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A fairly typical day for our Stanford, with the exception of church attendance with his mother. I guess there was a Wednesday night prayer meeting or Bible study that day. His father couldn't attend for some reason, apparently.
Diaries are interesting documents. It's hard to say who the intended audience is. Since Stanford kept the habit all his life, he must have thought at some point that his diaries would be read by other people. But when he first started, he was probably writing to his future self, trying to recall particular days or activities. I wonder what he would have written had he enough room to write his thoughts about his day. But this Date Book format doesn't allow for much musing. The brevity of Stanford's journal reminds me of another famous diary--the one kept by Martha Ballard, a midwife living in late 18th to early 19th century Maine. Here is an excerpt from her journal, the entry for May 14, 1809:
| Cloudy part of ye day, raind Some. mr Ballard to meeting. Revd mr Stone discoarst fm Romans 1st C 28th vers. Hannahs Ballard & Getchel Calld here. Epm & Wm Sleep here. | at home. Rhoda left here after dinner. |
The similarity is striking, I think, and makes me think that this is a particular sub-genre of journal writing. In fact, Martha's shorthand calls to mind our modern genre of tweeting!
Martha Ballard's journal began in 1785 and ended at her death in 1812. The above excerpt came from an online source: Do History. There's a lot of fascinating information about Martha Ballard and her time there. I recommend the site as well as the book and movie that came out of the diary (both are mentioned on the site.)
Interesting correlation made of the 2 diarists.
ReplyDeleteMy guess about diary writing is to help remember ones path in life.