The Journals of Emma Troutman Boylan
© 2023 Linda Hoopes [Offsite link above]
315 W. Ponce de Leon Ave., Suite 750
Decatur, GA 30030
Emma was Linda Hoopes' great-grandmother, a middle-aged mother and wife in rural Iowa who started keeping a journal. "It is a fascinating account of daily life from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. Losing everything in the Great Depression, moving to Oregon and finally to Pennsylvania, their story is a lens into history that touches on farm life, travel, food, faith, fashion, and family."
1927 - 1933 | 1935 - 1940 | 1941 - 1944
| #1 Oct 1927 | The First Month:Setting the Stage |
| #2 Nov 1927 | Second Month of Emma's Journal |
| #3 Dec 1927 | The End of the first year |
| #4 Jan 1928 | Bringing in the New Year with a revival, a new grandchild, and a butchered hog |
| #5 Feb 1928 | Theater, the dentist, and a death in the family |
| #6 Mar 1928 | Quilts, gum, and small-town politics |
| #7 Apr 1928 | Easter, light bulbs, and planting the garden |
| #8 May 1928 | May baskets, 8th grade graduation, and more sewing and gardening. |
| #9 Jun 1928 | Plants and fish in the pond, ice cream, and remembrance of a loss |
| #10 July 1928 | Picking and canning, a Buick, and the Baptist Assembly |
| #11 Aug 1928 | Road trips, summer flowers, a cyclone, and succotash |
| #12 Sept 1928 | Back to School, family visits, and Harvest Home |
| #13 Oct 1928 | Train trip to Joplin,presidential xmpaigns, and aa squirrel for dinner |
| #14 Nov 1928 | Voting for president, Armistice Day, and card games |
| #15 Dec 1928 | Telegrams, Ruth, Christmas, and Bambi |
| #16 Jan 1929 | A sooty kitchen, doughnuts, and the Methodist Episcopal hymnal |
| #17 Feb 1929 | Valentine card, Sunday School and Marcelled Hair |
| #18 Mar 1929 | Glee Club, chiropractic, and permanents |
| #19 Apr 1929 | Strawberries, whooping cough, stomach troubles, and a cow. |
| #20 May 1929 | Interior Decorating, Wildflowers, and a Fishing Trip |
| #21 June 1929 | A big trip to Chicago for Katharine's Graduation, Gerald buys a car & Flower Mission Day |
| #22 July 1929 | Safe and Sane Fourth, darning socks, and a trip to Shenandoah |
| #23 Aug 1929 | Road trip to SD, Emma's 50th, big tomatoes, & a highway coming through. |
| #24 Sept 1929 | Katharine heads off to teach, a scandal at the school board, and ground cherries |
| #25 Oct 1929 | Aunt Kate, carillon bells, and the Great Depression on the horizon |
| #26 Nov 1929 | Pheasant, making a smock, church meetings, and a bonus poem |
| #27 Dec 1929 | A quiet month. Neighbors, family, sewing, and Ruth's 16th birthday. |
| #28 Jan 1930 | Ruth starts driving and enters a dramatic speaking contest; Tell goes to the Implement Dealers Convention; Emma stays busy. |
| #29 Feb 1930 | Epidemics, Miss Malen the evangelist, and early tomatoes. |
| #30 Mar 1930 | Back to church, canning, reading, and basketball. |
| #31 Apr 1930 | Scarlatina, John & Alice's accident, gardening, and pieplant. |
| #32 May 1930 | Lots of May flowers, Mother's Day, marshmallows, and goodbye to Uncle Freem. |
| #33 Jun 1930 | Flowers, canning, and trouble for Gerald. |
| #34 Jul 1930 | Heat wave, visit from Chris and Lou, and Gerald gets out of jail. |
| #35 Aug 1930 | Miniature golf, Iowa highways, crochet, and the Cotton Blossom Singers. |
| #36 Sep 1930 | Lots of laundry, a bunch of books, sewing suits, and the Hardin County Fair. |
| #37 Oct 1930 | Lots of meetings, muddy roads, and John T. Boylan's 75th-and a letter from Will. |
| #38 Nov 1930 | Ruth's junior class play, 1930s fur collars, and a poem from Emma. |
| #39 Dec 1930 | Picture of Ruth, Christmas, new glasses, and hard times on the horizon. |
| #40 Jan 1931 | A new year! Books, streetcars, family letters, and mincemeat. |
| #41 Feb 1931 | Tonsils, basketball, Valentine from Tell to Katharine, and a TB meeting. |
| #42 Mar 1931 | Lots of tired days, hand lotion, oil check, and lost purse. |
| #43 Apr 1931 | Spring flowers, Ruth performs, churning butter, and some family letter excerpts. |
| #44 May 1931 | May flowers, Ruth's Junior-Senior banquet, trip to Kate's, and a peek into the future. |
| #45 Jun 1931 | Plum butter, canned cherries, wind storm, heat wave, and losing the Eldora house. |
| #46 Jul 1931 | Long distance calls, hooked rugs, apricots, and chicken feed. |
| #47 Aug 1931 | Canning, bank closing, contests, silk hose, and the thrill of a lifetime! |
| #48 Sep 1931 | Canning tomatoes, pepper hash, family visits, and drama with the preachers. |
| #49 Oct 1931 | Waffles, air mail, chow-chow, poor Laddie, and a letter from Fred. |
| #50 Nov 1931 | Hungry tramp, pheasant season, cornhusking, and giving thanks. |
| #51 Dec 1931 | Christmas treats, mended stockings, card games, and a sad end to the year. |
| #52 Jan 1932 | Nurse for Miriam, step-ins, ironing sheets, and Ruth's new friend Robert. |
| #53 Feb 1932 | Finances getting worse, stockings for a rug, hominy, and a "pome". |
| #54 Mar 1932 | Gerald's family on the farm, Lindbergh kidnapping, Easter lilies, and finances getting worse |
| #55 Apr 1932 | Ruth's class play and senior banquet, undergarments, foreclosure, and an 1880s family diary |
| #56 May 1932 | Ruth graduates, more hard times, a ride in a radio car, and life goes on |
| #57 Jun 1932 | Summer plants and flowers, Katherine comes home, and the bank sells the farm |
| #58 Jul 1932 | Family visits, fashion, more canning, and another bank failure |
| #59 Aug 1932 | Road trip to Missouri, hairstyles and hats, bad birthday news, and Ruth heads to Iowa Falls |
| #60 Sep 1932 | Katherine returns to Cleveland, Ruth gives music lessons, Dutch cheese, and a child prodigy |
| #61 Oct 1932 | Karmelkorn, hickory nuts, missionaries, dentures, receivership, and floor wax |
| #62 Nov 1932 | Presidential election, head cheese, ice cream, and a quiet Thanksgiving |
| #63 Dec 1932 | Corn prices, ironing, sewing, pumpkin pie, and the family "round robin" |
| #64 Jan 1933 | Sewing and canning, losing the stove and the telephone, and Ruth and Robert at school |
| #65 Feb 1933 | Rabbit on the road, custard, frozen pipes, selling milk and butter, and splitting wood |
| #66 Mar 1933 | Lots of church, music with Ruth and Robert, jigsaw puzzles, cardinal, and a gambler-turned-evangelist |
| #67 Apr 1933 | Airship crash, beer, whoopie pies, planting seeds, and losing the house |
| #68 May 1933 | Chickens, John the "Dry delegate," lawn furniture, and Ruth recital |
| #69 Jun 1933 | Clocks, shelling corn, sadirons, wet/dry vote, and no electricity |
| #70 Jul 1933 | Plowing corn, shocking oats, sewing, and trying to lose weight |
| #71 Aug 1933 | Selling oats, pillow ticks, Gerald's car, and dill pickles |
| #72 Sep 1933 | Trip to South Dakota, union suit, grape jam, and lima beans |
| #73 Oct 1933 | Skin cream, carrot conserve, deaths in the community, and a letter from Mexico |
| #74 Nov 1933 | Major dust storm, church politics, washing powder, woodwork, and Emma's letter of gratitude |
| #75 Dec 1933 | Eye trouble, end of Prohibition, Handel's Messiah, and a sled |
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