From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I couldn’t finish Florence Nightingale last night because I had to go to bed early to help my arithmetic. Tonight too.
June 4, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Now I can tell the rest about Florence Nightingale….
She lived to be a very old lady and if it hadn’t been for her, we wouldn’t have nice clean hospitals or nice clean nurses today because before Florence began nursing, they did all kinds of terrible things to sick people, they really didn’t know very much, especially about cleanliness. They always kept the windows shut tight and everyone thought that night air was unhealthy but Florence asked her doctor about night air when she was very young and she doubted that the air at night was any different than the air during the day. That was very smart of her, wasn’t it? And in the hospitals, they let the very sick sleep with people who had all kinds of other things wrong with them and then they all got sicker than they were already. When people had fevers they stuffed them with soup and hung silly things like rabbits’ feet or onions and garlic around their necks or tied them up with stockings soaked in bear’s grease. They must have smelled terrible.
June 3, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This is the day that Miss Hare wanted us to tell her why a day in June is so rare. I didn’t know because I thought about Florence Nightingale instead. It didn’t make any difference though, because the whole class talked about it anyhow. Miss Hare started off by asking us what the word rare meant, and Robert said that it meant a steak that wasn’t well cooked and still looked bloody. Miss Hare said that was only one meaning but not the meaning of rare in the poem. She said in the poem the word meant something precious and beautiful like a diamond or a pearl or a perfect sunset. Then she went from one pupil to another and asked each of us what we thought was rare about a June day. Someone said that most of the month of June the school was closed and then vacation began and someone else said “June Bugs” but Miss Hare said that bugs aren’t beautiful but that’s not true as they are so I raised my hand and told her so. I said that ladybugs are very beautiful, all shiny, brown and red with little white specks. She said perhaps I was right, that she had never noticed them and then everyone else said all kinds of different things like red roses and clouds and sunshine and the smell of woods. I’m still not sure what rare means.
June 2, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I should be thinking of the word rare and why a day in June is that but I really want to write some more about Florence Nightingale in case I forget and if someone doesn’t return the book because I really love this story.
Well, she lived in this beautiful, big house and had everything she wanted but she didn’t want all the things she had. She wanted only to be a nurse. In those days, it wasn’t polite for a lady to be a nurse and her parents didn’t want her to be one but one day something very nice happened. There was a big war between England and Russia. All the English soldiers had to go to Russia to fight and they needed lots of doctors and nurses so Florence said that she was going even if it was impolite for ladies to be nurses. She went to visit hospitals so she could learn how to take the best care of patients and she also taught other young ladies how to do it because they too thought that the job of nursing was not just a man’s job and she and all the young ladies went to Russia to take care of sick soldiers. Everyone loved Florence very much. The soldiers used to kiss her shadow on the wall as she went from one to another during the night.
June 1, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I must stay home today and do my homework because I am far behind the rest of the class. Grandfather says that it is not because I was stupid but because I was sick. My homework for today is to think about what is rare about a day in June. In class today, Miss Hare made us take our pens and write in our blank books, “And what is so rare as a day in June.” She said it is the first line of a beautiful poem by an American poet whose name is James Russell Lowell and she made us write down his name too so we would remember it but she said the poem was very long and for now the first line was enough. We must think about the first line over the weekend and on Monday morning we must be able to tell her why a day in June is beautiful and what the word rare means.
Apparently many people have asked the same question. A google search for the meaning of “And what is so rare as a day in June” brought up 361,000,000 results! The poem is from the Prelude of a much longer poem called “The Vision of Sir Launfal.”
May 31, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I had my arithmetic lesson and I am learning and it isn’t as hard as I thought it was so now I can write a little more about Florence Nightingale….
All the children in the neighborhood used to bring their sick animals to Florence. She put a splint on the leg of a little fox terrier, and a salve on the wound of a tiny kitten who had been bitten.
Kitten and Bitten rhyme and together, they make poetry, but if I say that the kitten was bitten by a dog, then the poem is spoilt, so I won’t say it, but she was.
Well, besides the kitten and the terrier Florence tried to nurse a goldfish that had jumped out of his bowl of water but though she rubbed him ever so hard and put him in a bowl of fresh water, he died anyhow and Florence cried tears all over him.
May 30, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I couldn’t write more about the story yesterday. I won’t be able to write more for a while because every afternoon a private teacher is coming to help me with my arithmetic. The doctor found out that one of the reasons I have an earache is because I hate arithmetic so. He found out, I guess I really told him, that I am afraid to go to school because I don’t know how to add or subtract and I have been copying answers over Ellen’s shoulder but when I am at the blackboard there is no one’s shoulder to copy from and then when I see Miss Hare coming, it is just as if she is a big wild animal and I feel terrified and I feel as if she is really going to eat me up alive. Then in bed at night I feel scared about going to school the next day and I can’t sleep and my ears begin to ache. So the doctor told my Grandfather that I don’t need a doctor at all, just a private teacher to help me learn. Now I have one. Her name is Miss Jackson and she is very pretty and she is very nice.
May 29, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I think that I shall write down the story of Florence Nightingale and read it to myself when I am eighty years old because maybe in the meantime I will lend my book to someone who will forget to return it to me, like the way Antoinette forgot to return “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” I will start now. I think that I will start it “Once upon a time,” like the real story.
Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in London, England and her name was Florence Nightingale. Her father was very rich and she lived in a very big house. She was a good little girl and loved everyone, especially when they were sick, because then she could take care of them. Whenever her mother had bad headaches, she always pulled the shades down in her room and brought her cool towels for her brow and hot tea to drink and when her mother was sleeping, she wouldn’t even let people walk on the floor above. She saw to it that everything was quiet so her mother could get a good rest.
Perhaps the book given to Hilda was The Story of Florence Nightingale by Inez N. McFee which was published in 1912. That book mentions another by Laura E. Richards, entitled Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea: A Story for Young People, published in 1909.
How wise Hilda was to understand that things sometimes are lost and that she wanted to preserve the memory of things she cared about. I don’t know whether she reread her diary when she was 80, but would like to think so.
May 28, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I was in bed all last week and I had a very nice time between earaches. One day last week Grandmother went downtown and she said that she would buy me a book and what kind of book did I want? So I said, “Please pick out a book about someone real, not about good little girls and Bible stories, or morals.” So she did bring me a wonderful book about a real little girl called Florence Nightingale. Isn’t that a lovely name? Just like the real bird who sings at night. Florence, too, was a lovely little girl. When she was my age she liked to take care of sick people. I hate sick people. They are always so cross.
May 22, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I am writing with a pencil because I am in bed with an earache and Grandmother doesn’t want me to write with ink because it can spill on the sheets. I am very pleased about the earache, as it doesn’t hurt too much and it’s much nicer than arithmetic. The doctor says I cannot go to school for at least a week.
Sad to say, Hilda also takes a break from writing in her diary. She’ll return on May 28.
May 21, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I hope that I don’t have to go calling next Saturday afternoon. Going calling is very tiresome. I think that I prefer going to school. All the parlors are the same, very unpleasant. They are either green or gold sometimes red, Grandmother calls it plush and they all have glass cases that are full of things that you are not allowed to touch. Little statues of sheep and milk maids and windmills and ladies sitting in chairs with gentlemen standing over them playing the guitar or mandolin. Some of the parlors have sofa pillows with fringe or tassels or shredded leather with Indian heads and colored beads. I would really love to see a parlor like the picture of one in my “Little Lord Fauntleroy” book. That picture was of a room with a big window and lots of sunlight and the drapes were flowered and on the tables were pots of real flowers. Maybe only in England the parlors are like that or maybe there are some rooms like that here in this country too but Grandmother’s friends and relatives have these gloomy ones. There was one friend of my Grandmother’s who was kind and sweet and I was happy in that house. She never told me not to do anything and when Grandmother kept telling me not to do this and that she said, “Oh! The dear child can’t hurt anything, do let her play.”
Today’s entry brings back memories for me. My mother would often take me along when she visited friends in Larkspur. They had no children and their house was very orderly. My mother would constantly admonish me not to touch anything. I was always terrified and uncomfortable there.
By the time I was born, “calling” was no longer something that one did. Yet when I was in high school, the company that sold senior photos included an option that included a few hundred calling cards that included one’s name and nothing else. My friends and I exchanged them with notes on the back at the same time that we were signing each other’s yearbooks. I had no idea what they really were for, but my mother insisted they would come in useful one day. They haven’t.
May 20, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I love rainy days at school. We all bring our lunches and eat them at our desks and sometimes Miss Hare reads us a story while we are eating but today she didn’t. Aunt Tillie had made me beautiful thin chicken sandwiches and she cut off all the crust. Ellen and Wesley saw me open them and wanted to trade and I of course had to be polite so I had sardines and sausage sandwiches instead. Just the things I don’t like and so I wasn’t very happy.
May 19, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This afternoon Grandfather took me to Golden Gate Park. There is a pretty little lake there with boats on it and ducks swimming in it and geese too and black birds called coots and you can buy bags of bread to feed them. Grandfather bought a bag for the birds and a bag of cookies for me and then he took one of the little boats with a boy to row it and it was so much fun. The ducks and geese came right up to our boat and one duck had a row of little babies swimming in back of her single file, just the way we march in school when we have a fire drill.
Like Hilda, I have fond memories of feeding the birds at Golden Gate Park. Instead of buying it, we would bring stale bread from home.
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp15.1280
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp27.1197
Photo of me with my mother, perhaps 1962
May 18, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This is Saturday, but there will be no more dancing school until Alma comes back because no one likes to take me, not even Grandfather. This afternoon Grandmother is taking me calling. I am to wear my new blue and white checked silk dress and my Milan hat with pink roses on it and patent leather slippers and white gloves. I am to speak only when I am spoken to and not ask for anything even to go to the bathroom, and if we have tea I am to take only one tiny piece of cake even if the hostess begs me to take more. I asked Grandmother if the hostess didn’t really mean for us to take more and Grandmother said that the hostess means it but no one really does, so everyone goes on coaxing everyone to eat more and no one does. I asked if that wasn’t a little bit like lying and Grandmother got nervous and yelled, “Stop it, I can’t stand anymore of your stupid questions.”
May 17, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
When our Chinese laundry man came in today he brought me a beautiful present. It is a big wooden egg, painted in all sorts of different beautiful bright colors and inside of it are a million little eggs. You keep opening the eggs ‘til you get to the tiniest one and that is so very tiny that you can hardly hold it in your hand. Aunt Tillie says that if I would stop biting my nails it would be easier to hold tiny things because I then could pick them up with my nails, like pincers.
I am delighted to learn new things from Hilda almost every day. Although I was familiar with Russian nesting dolls, such objects originated in China, as explained in a blog post on the history of nesting dolls.
May 16, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
It rained so hard last night. I heard the rain drumming on our roof, very hard, just before I fell off to sleep and I wondered if it would still be raining when I woke up, but the sun was out today. When I went outside the sidewalk was full of rainbows and worms.
In the typed copy I have of Hilda’s diary, it is entitled “Rainbows and Worms.” When I read this entry earlier in the year, it took me back to my childhood in San Francisco. I vividly recall walking to school after a rain and seeing earthworms all over the sidewalk, and rainbows in the puddles. Perhaps because there is so much more pavement everywhere in the city, it had been many years since I noticed an earthworm on the ground. The day after I first read this entry, it rained and outside our front door, lo and behold, there was a (not very happy) earthworm!!
May 15, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
It was nice having electricity last night. Even Grandfather said that it was easier to read his paper with the brighter lights but I missed Ito coming into the parlor with his long wax taper and lighting the gas chandeliers one at a time. It always looked so pretty having the candles glow one by one. Grandmother says that it is nice to have electric lights as all her friends have it, and she says that electricity is progress. That now, we have no wars and hardly any poor people, at least she says she doesn’t see any poor people so that now we are in a world of progress and peace. Grandfather said, “My God Sara.” He kept his mouth open to say more but then he didn’t.
May 14, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today, we are going to have electricity put in our house. Grandmother has been begging for it for ever so long so at last Grandfather said, “Auch recht.” Grandmother is very smart and she knows that if she bothers Grandfather long enough, at the end he will always say “Auch recht.”
The streets of San Francisco were lit with electric lights before the 1906 earthquake. According to an article about the electric light system by the National Park Service, although electric lights were brought to parts of Manhattan as early as the late 1800s, “[o]nly in 1925 did half of all homes in the U.S. have electric power.”
Below are a few photos of nighttime San Francisco that Hilda might have seen.
Photo circa 1911 courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp37.02750
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp15.742
Photo courtesy OpenSFHistory / wnp26.2123
May 13, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Grandmother says that the number 13 is unlucky and the thirteenth of the month is an unlucky day so I am afraid of it. Nothing bad or good happened.
May 12, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I’d rather go out with Grandfather than anyone else in the world. He never tries to teach me anything. Today we went for a walk together. First we went to the corner grocery store and he bought me a bag of sugar cookies. He told me not to tell Grandmother. I asked him if that wasn’t a lie and he said no, not at all. He said that if she didn’t’ ask me and I said nothing, well that was nothing. If she asked me if I had something to eat without asking what it was and I said yes, without saying what I ate, well that was nothing too but of course, if she asked me if I had eaten cookies and I said no, that would be a scorching lie. Anyhow, I ate the cookies and so did Brownie and maybe Grandmother won’t ask me. I hope she doesn’t.