Thursday, July 23, 1925
Cool
Tried to get my ironing done early but got tired and when I stopped, my iron wouldn’t start again so didn’t get to finish. Mama came out again and I never can accomplish anything when she is here talking. A letter from Harry that he has been wise to Mabel for years and wants a divorce. She is going to Chicago and will leave Winifred with Mama (maybe).
(Oh my, a divorce? Not too common in the 1920's I thought, so it must be bad! A few days ago for July 21, I wrote:
Grandma wrote in her family history that "Mabel's health would not permit her to do the hard work required by keeping house, even after the birth of their only child, Winifred Sylvia... things seemed alright between them until about 1925 when other personalities seem to be encroaching upon the scene." She also wrote that Harry and Mabel lived most of their married life together in boarding houses in Memphis were he worked for awhile. Based on the diaries, I think they also spent a lot of time living with Grandma's parents.
Wise to Mable? "He had been wise to Mabel for years?" I just assumed that "other personalities encroaching upon the scene" meant that Harry might have been seeing other women. Perhaps Mabel was the one who strayed? It sure seems like she didn't do much to contribute, at least in regards to housework, etc. Oh, and you should definitely check out the picture I posted of their daughter Winifred in Grandma's Pictures. You tell me, but I think she looks just a bit spoiled. And, Mabel is leaving her daugher with her mother-in-law, Grandma's mother. That seems a bit odd.
There is a lot to consider and wonder about in this latest diary entry. What is the whole story?
This all calls for some more research... time to call my Aunt!)
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At least it sounds like Ruth had an electric iron to help with the family clothes. Your grandma was more cutting edge than mine! In 1925 my grandmother was still using a heavy iron that had separate metal plates clamped to a handle. She had to keep swapping them out as the metal cooled - one was on top of the stove heating up while the other was smoothing the clothes.
ReplyDeleteThe census records show very few divorced women in those years - sometimes I've seen a woman listed as a 'widow', even when the census rolls had her ex-husband living somewhere else with a new wife.
Carol,
ReplyDeleteTalked to Eleanor. As best as she can remember, Harry divorced Mabel because she was always "too sick" to do any work, but was "up and at'em" if there were tickets to a play or some other activity she wanted to do. Harry raised Winifred who ended up joing the WAC. Supposedly while in the military she married a man whose last name was also Campbell, became pregnant with twins, and as a result was discharged from the
military. She came home to live with her father and he helped raise the twins, Bruce and Brian. Her husband was killed in the military and Eleanor says that none of them ever met him. (Did he really exist?) According to Mom they moved around alot to Tennessee and Florida. She did say Harry remarried two or three times, and maybe that was why they moved so much.
I wish one on my grandmothers had kept a diary! Very cool idea to record it online.
ReplyDeleteI have two friends just like Mabel so it hasn't changed much over the century!
ReplyDelete