This past week was another busy one in the Bullis Room. Staff and volunteers covered books, researched various topics, transcribed documents, did some shelf reading, and - in honor of Women's History Month - presented a program on
Notable Women in the Bullis Collection. (If you missed this stellar presentation, there will be another program offered the last of this month -- more info to follow.)
And ... while looking through some documents connected to Charlie and Nettie Bullis, we focused on some of Charlie's diaries. Here are the entries that 15-year-old Charlie Bullis wrote the first week of April, 111 years ago. We found them interesting and informative ... and a bit nostalgic at times. The entries also brought a number of questions to mind, including:
1) Did sibling rivalry cause 13-year-old Nettie to plant 51 tomato seeds on April 2, one more than her brother did the day before?
2) Has our local weather pattern changed much from 1906, going from fair on April 5 to 2 inches of snow on April 6?
3) Did the Bullis hens stop laying eggs halfway through the week? Or did Charlie neglect gathering and/or recording the results?
Anyway ... we hope you enjoy reading these diary entries as much as we did.
SUNDAY APRIL 1 1906
Eggs 12
Dryer & Kemp were here
I planted 50 tomato seeds
The weather is pleasant
warm and sunshiny
there is only a little snow
left in drifts
MONDAY APRIL 2 1906
Eggs 5
The weather was pleasant
warm & sunshiny
papa had business to the village
nettie planted 51 tomato seeds
TUESDAY APRIL 3 1906
Eggs 8
Papa went to mill
The weather was pleasant
warm and sunshiny
John Myers came and
promised to go to work
tommorrow.
WEDNESDAY APRIL 4 1906
Eggs 12
It rained hard in the
afternoon It was
cloudy
and the wind blew most
all day papa drew 3
loads
of manure then went to
rochester John did
not
show up till night
Thursday APRIL 5, 1906
We killed & sold 6 roosters
papa & John drew manure
It rained this evening
the weather was fair but
cloudy all day
Friday APRIL 6, 1906
It snowed last night
and this morning so that
the ground was covered
2 inches thick but the sun
came out and melted it
all John drew manure
Saturday April 7 1906
John and papa drew manure Mama went
to aunt genies on the 4.23
it was cloudy all day
and it
sprinkled some about three
and hailed a little snow
Happy Birthday to the State of New York!! On April 22nd New York State will be 240 years old. A document hand written by John Jay was approved on April 20, 1777 by the 4th Provincial Congress with additions and deletions. And this was read to the people of Kingston, NY, on the 22nd. By October Kingston would be in ashes and the new government had been evacuated. They reassembled in Poughkeepsie in February of 1778. Come learn more about the battle for our state constitution on April 18 at 2 p.m. in the Bullis Room. The presentation will be posted on the Mac Lib Facebook account. And the icing on the cake is....there will be cake!!
