November 15
Laura M., age 15, North Carolina
November 15, 1997
Worked from 10-close with Andrew and Bryan. Babysat Becca. Did homework and we watched “The Princess Bride.”
Anna L., age 75, Illinois
November 15, 1960
A miserable day. Lo had a nice clean car but wouldn’t stay that way long. Late coming home. We went out to feed cats and Lo the ponies. Came back to eat. She dressed and about 2:30 she and Lily left for the north. Geo came up for a bit and listened to news. Rained so hard the back porch flooded over and over. I wrote to K.J. and Ruth.
Marcy S., age 14, Tennessee
November 15, 1938
Cold but warmer than yesterday. Practiced. No chapel. Had awfully good Latin lesson. Miss Goodwin said I was going to make A+ for her. I got an extra grade for reading a Latin story in English so well. Home Ec. and Algebra. I studied A. last night and Mr. Ballard didn’t call on me at all. Home for dinner. Usual classes in afternoon. Read in last study-period. Mary had to stay in. Walked up hill with Helen and Ruth Butler. H. is going to skating rink with C.E. but I can’t because of music lesson. I practiced and studied and at 4:30 I went to music lesson. Had good lesson. Got out at 5:00 (nearly dark) and went home and studied. In evening I wrote for “Legion Airs.” Didn’t have time to do much more. Daddy home later.
Henry S., age 26, Michigan
November 15, 1887
Got my buckwheat this morning and took 3 bu. of it to the mill to have ground. I set the posts and put up the cross pieces for a woodshed. I am going to try and have things in decent shape for the winter if I can. Commenced on the fourth week of school this afternoon. It has been cooler today, but no storm of any kind has arrived as yet.
*(R. Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville)
Abbie B., age 22, Kansas
November 15, 1871
The days go by and we have not been to Augusta yet. Were to have gone to day, now it is tomorrow. Yesterday I washed, baked bread and pies, was busy all day. The boys did not get home until an hour after sunset. They had a goose and prairie chicken. It took me all a.m. to dress them, do my work and get dinner; then no one came to eat it. I am beginning to gather my possessions together, and pack.
Jammie the cat had been with Jake at the Hall for a long time. The other day they found him dead. They think a coyote or gray wolf killed him. The boys have come—and it is decided we go tomorrow.
*(kansasmemory.org, Kansas State Historical Society, copy and reuse restrictions apply)
Cornelia H., age 26, North Carolina
November 15, 1862
Mr. Boyd made me some comfort needles (wood). They were too large. He trimmed them down last night. I got up very soon this morning before 4 & had breakfast about day. I began a comfort before breakfast to try my needles. They do finely. It will be a small one scarcely broad enough for me. I think of knitting Mr. Henry one of single yarn. This one I am knitting now is very coarse, double & twisted yarn. I have at last finished Sam’s shirt & then knit on my comfort. I finished it after night & patched Pinck’s pants after washing the children & putting them to bed. I did not go to bed till near 11 as I got to reading & knitting. Atheline came in a while before ten & greased & worked at my head till I finished reading the “Children of the Abby.” It is a very interesting work. Charlie & Peter came home yesterday evening. They went with the hogs. Mr. Henry wrote me a little note by them. He is not going to take his hogs to Blythe’s as the hog cholera is too bad, even then he has stopped at Mr. Heath’s some 36 miles from here in Transilvania Co. Gallion started this morning to Spartanburg with 15 bu. apples, is going to bring back some wheat Mr. Henry has there. Also some cloth Mr. Henry bought over a year ago at the factory if he can get it & I hope he may as our people need shirts badly.
*(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
November 15, 1667
Up, and to Alderman Backewell’s and there discoursed with him about the remitting of this 6000l. to Tangier, which he hath promised to do by the first post, and that will be by Monday next, the 18th, and he and I agreed that I would take notice of it that so he may be found to have done his best upon the desire of the Lords Commissioners. From this we went to discourse of his condition, and he with some vain glory told me that the business of Sheernesse did make him quite mad, and indeed might well have undone him; but yet that he did the very next day pay here and got bills to answer his promise to the King for the Swedes Embassadors (who were then doing our business at the treaty at Breda) 7000l., and did promise the Bankers there, that if they would draw upon him all that he had of theirs and 10,000l. more, he would answer it. He told me that Serjeant Maynard come to him for a sum of money that he had in his hands of his, and so did many others, and his answer was, What countrymen are you? And when they told him, why then, says he, here is a tally upon the Receiver of your country for so [much], and to yours for so much, and did offer to lay by tallies to the full value of all that he owed in the world, and 40,000l. more for the security thereof, and not to touch a penny of his own till the full of what he owed was paid, which so pleased every body that he hath mastered all, so that he hath lent the Commissioners of the Treasury above 40,000l. in money since that business, and did this morning offer to a lady who come to give him notice that she should need her money 3000l., in twenty days, he bid her if she pleased send for it to-day and she should have it. Which is a very great thing, and will make them greater than ever they were, I am apt to think, in some time.
Thence to Westminster, and there I walked with several, and do hear that there is to be a conference between the two Houses today; so I stayed: and it was only to tell the Commons that the Lords cannot agree to the confining or sequestring of the Earle of Clarendon from the Parliament, forasmuch as they do not specify any particular crime which they lay upon him and call Treason. This the House did receive, and so parted: at which, I hear, the Commons are like to grow very high, and will insist upon their privileges, and the Lords will own theirs, though the Duke of Buckingham, Bristoll, and others, have been very high in the House of Lords to have had him committed. This is likely to breed ill blood. Thence I away home, calling at my mercer’s and tailor’s, and there find, as I expected, Mr. Caesar and little Pelham Humphreys, lately returned from France, and is an absolute Monsieur, as full of form, and confidence, and vanity, and disparages everything, and everybody’s skill but his own. The truth is, every body says he is very able, but to hear how he laughs at all the King’s musick here, as Blagrave and others, that they cannot keep time nor tune, nor understand anything; and that Grebus, the Frenchman, the King’s master of the musick, how he understands nothing, nor can play on any instrument, and so cannot compose: and that he will give him a lift out of his place; and that he and the King are mighty great! and that he hath already spoke to the King of Grebus would make a man piss. I had a good dinner for them, as a venison pasty and some fowl, and after dinner we did play, he on the theorbo. Mr. Caesar on his French lute, and I on the viol, but made but mean musique, nor do I see that this Frenchman do so much wonders on the theorbo, but without question he is a good musician, but his vanity do offend me. They gone, towards night, I to the office awhile, and then home and to my chamber, where busy till by and by comes Mr. Moore, and he staid and supped and talked with me about many things, and tells me his great fear that all things will go to ruin among us, for that the King hath, as he says Sir Thomas Crew told him, been heard to say that the quarrel is not between my Lord Chancellor and him, but his brother and him; which will make sad work among us if that be once promoted, as to be sure it will, Buckingham and Bristoll being now the only counsel the King follows, so as Arlington and Coventry are come to signify little. He tells me they are likely to fall upon my Lord Sandwich; but, for my part, sometimes I am apt to think they cannot do him much harm, he telling me that there is no great fear of the business of Resumption! By and by, I got him to read part of my Lord Cooke’s chapter of treason, which is mighty well worth reading, and do inform me in many things, and for aught I see it is useful now to know what these crimes are. And then to supper, and after supper he went away, and so I got the girl to comb my head, and then to bed, my eyes bad.
*(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.)