My Grandmother's Blog

These web pages are based on an old diary that my grandmother maintained for the first several years of my mother's life. It was evidently purchased for or by my grandmother ... and is a rather unusual diary in that each day's entry covers a period of 5 years. Each page for each day of the year has a space for a short thought for that date for 5 separate years. The journal was intended, in this case, to cover the period from 1924, when my mother was born, to 1929. Here's a sample page, for the date of my mother's birth, May 26th, 1924, so you can see what I am talking about:

As you can see from the sample page above there is not an entry for the specific day for each year, and there are many dates for which no entries were made in any year. There are some plausible reasons why this is the case, and my theory about this is explored in detail a bit later.

The Biggest Mystery of All

There are a number of major and minor mysteries... (starting on what I think was the first entry in the diary, directly below) and these are discussed throughout the pages of the site.

The above entry, written by my grandfather on the date of my mother's birth says:

Monday's Child is fair of face! Molly Price (8'7")
is safely born at 10:30am. Frances says
"My Sister!" A whole Te Deum.
A new world. New Love, New Hope.

The first and the most mysterious of all is my mother's name! For all of my life, and my father's time with my mother, we knew her as Molly Helen Johnson. The diary entry, made on the date of her birth by my grandfather, Carl W. Johnson, shows the name of the new child as Molly Price! Indeed, even the cover of the diary was embossed in gold with the name Molly Price Johnson.

We have no idea where that comes from. As far as we know, there were no Price's in the 'family tree' on either my grandfather's or grandmother's side of the family. (There is a reference to a Price here and there throughout the rest of the diary, but we don't know who this is at this point.) There are some theories we have developed to explain how her name might have changed from Molly Price to Molly Helen ... and these are explored later on in more detail.

A note about these web pages

I've scanned all the pages of the diary and and presented the individual daily entries in date order for the sake of continuity. Also, it appears that there was sometimes a bit of confusion about what 'year' was being entered. For example, I'm pretty sure the FIRST entry in the diary was made the day my mother was born (May 26, 1924), which means that the first line of entries prior to that time was blank. When 1926 rolled around, it looks to me, based on the references to my mother's name, that my grandmother started entering the initial 1926 entries on the first line of the pages, instead of the second, where they actually belonged. It is for this reason that I have 're-arranged' the entries into what I am pretty sure is the proper chronological order.

In some cases, I am unable to fully make out the handwriting, but I have made an effort to 'translate' as best as I can. Where I can't figure out the writing I've noted my confusion immediately behind the entry with (???). Each entry is shown in its original form, as scanned, and there is a text block immediately below the image with what I think it says! If you think I've missed the mark on any of my interpretations please let me know. Initially I have put only the image of the entry ... as time permits I will be typing up each entry which is easier to read.

As will be explained in more detail at the appropriate point in time, all the entries made during the first 2 1/2 years (except the first few entries on the date of my mother's birth and during the following week) were made by my grandmother, Helen Webber Johnson. In August of 1927 my grandfather and grandmother were on their boat (named Frances IV, after my mother's older sister). There was an explosion in the engine room and my grandmother and the two crew members were killed. For a short while after the accident, no entries appear in the diary. A few months later, my grandfather picked up the pen and started making entries. I have no way to know if he was simply too distraught about his wife's death to write about it or if the diary was simply misplaced during the period immediately following her death.

Only months for which there were entries are shown below: