The Bea Blog -- Part V -- 1917 (January-June)

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

Milton, Bea and Harold, Summer 1915

Bea, Summer 1916

Excerpts from Bea’s Diary:  January – June 1917

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

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.

Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) as Radames in Aida. Caruso performed this role at the Met ninety-one times (Mishkin/Francis Robinson Collection/OPERA NEWS Archives)

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 71^st 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.

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 71^st 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.

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.”

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.

Wake Up America poster by James Montgomery Flagg (thanks, MAJ)

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.

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)

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 (76^th 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.”

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