
not have ANY of the household conveniences that we take for
granted these days. Though Thomas Edison's light bulb was first
displayed to the public in 1879, it was not until 1910 that the
Central Maine Power Company was founded, and household
electricity probably did not get to northern Maine farms until the
1920's. So there were no electric stovetops, ovens, refrigerators,
washing machines. irons, toasters, blenders, or any of that. There
was also not radio or television or telephone.
The Jordan home probably had a hand pump to get water, unless
they had a spring above the house and could gravity feed it into the
kitchen.
Prior to the Civil War, President Millard Fillmore installed the first
flush toilet in the White House. But in 1892, twenty-seven years
after Lee surrendered to Grant, it's unlikely that there were any
flush toilets in the farm homes of Aroostook County, Maine.
Outhouses were the standard.
Josephine cooked on and baked in a wood stove. She also heated
the water for clothes washing and bathing using a wood stove.
When she ironed clothes, her irons would have been heated by a
stove too. Chances are there was another stove (or more) to keep
the house warm in winter.
The family probably had an ice box, but possibly not. Perhaps they
had a spring house to help keep food cool. One thing Josephine
did have was canning jars— they were in widespread use at that
time.
When Josephine writes about going for a drive, she is not in an
automobile. It would be 1909 before the first affordable
automobiles (the Model T) started rolling off Henry Ford's
assembly line. Which means there were no tractors on any of the
farms in 1892. The work was accomplished with animal power,
man power, and human ingenuity.
In 1875 a new Maine law required children between the ages of
nine and fifteen to go to school for at least three months a year.
That same year, the New Brunswick Railway was run into Fort
Fairfield, thus opening up outside markets to Aroostook's farm
and forest products (potatoes in particular). More land was being
cleared to farm and more people were moving into the area to
establish farms. When Josephine's diary speaks of Husband
loading a car, it is a rail car he is loading. In 1894, the Bangor &
Aroostook Railroad was established. That made the northern
woods of Maine even more accessible.
At one point, Josephine writes of potatoes going to a factory. It is
probably a starch factory she is referring to.
When she mentions an event at the Union, she is probably
speaking of the Union Meetinghouse which was a place for civic
and religious functions. Such meeting houses were built in the
1800's all down the Eastern Seaboard. The Union Meetinghouse
Josephine speaks of is probably one built in 1859 at the junction
of Blaine and Presque Isle roads.
When Josephine speaks of ordering material for a dress she may
well have ordered it from the Montgomery Ward catalog. By 1886
the catalog (which was targeted towards the rural population of
the country) was 280 pages in length with more than 10,000
illustrations. Aaron Montgomery Ward's merchandise catalog was
the official supplier to the Grange. Sears and Roebuck was just
getting its business underway and would soon overtake
Montgomery Ward in sales.
Josephine does not mention the Grange but it was established in
1867 by Minnesota farmer and activist, Oliver Hudson Kelley. If it
had not made it to northern Maine by 1892, it would soon be there.
Daughter Blanche's husband, George Lang, was a member of the
Perham Patrons of Husbandry in 1920.
As I consider the comforts of my home and the average farm home
of 1892, it occurred to me that they probably did not have spring
mattresses on their beds. Rope beds and feather ticks were the
norm.
And one ubiquitous modern-day thing that was certainly not found
anywhere in Northern Maine would be.... PLASTIC.
Can you imagine a world without plastic?
More Historical Perspective: The Second Industrial
Revolution
Until I did some research into the era around 1892, I did not realize
that it was a time in history referred to as the second industrial
revolution. The following information from Wikipedia sheds some
light on what was happening in the world at large during the time
of Josephine's diary entries.
From 1865 to about 1900, the U.S. grew to become the world's
leading industrial nation as evidenced by the expansion in the
pace of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which expanded from
under $10 billion in 1800 to well over $350 billion by 1900.
Where the First Industrial Revolution shifted production from
artisans to factories, the Second Industrial Revolution pioneered
an expansion in organization, coordination, and scale of industry,
spurred on by technology and transportation advancements.
Railroads opened up the West, creating markets where none had
existed. The First Transcontinental Railroad, built by Irish and
Chinese immigrants, provided access to previously remote
expanses of land. Railway construction boosted demand for
capital, credit, and land.
To finance the larger-scale enterprises required during this era,
the Stockholder Corporation emerged as the dominant form of
business organization. Corporations expanded by combining into
trusts, and by creating single firms out of competing firms, known
as monopolies. Business leaders backed government policies of
laissez-faire. High tariffs sheltered U.S. factories and workers from
foreign competition, federal railroad subsidies enriched investors,
farmers and railroad workers, and created hundreds of towns and
cities. All branches of government generally sought to stop labor
from organizing into unions or from organizing strikes.
Powerful industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie, John D.
Rockefeller and Jay Gould, known collectively as "robber barons",
held great wealth and power. In a context of cutthroat competition
for wealth accumulation, the skilled labor of the old-fashioned
artisan and craftsman gave way to well-paid skilled workers and
engineers, as the nation deepened its technological base.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of immigrants encouraged the
availability of cheap labor, especially in the mining and
manufacturing sectors.
And Finally....
I hope you will enjoy and be blessed by Josephine's 1892 diary. Please feel free to add your comments and questions.
