The Bea Blog consists of
excerpts from the diaries my grandmother Bea Cohen (1899-1985) kept for 38
years, starting in 1913. For more background, see Part I -- Intro and 1913 (under Blog Archive).
The Bea Blog – Excerpts from My Grandmother’s Diaries
Part
V
Photos
of Bea at the Jersey Shore 1915-1916
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| Milton, Bea and Harold, Summer 1915 |
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| Bea, Summer 1916 |
Excerpts
from Bea’s Diary: January – June 1917
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| Marion, Sollis and Bea, 1917 |
The US enters the war. Bea continues at secretarial
school and Milton graduates from textile school. Bea attends performances by
Enrico Caruso and Isadora Duncan. Bea’s family takes a summer house in Woodmere,
Long Island.
January
Milton phoned and we’re friends once more (till the
next time we disagree). I think it’s a scream the way we get along, then split,
get along again, split etc etc. He says I’m the biggest puzzle to him and that
he never knows what to expect from me next. Wonder if he realizes what a
compliment that is.
Our family sure is a bunch of schlemiels. Kenneth
has the grippe, poor kid, Father had a painful attack of gravel, and Marion and
I have colds.
Lot of peace talk in the papers but I don’t take it
seriously and I don’t imagine the war will end for some time yet.
Father went to the Clothiers Association banquet
to-night and looked thin and stunning in his full dress. I’ll have to get
married if only for the sake of walking down the aisle with him when he’s
spiffed up.
Bea
continues her secretarial studies at Scudder
A Mrs. Johnson spoke to us this morning about the
children of France, there are 800,000 fatherless and destitute children there and
believe me, I don’t realize what it means. They are absolutely helpless and
barely existing and I complain at what I have. I sure am a sinner.
Mrs. David Johnson was the speaker for the Boston Committee of The Fatherless Children of France, an organization founded in 1915 by American women to help French war orphans. http://www.holycross.edu/departments/publicaffairs/hcm/winter_spring05/features/feature2.html
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| A fund-raising effort by the Fatherless Children of France (http://images.wisconsinhistory.org) |
February
February
3
Diplomatic relations with Germany have been severed.
Bernstorff was given his passports, and Gerard was told to come home. A
declaration of war will be next, I suppose [. . .] I hate war [. . . ] But I
think everybody realizes [Wilson] is a great man.
Johann von Bernstorff was the German
ambassador to the United States and Mexico from 1908 to 1917. James Gerard was the American
ambassador to Germany from 1913 to 1917.
February
4
Gosh, I hope none of those d_____ German soldiers or
spies or anything get over here. I think I’ll be a hero. Think on, child, think
on!
When I grow up I want to be of some use. The
majority of rich girls (I mean those who don’t have to earn a living – like me,
for instance) go to school for a while, then quit . . . I don’t want to be like
all those.
March
Bea comments on her diet and her weight
I don’t diet regularly anymore but refused ice cream
twice, potatoes, bread, butter and chocolate marshmallows and fudge, so that
isn’t doing so badly.
Am I fat? No sir, just abundantly solid.
March
5
Wilson was reinaugurated yesterday.
March
21
Made my debut at the opera tonight with Father as
escort, a grand tier box seat, and “Aida” the attraction. I just love it and
want to go again and again. Caruso is – well he’s Caruso [. . .] so cute and
funny when he takes his curtain calls.
|
||
Bea,
mimicking immigrant English, describes what happens when her school recommends
her for a small secretarial job
Excitement – sort of anyhow – I was asked by Madame
Scudder if I’d care to do some work for a man what lives on 71st
Street and what wants a manuscript of 50,000 words typed. I asked die papa and he won’t let me go to the
man’s house [. . .] so my chance of earning some pennies has went.
On
March 31, Bea attends a concert by Paderewski
Paderewski is a genius and plays marvelously. He is
as generous as can be with encores, and is wonderful all around.
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| Ignacy Paderewski (1860-1941), pianist and composer |
April
April
1
I expect war to be declared against Germany tomorrow
or day after and I’m scared but I think it’s inevitable and I’ll have to do my
share whatever it will be.
April
2
Extra session of Congress met today and most likely
by now war has been decided upon [. . .] Father thinks we’re going to have more
trouble with Mexico and that that’s where the 71st regiment was
called.
On
April 2, the Senate voted in favor of war and on April 4 the House did as well.
April
6
Declaration
of war.
April
9
Milton phoned this afternoon. I hadn’t seen or heard
from him in three months, but I knew nothing was wrong and that it was just a
whim of his. On Wed. evening I’m going to see Isadora Duncan with him.
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| Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), dancer and choreographer c. 1917 (photo by Arnold Genthe, collection of New York Public Library) |
April
11
Milton took me to the Metropolitan to see Isadora Duncan and the dancing of her pupils […] Stunning seats in the orchestra and I liked it ever so much. We went down in the Paige and the horn and the sound of the machine when it slows down to almost a stop brought back “dem good old summer days.”
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| An advertisement for the Paige car (http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/leaflets-ads-1910sInfo/photo Paige car) |
This
month Sollis suffers another severe attack of “gravel” (kidney stones)
Father gets his pains on and off and isn’t strong
enough to stand them. He has a trained nurse.
[Father’s] sick of being helpless and is terribly
discouraged and the atmosphere around here isn’t particularly cheerful.
April
19
Bea
has the German measles and stays home from school.
Today was “Wake Up America” Day and there was an
enormous parade of schools, colleges, boys, girls, etc etc. The Scudder girls
marched too. I wish I had seen it.
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| Wake Up America poster by James Montgomery Flagg (thanks, MAJ) |
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| The Wake Up America Day parade on Fifth Avenue (http://apps.carleton.edu/events/wwi/exhibition/photos/?image_id=446131) |
Bea
and the family doctor discuss Bea’s weight
[Dr. Woolley] said I should read “Eat and Grow
Thin.” Mother won’t admit I’m the least bit stout – that’s the maddening part
of it – but he’s more reasonable.
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| Eat and Grow Thin by Vance Thompson (1863-1925). First published in 1914, it is known as one of America's first low-carb diet books. http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Grow-Thin-Vance-Thompson/dp/1596052783 |
Bea
buys “Eat and Grow Thin” and begins to diet. But her diet doesn’t last long.
Mother bothered me so much about my dieting I had to
stop.
Bea's mother Pauline,
an Eastern European immigrant who had risen from modest circumstances to
prosperity – and to whom prosperity meant plentiful food -- feared that dieting
would stunt Bea’s growth. Bea remained self-conscious about her weight
throughout her life, but never embarked on a harmful diet.
May
May
10
The Merchants’ Association gave a luncheon for Joffre
and Viviani and the rest and Father was there. That French Commission is
getting some reception in New York.
Following the US declaration of war, the French government sent
a commission to the US to drum up American support for the Allied war effort.
The commission was led by Minister of Justice Rene Viviani and Marshal Joseph
Joffre. (http://maisonfrancaise.org/centennial/world-war-i)
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| Marshal Joseph Joffre (in cape) receiving an honorary doctorate from Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler, May 10, 1917 (René Viviani stands between them). http://maisonfrancaise.org/centennial/world-war-i |
May
11
Lots of fellows – the first detachment – left to-night
for Plattsburg and I think there will be some scarcity of men this summer. Only
kids left.
An
officer training camp was opened in Plattsburgh, New York in May 1917.
Plattsburgh had already been the site of a volunteer civilian training program
in the summers of 1915 and 1916.
May
17
Milton phoned. He’s through and gets his diploma
[from textile school] next week but isn’t going to be at his graduation. I
wouldn’t stay away if it were.
On May 24, 1917, Milton graduated from the Textile Department of the Pennsylvania Museum and
School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia with a certificate in the two-year silk course.
At graduation he was awarded “The Joseph Elias Prize — For designed and woven Jacquard Silk Fabric.”
(http://archive.org/stream/annualreport191700penn/annualreport191700penn_djvu.txt)
June
June
5
Today was Registration Day for all males 21-31. No
school.
This was the first of
three registrations during WWI (see note to June 20 below).
June
13
Registered this morning at the Woman Suffrage place
(76th St.) where Sophye is helping to take the census
“State Census to Show Work Individual Can Do, Military Records
Will include Women for First Time in Country’s History, and Women Volunteers
Will Act as Enumerators,” The New York
Times, May 13, 1917.
June
15
This
summer Bea’s family rents a house in Woodmere, Long Island, instead of Long
Branch, New Jersey
The house is the cutest you ever saw, and I love it.
The books are simply wonderful and not a single trucky one in the place.
“Trucky” here means worthless.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/truck
June
20
This war is no joke. Our troops are going over soon
and there are going to be two drafts not one. Wish to Heaven I could do
something. France wouldn’t be half bad if I were older, independent and more
reliable.
There were actually
three separate registrations for the draft in WWI: June 5, 1917, June 5, 1918
and September 12, 1918. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_Act_of_1917
June
21
Am reading “Mr. Britling Sees It Through” by H.G.
Wells [. . .] it shows so clearly the impression war makes on people – the
vague unreal feeling at first changing to one of actuality when things “strike
home.”
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Mr Britling Sees It
Through was first published in England in 1916 and was a best-selling
novel in the US in 1917 (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Bestsellers,
American, 1895-1923)
|
Bea’s
wartime humor
Two Germans dropped some shells on Brooklyn Bridge
to-day ---- peanut shells.
A man caught a cold Tuesday because it was Draft Day.
If Hell were turned upside down, what would be found
there? Answer – Made in Germany.
Evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) said, "If you turn hell upside down, you will find 'Made in Germany' stamped on the bottom." Ray H. Abrams, Preachers Present Arms (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1933), 79.
Stayed
tuned for The Bea Blog Part VI: July – December 1917
