52 Ancestors - DIARY: The Next Best Thing

I keep hoping a tell-all diary will find its way to my “gene cave” with answers to all my questions:

• James Jollett, was Thomas Jollett your father? If so who were HIS father and mother?
• Nancy Walker Jollett, who were your parents?
• John Fleming Walsh, are you SURE your father was named Patrick, not John?
• Margaret Slade, were you sneaking around with John Calhoun in the 1850s?
• Stephen Slade, what made your mother pick up roots and leave Florida for Virginia?
• William Boyd, we got your number. We know you were really William Jollett. What was that unspeakable crime that set you on the run and made you hide the truth?
• Frank Rucker, so which line should I follow - Jarvis or Angus?
• And so on and so on.

Although apparently none of my ancestors left behind a diary, several kept wonderful scrapbooks that serve like a picture diary.

My grandaunt Velma Davis Woodring kept a scrapbook during her freshman year at Harrisonburg Teachers College (now James Madison University - Go Dukes!). It is filled with wonderful photos of classmates, campus covered in snow, her dorm exterior, her room which she shared with two others, the hockey field, and the “new” swimming pool.

One of the best entries in the scrapbook though is a story about a hike up the Massanutten in October 1924. Probably the most recognizable physical feature of the Shenandoah Valley is Massanutten Mountain. People often say it looks like an elephant’s head and trunk.  

Massanutten Mountain
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

Velma and her friends were accompanied by the college president, Samuel Duke. 

Samuel P. Duke
College President from 1919-1949

Here is a transcription of her report along with the photos she took to remember that day. I had to guess what Velma wrote in some places where the white ink has faded. Impressions in the paper helped.

One Saturday about 250 girls went to the station at H.T.C. and went to the foot of the Massanutten Peak on the train. Here we all got off and started on our way up the mountain. About every five minutes, when climbing the mountain, we would stop and rest. We got to the top about one thirty. We stopped and ate our lunch and walked over to the peak as we wanted to. 

Thelma Hockman and Velma

Then at three o’clock when everyone was tired of looking around at the beautiful Valley we started down the mountain. We got to the station about four o’clock and had to wait a while for the train. During the time we were waiting we found many ways to amuse ourselves. We got back to H.T.C. just in time for dinner.

Velma captioned this photo
"Hikers"

Oh how I wish Velma had revealed how they amused themselves. That would surely be diary-worthy.

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.