Spats

Tues., January 22, 1935 - Still intensely cold.  We had hash for our hot lunch.  Robert and Ruby back.  Studied this evening.
Wed., January 23, 1935 - Somewhat warmer but not much.  If we don't have warmer weather so the kids can go outside, they'll drive me crazy.
Thurs., January 24, 1935 - Cold today in schoolhouse til about noon.  Had rice for hot lunch.  Several spats that ended in "tears" today.  Warmer tonite.  Started studying at 10:00 and quit at 1:00.

Obviously, Grandma used the word "spats" to mean arguments or some such.  I found, however, that the covering of a shoe, also often called spats, is actually the shortened version of the proper name, spatterdash.  Which made me wonder if that word had any connection to haberdashery, but I didn't find a quick answer and left it at that.

But, in looking for a photo of spats to include here, I came across the above.  That's a photo of Harold Lloyd, a Nebraska son.  According to information found with the photo, he was a teetotaler (another word I need to look up as to its origin because it is such a fun word), and if he was truly drinking anything in this photo, it was most likely soda pop.

From wikipedia:

     Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer who is most famous for his silent comedy films.
     Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his bespectacled "Glass" character, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s-era United States.  His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema.  Lloyd did many of these dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio. An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go unnoticed).
     Although Lloyd's individual films were not as commercially successful as Chaplin's on average, he was far more prolific (releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million).