Studying?

Sun., October 27, 1935 - Slept most of the day.  Went up to Alma's this evening to talk about our lunch for next lodge nite. Uncle Hans here awhile. I went to bed early.
Mon., October 28, 1935 - Studied quite late tonite.  Howard was here a few minutes.
Tues., October 29, 1935 - Gave spelling and reading quarterly examinations today.  Took my board money to Goodlings.  Went to Nuss' for a little card party tonite.  Ethel Lewis, Miss Mettlen, Gladys Reichert and Leffler there too.

I do not know what Grandma was studying for here.

For no good reason, here is a photo of the first wild turkeys that decided to call our place home.  For an amateur with a so-so camera, I thought it turned out pretty well.

Radium treatment

Thurs., October 24, 1935 - Nice warm day.  Margaret and Allen Christensen visited school this afternoon.  Grandmother had another radium treatment today.  Aunt Emma is going to stay here until Saturday nite.
Fri., October 25, 1935 - Cloudy and sprinkled a little this morning.  Went to lodge tonite.  Howard brought me up the hill.
Sat., October 26, 1935 - Drove out to Florenz Niemann's to have Irene's and my order signed, took the orders to Irene, stopped at Wagners to tell Edna I couldn't have card club this Friday.  Went to Norfolk about 11:00 with Helen and Irene.  They had been to Wayne and cashed my order.  Went to the Masquerade party at Uncle Hans' tonite.  I got first prize for the girls.  It was a picture.

I am not sure why Grussmother had radium treatments, but I researched a little bit and found the beginning of the end of such treatments.  From wikipedia:

     Concerns about radium were brought up before the United States Senate by California Senator John D. Works as early as 1915. In a floor speech he quoted letters from doctors asking about the efficacy of the products that were marketed. He stressed that radiation had the effect of making many cancers worse, many doctors thought the belief that radium could be used to cure cancers at that stage of the development of therapy was a "delusion" — one doctor quoted cited a failure-to-success rate of 100 to 1 — and the effects of radium water were undemonstrated.

     Around the start of the 1920s, new public health concerns were sparked by the deaths of factory workers at a radioluminescent watch factory, later referred to as the Radium Girls. In 1932, a well-known industrialist, Eben Byers died of radiation poisoning from the use of Radithor, a radium water guaranteed by the manufacturer to contain 2 μCi of radium. Cases sprung up of the development of carcinoma in patients who had used conventional radium therapy up to 40 years after the original treatments.

     The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. Painting was done by women at three different sites in the United States, and the term now applies to the women working at the facilities. The first, United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917, at Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s, and a third facility in Waterbury, Connecticut.

     The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails, face and teeth with the glowing substance. The women were instructed to point their brushes because using rags, or a water rinse, caused them to waste too much time and waste too much of the material made from powdered radium, gum arabic and water.

     Five of the women in New Jersey challenged their employer in a case over the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers under New Jersey's occupational injuries law, which at the time had a two-year statute of limitations, but settled out of court. Five women in Illinois who were employees of the Radiant Dial Company (which was unaffiliated with the United States Radium Corporation) sued their employer under Illinois law, winning damages in 1938.

Hard to keep up

Mon., October 21, 1935 - Ray took me to the 2-mile corner.  I walked the other mile.  Earl absent, the Christensens were back again.  Mom came out after me tonite.
Tues., October 22, 1935 - Car acted funny today.  The report is that Marian Davis has smallpox, so that's why Earl isn't here.  Frederick Niemann has it, too, I guess.  Jean had an earache this a.m.  Mr. Goodling took her home.  Baked cookies tonite.  Howard brought us a pheasant this eve.
Wed., October 23, 1935 - Car worked fine today.  Benthack says Frederick doesn't have smallpox, so Herbert was in school today.

Such comings and goings with students.  Grandma's attendance book must have looked rather festive.

The name Benthack to me means Dr. Benthack at Wayne.  I was not sure of his first name, but found this on the Wayne State College site:

     "While the building boom of the 1950s and 1960s came to an abrupt end, the applied science and home economics programs benefited from the completion of a new Applied Sciences Hall, named for Dr. Walter Benthack, a member of the college governing board (1939-45) and a prominent Wayne physician for more than half a century."

So, perhaps the Benthack Grandma is referring to was this one.  I was not aware there was a Benthack Hall at WSC.  My familiarity with the buildings on campus came from traipsing around for district music contest during my high school years.  In addition to the large halls for the big groups, other buildings were pressed into service for solos and small groups.  If I was ever in Benthack Hall, I have long forgotten it.  I can't believe I couldn't find a better photo.

Another late night

Fri., October 18, 1935 - Lovely day.  I came home early from school.  Went to Card Club at Wagner's with Howard.  We reorganized.  Edna W. president, Edna Davis treasurer, and Kenneth Wagner secretary.  I'm to have the next meeting Nov. 1.  We didn't leave there until 2:00.
Sat., October 19, 1935 - Tired today.  Didn't get much done either.  Ray went to Hoskins tonite.  I played Rummy with Grandad and won both games.
Sun., October 20, 1935 - Slept most of the afternoon.  Started raining about 1:00 and rained most of the afternoon until evening.

Another crazy night out late.  No wonder Grandma was tired and didn't do much on Saturday.

We used to take lots of pictures of the family napping out after holiday meals.  Since I can't lay my hands on any, here are two of our dogs taking a snooze.  They never cuddle, so I took a photo quickly when I saw this.  It's probably the closest they will ever get.

Bring out the needles

Tues., October 15, 1935 - Verdelle Mae absent the first period to be vaccinated.  Miss Sewell visited during grammar classes.  Everything was O.K.  Earl absent today.  Got my stuff from Goodlings tonite.  
Wed., October 16, 1935 - Ruby gone the first period this morning to be vaccinated.
Thurs., October 17, 1935 - Goodlings and Temmes were vaccinated last nite.  Everyone vaccinated now except Howard and Robert.

She doesn't mention herself, so I am thinking maybe Grandma was already vaccinated.

With an incubation period of 12 days (something we learned yesterday), being vaccinated after others fall ill was perhaps too late for some.  But worth doing nonetheless.

I was surprised to learn from wikipedia that the smallpox vaccine has an interesting history:

     "Smallpox vaccine, the first successful vaccine to be developed, was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpox. The word "vaccine" is derived from Variolae vaccinae (i.e. smallpox of the cow), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox and used in the long title of his An enquiry into the causes and effects of Variolae vaccinae, known by the name of cow pox.  Vaccination, the term which soon replaced cowpox inoculation and vaccine inoculation, was first used in print by Jenner's friend, Richard Dunning in 1800.  Initially, the terms vaccine/vaccination referred only to smallpox, but in 1881 Louis Pasteur proposed that to honor Jenner the terms be widened to cover the new protective inoculations being introduced."

The painting is by Ernest Board of Jenner giving his first vaccine to James Phipps, age 8. 

This led me to read a bit about young Master Phipps.  Also from wikipedia:

Phipps was born in Berkeley parish in Gloucestershire to a poor, landless labourer working as Jenner's gardener. He was baptised in St Mary's parish church, Berkeley, when he was 4.[3]

     "On 14 May 1796 he was selected by Jenner, who took "a healthy boy, about eight years old for the purpose of inoculation for the Cow Pox".  Jenner took some fluid from the cowpox vesicles on the hand of a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes (in an unpublished manuscript Jenner refers to her as Lucy Nelmes), and inoculated Phipps by two small cuts in the skin of the boy's arm.

     Jenner wrote: On the seventh day he complained of uneasiness in the axilla and on the ninth he became a little chilly, lost his appetite, and had a slight headache. During the whole of this day he was perceptibly indisposed, and spent the night with some degree of restlessness, but on the day following he was perfectly well.  About six weeks later Jenner inoculated the boy with smallpox which had no effect, and concluded that he now had complete protection against smallpox.  Phipps was subsequently inoculated with smallpox more than twenty times without succumbing to the disease. 

     Phipps is often cited incorrectly as the first person to be vaccinated against smallpox by inoculation with cowpox: other people had undergone the procedure before him. In 1791, Peter Plett from Kiel in the Duchy of Holstein (now Germany) inoculated three children and Benjamin Jesty performed the procedure on three family members in 1774.  However, Jenner included his description of the vaccination of Phipps and an illustration of the hand of Sarah Nelmes from which the material was taken in his Inquiry published in 1798. Together with a series of vaccinations which showed that the vaccine could be maintained by arm to arm transfer, and information about selection of suitable material, Jenner's Inquiry was the first published account of vaccination.

     Later in Phipps' life, Jenner gave him, his wife and his two children a free lease on a cottage in Berkeley, which went on to house the Edward Jenner Museum between 1968 and 1982.  Phipps attended Jenner's funeral on February 3, 1823.  Phipps was buried in St Mary's church in Berkeley, where he had been baptized.  Jenner was also buried in this church."

Smallpox

Sat., October 12, 1935 - Washed my clothes as usual.  Corrected school papers all afternoon.  Annie Miller was here with a coat for Mom to fix.
Sun., October 13, 1935 - Typed history tests this a.m. and p.m.  Ray quit working at Joe Baker's last nite.  He starts tomorrow to work for Guerney Benshoof.  I'm going to drive his car back and forth to school.  Went with Howard to Kennard Hall and Alfred Utecht's charivari dance at Hoskins.  Had a good time.
Mon., October 14, 1935 - Started driving today.  I think I'll like it just fine.  Reports are that Allen, Marian and Frederick have smallpox.  We're postponing our program indefinitely.  Stopped at Florence Niemann's to discuss the program.  Took the hektograph ribbon to Irene also.

What and where is Kennard Hall?*

I won't share smallpox photos because they are not pleasant.  It was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980.  I am glad for that.  From wikipedia:

     "There were two clinical forms of smallpox. Variola major was the severe and most common form, with a more extensive rash and higher fever. Variola minor was a less common presentation, and a much less severe disease, with historical death rates of 1 percent or less.  Subclinical (asymptomatic) infections with variola virus were noted but were not common.  In addition, a form called variola sine eruptione (smallpox without rash) was seen generally in vaccinated persons. This form was marked by a fever that occurred after the usual incubation period and could be confirmed only by antibody studies or, rarely, by virus isolation.

     The incubation period between contraction and the first obvious symptoms of the disease is around 12 days. Once inhaled, variola major virus invades the oropharyngeal (mouth and throat) or the respiratory mucosa, migrates to regional lymph nodes, and begins to multiply. In the initial growth phase the virus seems to move from cell to cell, but around the 12th day, lysis of many infected cells occurs and the virus is found in the bloodstream in large numbers (this is called viremia), and a second wave of multiplication occurs in the spleen, bone marrow, and lymph nodes.
The initial symptoms are similar to other viral diseases such as influenza and the common cold: fever of at least 101 °F, muscle pain, malaise, headache and prostration. As the digestive tract is commonly involved, nausea and vomiting and backache often occur. The prodrome, or preeruptive stage, usually lasts 2–4 days. By days 12–15 the first visible lesions—small reddish spots called enanthem—appear on mucous membranes of the mouth, tongue, palate, and throat, and temperature falls to near normal. These lesions rapidly enlarge and rupture, releasing large amounts of virus into the saliva.

     Smallpox virus preferentially attacks skin cells, causing the characteristic pimples (called macules) associated with the disease. A rash develops on the skin 24 to 48 hours after lesions on the mucous membranes appear. Typically the macules first appear on the forehead, then rapidly spread to the whole face, proximal portions of extremities, the trunk, and lastly to distal portions of extremities. The process takes no more than 24 to 36 hours, after which no new lesions appear.  At this point variola major infection can take several very different courses, resulting in four types of smallpox disease based on the Rao classification:  ordinary, modified, malignant (or flat), and hemorrhagic. Historically, smallpox has an overall fatality rate of about 30 percent; however, the malignant and hemorrhagic forms are usually fatal.

     Ninety percent or more of smallpox cases among unvaccinated persons were of the ordinary type.  In this form of the disease, by the second day of the rash the macules became raised papules. By the third or fourth day the papules filled with an opalescent fluid to become vesicles. This fluid became opaque and turbid within 24–48 hours, giving them the appearance of pustules; however, the so-called pustules were filled with tissue debris, not pus.

     By the sixth or seventh day, all the skin lesions have become pustules. Between seven and ten days the pustules matured and reached their maximum size. The pustules were sharply raised, typically round, tense, and firm to the touch. The pustules were deeply embedded in the dermis, giving them the feel of a small bead in the skin. Fluid slowly leaked from the pustules, and by the end of the second week the pustules deflated, and started to dry up, forming crusts (or scabs). By day 16–20 scabs had formed over all the lesions, which have started to flake off, leaving depigmented scars.

     Ordinary smallpox generally produced a discrete rash, in which the pustules stood out on the skin separately. The distribution of the rash was densest on the face; denser on the extremities than on the trunk; and on the extremities, denser on the distal parts than on the proximal. The palms of the hands and soles of the feet were involved in the majority of cases. Sometimes, the blisters merged into sheets, forming a confluent rash, which began to detach the outer layers of skin from the underlying flesh. Patients with confluent smallpox often remained ill even after scabs have formed over all the lesions. In one case series, the case-fatality rate in confluent smallpox was 62 percent."

Several members of European royalty died of the disease, as did Pocahontas.  Some who have survived include U.S. Presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln.  Washington became infected with smallpox on a visit to Barbados in 1751.  Jackson developed the illness after being taken prisoner by the British during the American Revolution, and though he recovered, his brother Robert did not.  Lincoln contracted the disease during his Presidency, possibly from his son Tad, and was quarantined shortly after giving the Gettysburg address in 1863. -- from geni.com

Another survivor was Joseph Stalin.  I wonder how history would be different if he had not survived.

I do not remember if I already shared this photo of the kids and me and I'm too lazy busy to find out, so here it is anyway.

*I found out later from Mom that Kennard Hall is a who, not a what.

A birthday party

Wed., October 9, 1935 - Handed out parts and practiced today.  Typed parts tonite.  Howard stopped at the school house awhile this evening.
Thurs., October 10, 1935 - Was going to type tonite, but today is Mrs. Goodling's birthday.  Lettmans, Holtgrews, and the Kochs surprised her tonite.  So no studying for me.  To bed at 1:00.
Fri., October 11, 1935 - Felt pretty tired today.  Howard came after me tonite.  We went to lodge.

I know she was a grown-up woman with a grown-up job and all, but I still get a kick out of finding out the crazy hours Grandma kept sometimes, especially this during her work week.  It would have been fun to hang out with her at this age.

Slightly confused at first, but worked it out

Sun., October 6, 1935 - We went to church and S.S.  Talked some more this p.m.  Ray came after me about 5:00.  He took me out to Goodlings.  Fritz Weible died last nite from the accident he was in Friday nite.  Howard and his folks went to a silver wedding anniversary this weekend.  He didn't come home in time to bring me here.
Mon., October 7, 1935 - Started giving out parts today.  We've decided to have our Halloween program Oct. 25.  Copied parts tonite.
Tues., October 8, 1935 - I had Mr. Goodling take me down to Irene's tonite to get her typewriter to type parts for the program.  Elmer and Myrtle came back Sunday.  I met Myrtle tonite.

It sounds as if Grandma is saying this is the first time she met Aunt Myrtle.  From what I can see, she and Uncle Elmer were married in Madison in February 1934 but moved to Arkansas.  Oddly enough, the 1940 census asked where people lived on April 1, 1935 and that's where that piece of information comes from.  So, maybe it was a small private, short-notice ceremony like I understand many were those days and the new couple moved south before lots of family introductions.  This makes extra sense since this is the Iversen-Nielsen side of things.  Grandma and Grandpa were possibly not the exclusive, head-line making couple then that they were in 1935.  That's my guess anyway.

I probably should have used a photo that included Uncle Elmer, but I just had to use this one.  I love my stylish footwear.

Back from my little break

Thurs., October 3, 1935 - Everybody in school.  A lovely fall day.
Fri., October 4, 1935 - I walked to town tonite.  Got a ride with Mrs. Wolfe 1 1/2 miles.  Howard took me to Fred Jochens tonite.  They were in bed when I got there. 
Sat., October 5, 1935 - Dorothy and I did a lot of talking today.  She showed me the things in her cedar chest.

I have been neglectful of Grandma's diary for no overly compelling reason other than Life has gotten in the way a bit.  That, and Grandma hasn't given me much to work with as of late.

I researched cedar chests for a spell, but nothing earth-shakingly interesting popped up.

Here's a photo of my sweet doggie in a seductive pose.  The little angel quilt on the back of the chair was made and gifted to me by Mom.  Thanks, Mom.

My doggie, by the way, may have a bladder tumor.  That's what I learned from Life today.

More normal stuff

Mon., September 30, 1935 - Waved Mom's hair.  Went to Institute with Helen, Irene, Dorothea, and Alma.  Ate at the Palace.  Stayed at Iversen's tonite.  Went to Lydia Kant's party tonite.  We played High Five.  I won high prize - a yellow bath towel with black border and washcloth to match.
Tues., October 1, 1935 - Institute again.  We were all pretty sleepy today.  Ate at the Palace.  Took a nap when I got home.  Uncle Hans took Granddad and Grandmother up to his place today.  Mom had to stay home and bake.  Howard brought me to Goodlings tonite. 
Wed., October 2, 1935 - The kids were glad to have the new books which came over the weekend.  Earl absent, but Robert here again.

I don't have much to add.  I've been sick with sinus troubles and was absent, like Earl.  But from work, not from school.  I don't know what Institute is, but I am guessing it has something to do with being a teacher.  Here's a photo of Dale and I being silly.  Or cute.  I'm not sure.