A very nice group of diaries, recounting ten yeras of daily life for a young farmer, Leslie R. Harrison, of Island Kentucky.
The period covers the “Roaring 20’s,” such as they were in rural Kentucky, and the Great Depression.
Includes: 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932.
Just flipping through, our Leslie is shucking corn, slaughtering hogs, hauling fodder, planting tobacco, goes to a community dance, selling eggs and butter in town, stripping tobacco, riding in the buggy, getting teeth pulled, taking trips to Buttonsberry, joining in at a community easter egg hunt, attending Sunday meetings, fishing, taking the train, harvesting hay, playing ball [baseball it seems], visiting missionaries, attending a seminary [seemingly as a visitor], ice skating, attending parties, etc., etc.,
My favorite part though is a lengthy section at the end of 1923. It includes 94 apparently original single or double stanza poems, mostly variations on “folk” forms, simple rhymes, limericks, etc,. They are really charming and we can't trace them elsewhere.
My favorites at a quick peek:
There once was a thin girl
Named McNeil
Whose legs was the
Size of an eel.
Tho she had no calf
This girl would just just laugh
And say, “Some men
Don’t care for veal.”
Or maybe this one:
As sure as the vine
Grows over the river
I’ve got your heart . . .
And a bit of your liver.
Complete, but in varying conditions with some chips, silghtl tenderness, etc.,
