Vashti Speer 1907

 

I just spent the morning with Vashti Speer. 

All I know of her are snippets of her experiences from the year 1907.  I happened on to her diary from that year online through the Cherokee Strip Museum (Perry,  Oklahoma) and I have read the entire thing this morning.  She writes in almost my grandmother's handwriting and almost my grandmother's voice. 

Vashti Speer was born September 12, 1877, a contemporary of my great grandmothers: Nona, Augusta, Montree, Georgianna.  I treasure the inside view into Vashti's life and, indirectly, into the lives of my foremothers as well.

Many things intrigue me about Vashti. 

First, how does one born in Kansas in 1877 come to be named Vashti -- especially with siblings named William, Judith, and Belle? I'm sure there's quite a story there.

Vashti speaks of her husband, Lawrence, primarily in terms of his comings and goings, of his work in the fields planting corn, oats, wheat, and cotton, and, occasionally, of his help around the house.  He bought her a new stove.  He helped her pare apples.  He helped her take up the carpet to clean it.  She does not speak of him in any intimate, loving way. 

Lawrence was often away -- travelling to nearby towns for business or at "the lodge" or the Farmer's Union.  On one occasion, she says he came home sober.  Does that mean often he didn't?  In one entry, she said that if Lawrence had come home as "happy" as the "darkies" hired to pick cotton that she wouldn't be able to say so even in her little book.  Hmmm...

There is also no reference to how long Vashti and Lawrence have been married.  Vashti is celebrates her 30th birthday during the year of her diary.  Her only child, a daughter named Gertrude (nicknamed Gertie or "Girlie") is of the age of dolls and stick horses (probably the same age as my grandfather who was born in 1902).  I wonder if Vashti and Lawrence married at age 18 or 20 as was typical at that time.  I wonder why they have no other children.  I wonder what their relationship was really like.  I wish she had written some of the private details.  Such a voyeur am I!

Much of Vashti's diary is a chronicle of the weather and of visits with family and friends.  Amazingly, she almost never complains about being hot or cold.  More often, rain, or the lack thereof, interferes with visiting and with farm life.  Of her husband she said he is "always lost when it rains", not knowing what to do with himself when he can't be out working.

Vashti talks of selling butter, hens, and eggs.  She talks of "pie plant pie" which is, apparently, rhubarb pie.  She talks of frying chicken, canning peaches, beets, and apple butter.  She talks of laundry and sewing and ironing.  Three times she says she has made a dress for Gertie.  Once she says her father has brought her a new dress.  And once she reports that her father has brought her the pattern to make a dress for her mother.

She also talks of building a chicken coop.  I can relate!  I'm still working on mine.  I think she made hers in just a few days.

I was amazed (after having spent much of last weekend in cemeteries!) that in the course of a whole year, Vasti never mentions a death.  On the contrary, they celebrate her grandfather's 91st birthday and she comments on how fit and healthy he is.

I was amused on a couple of occasions at Vashti's humor in the midst of struggle.  Once she said she'd never owned a rolling pin and, if she had, she'd have had to use it to make dinner -- not to cook with but to burn for heat.  Secondly, she says the wheat crop is so bad that all the wheat on the farm might not amount to one biscuit.  She also speaks of making a sofa pillow and then , the next day, laments that her sofa is homemade.  At Christmas, Gertie asks Santa for a doll with real hair and "eyes that sleep" (close).  Vashti reports that, because of finances, only the doll's head and hands can be store bought.  The rest must be homemade.

Holiday commemorations are of interest to me in Vashti's diary.  They worked on the 4th of July and celebrated only with cake and ice cream with friends at the end of the day.  For Thanksgiving, no turkey was to be had so they cooked "an old hen".  At Christmas, Gertie received a doll, a little broom, a Mother Goose book, mittens, and candy.  Vashti does not report receiving any gifts herself for either her birthday or Christmas.  She never even mentioned Gertie's birthday or Lawrence's.    She did, however, mention her own only to report feeling old at turning 30 and saying that she and Lawrence were getting to old to dance. 

I was very disappointed when, early in December, Vashti writes that she has decided not to continue with her diary for another year.  She says:

"Well, this year will soon be gone and this little book soon be finished. I think this will be my last attempt at keeping a diary. My life has not been an unhappy one but a very uneventful one. Too practical and not enough sentiment and romance to make good reading."

I thought it was good reading!

I was quite impressed that she never missed a day of writing in her diary until the middle of December.  Her last entry was on Christmas.  I wish someone had given her another diary for Christmas as someone had the year before which is what got her to chronicle the year 1907.  If she only knew that her diary would be in a museum 104 years in the future!  (I hope that knowledge would have encouraged to her write more rather than to be too intimidated to write at all.)  I would have loved to have heard more.  A couple of times she writes what are essentially "hashtags".  If only she'd known how ahead of her time she was she might have had more confidence in her writing!

I have googled the name and found no other information on Vashti Speer.  No photo. No obituary.  No genealogical records.  I feel as if I know her now.  But I don't even know what she looked like.

I owe her a debt of gratitude for sharing her life with me.  And for inspiring me.  Perhaps I will jot down a brief page per day in a diary of my own.  Only I will put in all the juicy stuff and try to document what's really important!  Vashti gave me a glimpse of her life.  Beyond that, what I would really like to know about is what was on her heart.