December 12
Laura M., age 15, North Carolina
December 12, 1997
Good day at school. Justin was cool. Went 2 Renée's with Ashley and Zach. Zach was very grumpy. Dad picked me and Ashley up at 5:30. Went 2 his house and ate fast. Picked Renée back up and went 2 see "Scream 2." Good. Spent night at Ashley's. Jerry came and chilled. I slept on the floor.
Anna L., age 76, Illinois
December 12, 1960
Called Dorothy in eve. Cleaned up stairs good. Did dozens of other things. Went to Grace L. church to hear Florence B. Ellis. Very good. Helen took us and we picked Beas up too as Alvena had given her a ticket. Seemed to enjoy it.
Marcy S., age 14, Tennessee
December 12, 1938
Practiced. Went to chapel. Nice day. Cool. Usual classes in new building. Home for dinner. Back to school. Took my expression lesson at 2:30. Hurried home after school to go to town with Mother. ’Phoned Mrs. McClure and she wanted to go to the Woolen Mill to pay for some blankets. M. got the car and we drove down to the Woolen Mills. Waited for Mrs. M. and then brought her home. Mother and I drove to town. I went to the Dress Shop and bought some Christmas gifts. When I had finished I went back to the car. Almost dark. I had brought my books to town but had forgotten my glasses so I wrote Mother a note and waked home. Stayed at George’s until M. came. Went home and studied and practiced. Daddy not home. After supper and dishes I got ready for bed. At 8:00 I sewed and listened to Lux Radio Theater. “The Scarlet Pimpernell” with Leslie Howard in the lead and Olivia de Havilland as his wife. History and very good. When it was over I went to bed wishing I were a spy.
Henry S., age 26, Michigan
December 12, 1887
I worked with my pen about all day drawing and flourishing for practice. Went up tonight and mailed the letters. I received some writing from Isaac’s that has about set me crazy, I wish I could go and study under him right away, but as I can’t I hope I may next summer. I received paper from Kibbe, which I had ordered for flourishing purposes. The wind is south tonight and it don’t seem cold. It is good sleighing.
*(R. Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville)
William B., 19 years old, P.O.W. in Delaware
December 12, 1864
Serg Fink being ordered to give me my coat + he having given it away to an Officer in the Barracks as he said gave me a poor substitute in its place of poor material of thin but to make up for its thinness he also gave me a sack of wollen [sic] material. News today gives me great concern as I see a large force under Genl Warren have left in front of Petersburg + started for near my home Weldon N.C. Genl Vance received Genl Beales circular today about furnishing Confed officers with clothing Blankets + C+C + he had the chiefs of divisions in his room to make arrangements about it. Weather very cold but as they gave us plenty of coal to burn we did not suffer so much at night. Received a letter from Uncle David dated 10th just. Was called out in the PM to get my coat they had detained from my Uncle having written to Genl Schopf about it but though the Serg Fink had promised to keep it for me he had given it away the day after he made the promise + I only got what I have previously written.
*(William Hyslop Summer Burgwyn Private Collection, North Carolina State Archives)
Cornelia H., age 26, North Carolina
December 12, 1862
I cleaned upstairs today. Much warmer than it has been for several days. Hanes carried down the faulty apples. Boyd will have to sleep up there when Mr. Henry gets home & Betsey in the side room. Mail brought no news this morning of importance. Mrs. Branton sent Branton clothes by the mail carrier (Vic). I wrote her a letter this morning to send in the clothes. Betsey cut out the two dress patterns this evening. I dampened it & dried it & her & I made the skirts & sleeves by 9 o’clock. I can finish them easy tomorrow. The next two dresses will be red & black stripe, red dyed with sassafras bark, plum bark & alder buds. ’Tis not a pretty red, too dark & the next dresses will be red broom sedge dye & black. They will none of them be pretty as the colours are nothing extra but they will keep them warm. Bets McKinnish brought home some thread today, the rolls she got 3 weeks ago. She is doing no good spinning this fall for us.
*(Fear in North Carolina: The Civil War Journals and Letters of the Henry Family, Eds. Karen L. Clinard and Richard Russell, used with permission.)
Samuel P., age 34, London
December 12, 1667
Rose before day, and took coach, by daylight, and to Westminster to Sir G. Downing’s, and there met Sir Stephen Fox, and thence he and I to Sir Robert Longs to discourse the business of our orders for money, he for the guards, and I for Tangier, and were a little angry in our concerns, one against the other, but yet parted good friends, and I think I got ground by it. Thence straight to the office, and there sat all the morning, and then home to dinner, and after dinner I all alone to the Duke of York’s house, and saw “The Tempest,” which, as often as I have seen it, I do like very well, and the house very full. But I could take little pleasure more than the play, for not being able to look about, for fear of being seen. Here only I saw a French lady in the pit, with a tunique, just like one of ours, only a handkercher about her neck; but this fashion for a woman did not look decent. Thence walked to my bookseller’s, and there he did give me a list of the twenty who were nominated for the Commission in Parliament for the Accounts: and it is strange that of the twenty the Parliament could not think fit to choose their nine, but were fain to add three that were not in the list of the twenty, they being many of them factious people and ringleaders in the late troubles; so that Sir John Talbott did fly out and was very hot in the business of Wildman’s being named, and took notice how he was entertained in the bosom of the Duke of Buckingham, a Privy-counsellor; and that it was fit to be observed by the House, and punished. The men that I know of the nine I like very well; that is, Mr. Pierrepont, Lord Brereton, and Sir William Turner; and I do think the rest are so, too; but such as will not be able to do this business as it ought to be, to do any good with. Here I did also see their votes against my Lord Chiefe Justice Keeling, that his proceedings were illegal, and that he was a contemner of Magna Charta (the great preserver of our lives, freedoms, and properties) and an introduction to arbitrary government; which is very high language, and of the same sound with that in the year 1640. I home, and there wrote my letters, and so to supper and to bed. This day my Lord Chancellor’s letter was burned at the ’Change.
*(The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S., edited by Henry B. Wheatley F.S.A., London, George Bell & Sons York St. Covent Garden, Cambridge Deighton Bell & Co., 1893.)