Monday, May 12, 1919

Rained slowly all day.  To College 9 to 2:30 P.M. Bowled at Star Alleys. Home. Studied at night. Mother and Father to Y for supper.  To bed 10:30 P.M.  Thankful for health, education etc.

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Not much to say about this entry, except that I found it curious that people went to the Y for supper.  But considering that people went to the YMCA for bowling, it stands to reason they might go there for meals as well.  Trying to determine if this was unusual, I ran across a news item in the February 15, 1919 Cambridge Tribune, a Cambridge, Massachusetts newspaper, announcing the intentions of the YMCA to invite returned servicemen to dinner to try to interest them in joining the organization.  Below is a copy of the piece, available on the Cambridge Public Library website:

The YMCA was certainly much more of a community gathering place in 1919 than it is today!

(I know the guests must have been grateful not to have to sit through long after-dinner speeches!)

Sunday, May 11, 1919

MOTHER'S DAY.  Rainy off and on all day.  To church and S.S. (Sunday School).  Took nap in P.M.  To Epworth League and Church.  To Haye's Room for call.  To bed 10:30 P.M. Thankful for good Mother.

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What did people do to honor mothers in 1919?  Stanford doesn't say specifically what his family did, but perhaps attending church was one way.

Since World War I was still going on at this time, some soldiers who were far away from home wrote to their mothers to wish them a Happy Mother's Day.  Here is the text of one poem incorporated into a flyer that the American YMCA gave to soldiers at the front on May 11, 1919:

Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky;
Hundreds of shells on the shore together;
Hundreds of birds that go singing by;
Hundreds of bees in the sunny weather.

Hundreds of dew-drops to greet the dawn;
Hundreds of lambs in the purple clover;
Hundreds of butterflies out on the lawn;
But only one Mother the wide world over.

A copy of the flyer can be seen here: Mother's Day 1919, Brest, France.  It was sent by a Paul B. to his mother.

Sanford apparently paid a call that day to a friend named Hayes.  With a little digging in the diary I found that Hayes was Wilber Hayes, a friend Stanford spent a good deal of time with.  Wilber was a lab assistant at General Electric in 1920, and he lived at 104 Jay Street, which was the address for the Gleason Building, apparently a rooming house.  The Gleason Building was named for William Joseph Gleason, a prominent Schenectady resident. He was a real estate developer who also built the Gleason Bachelor Apartment Building. The Gleason Building still stands; here is a picture of it:

You can also see it on Google maps. It was about 0.4 miles from Stanford's home at 110 Park Place. I got the information about the building from the website: Schenectady History.

When I discovered the first name of Hayes, I also discovered the first name of the friend mentioned in the May 9th post, Mr. Young. He is Everette L. (not S., as I first thought) Young.  In 1920 he was an instrument clerk at General Electric, and boarded at 9 Hegeman Street, about 2.5 miles from Stanford.  His 1917 WWI Draft Registration card stated that he was born in 1894 in Rexford, NY and that he had a physical disability that exempted him from the draft.

Stanford certainly had a lot of friends!

Friday, May 9, 1919

Cloudy and rainy all day.  To College 8:30 to 2:30.  Studied.  Down town.  Bowled at Y.  To Mission Study Class from 7:8 P.M.  Drilled at armory for drill 8:9:30 P.M. Bowled at Star with H.H.   Walked around town with H.H. and E.S. Young.  To bed 12:30.

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The Mission Study Class Stanford refers to was probably similar to the one conducted by other churches of Schenectady.  Here is a news item from the Second Dutch Reformed Church that appeared in the January 11, 1919 Schenectady Gazette:  "The Mission study class, under the direction of the pastor, will hold its first session Tuesday night.  The study will be on Africa." 

Stanford doesn't tell us the topic of his Mission Study Class, but it might have been something as close to home as Schenectady.  One article I ran across described how, starting in 1904, Protestant demoninations of "Electric City" viewed their Italian immigrants as needing rescue from the Roman Catholic faith and set about establishing a mission to convert them, apparently with some success.  Here is the article: Protestant Evangelism.

When Stanford refers to going to the armory for drill, he is no doubt referring to ROTC drill, which was mandatory for the first two years of college for all male students who were physically fit.  This requirement was a result of the National Defense Act of 1916, which set up Reserve Officer Training Corps at colleges around the country.  Here is a picture of the armory where Stanford drilled:

It comes from the book, Schenectady: Images of America, by Susan C. Rosenthal.

 

I haven't had much luck tracking down E.S. Young.  In fact, I can't even find an E. Young living in Schenectady at that time.  I'll have to wait, I guess, until Stanford tells us what the man's (or woman's) first name was.

 

One curious little item: in this entry, Stanford uses a colon in place of a hyphen to indicate to.  For instance, he writes 8:9:30 instead of 8-9:30.  I left it because I thought it was interesting.