Table Of ContentAdeline and Julia
Adeline, Julia, and Thomas Lee Wilkinson, Jr., ca. 1885
Adeline and Julia
GROWING UP IN MICHIGAN AND
ON THE KANSAS FRONTIER
Diaries from 19th-Century America
edited by
Janet L. Coryell
and
Robert C. Myers
Michigan State University Press
East Lansing
Copyright © 2000 by Berrien County Historical Association.
Copyright © 2000 Introduction by Susan Armitage.
8The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO
239.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Michigan State University Press
East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5202
05 04 03 02 01 00 1 2 3 4 5 6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graham, Adeline, 1864-1934.
Adeline and Julia: growing up in Michigan and on the Kansas frontier: diaries from 19th
century America / edited by Janet L. Coryell and Robert C. Myers.
p. em.
Annotated diaries of two young sisters, Adeline and Julia Graham, written during their
adolescent years growing up in Berrien Springs, Michigan in the 1880s. Also includes Julia's
diary from the year she spent homesteading with three other young women on the Kansas
frontier.
ISBN 0-87013-513-9
1. Graham, Adeline, 1864-1934--Diaries. 2. Graham, Julia, 1862-1900-Diaries. 3.
Sisters-Michigan-Berrien Springs-Diaries. 4. Young women-Michigan-Berrien
Springs-Diaries. 5. Berrien Springs (Mich.)-Biography. 6. Berrien Springs (Mich.)
Social life and customs. 7. Frontier and pioneer life-Michigan-Berrien Springs. 8.
Frontier and pioneer life-Kansas-Greeley County. 9. Young women-Kansas-Greeley
County-Diaries. 10. Greeley County (Kan.)-Sociallife and customs-19th century. I.
Graham, Julia, 1862-1900. II. Coryell, Janet L., 1955- III. Myers, Robert C. IV. Title
F574.B47 G73 2000
977.4'11-dc21
99-050969
Book design by Michael J. Brooks
Cover design by Heidi Dailey
Visit Michigan State University Press on the World Wide Web at:
www.msu.edu/unit/msupress
Contents
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION 1
PARTl
GROWING UP IN MICHIGAN: THE DIARY OF
ADELINE GRAHAM 7
Volume 1: May 10, 1880-June 6, 1881 9
Volume 2: December 21, 1881-May 28,1882 41
Volume 3: June 14, 1882-June 2, 1884 93
PART 2
JULIA GRAHAM'S KANSAS ADVENTURE: THE DIARY OF
JULIA GRAHAM 141
Volume 4: September 11, 1885-December 31,1885 145
Volume 5: January 1, 1886-August 3, 1886 171
Appendix 1: Who Addie Knew 215
Appendix 2: What Addie Read 221
Index 227
Preface
Janet 1. Coryell and Robert C. Myers
A
na cold winter day, Adeline Graham ditched school, pulled taffy,
giggled with her friend, teased the boys who followed her home,
and sat down at night to write it all down in her diary. A few years later,
her sister Julia wearily shoveled the last of the snow that had drifted into
the interior of her sod "hotel" and sat down to write to her sister all about
the blizzard that had buried her and her friends inside for days.
Americans of the late twentieth century seldom record their thoughts
or write letters on paper anymore, preferring to rely instead on the speed
and convenience of telecommunications. But vast numbers of nineteenth
century Americans kept journals and diaries, and many more used the
mail as their only method of communication, despite new-fangled inven
tions such as the telegraph (in 1847) or the telephone (in 1876). Today,
their thoughts and deeds, their lives and loves, their dreams and disap
pointments, preserved in ink and pencil on paper, become part of an open
book to students of the past.
Two such recorders of lives lived were diarists Adeline and Julia
Graham, sisters who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Residents for a time of Berrien Springs, Michigan, their experiences were
common to many women of the period--education, marriage, children.
And, like many women, they occasionally had grand adventures, the
grandest perhaps being Julia's homesteading attempt in Greeley County,
Kansas, near the Colorado border. Their adventures and everyday lives
were recorded in lined blank books, sold widely in the nineteenth
century for this very purpose. To remember and reflect on adventures
and daily life were important parts of learning how to grow up.
We edited this collection of Adeline and Julia Graham's diaries in
order to illuminate the past through the presentation of original docu
ments. We have kept the spelling, grammar and punctuation that the
"Graham Girls" used in their original documents, although minor
vii
viii ADELINE AND JULIA
changes have been added in brackets for clarity's sake when needed. We
defined some of the words unfamiliar to modem Americans in the notes
to provide additional explanation and context, and we included the
names of their relatives or people who showed up frequently in their
writings. For more information, two appendices are attached for those
interested in further details: Appendix 1 includes information about the
people Addie knew and mentioned; Appendix 2 lists the books she
enjoyed or studied. Those items are highlighted in the text with an aster
isk (*) to indicate more information is available at the back of the book.
The editors wish to acknowledge the aid and support they received
from the following persons: Mary "Polly" Preston Parrett, Cynthia
Burkholder Grootendorst and the late Sally Berk Roe, who donated
Adeline's diaries to the Berrien County Historical Association; Julia
Caldwell Mitchell, who owns Julia Graham's Kansas diary and made it
available for publication; Kay Mantegna, who owns Mary Garrow
Graham's letters and made them available to help with the annotation of
these diaries; Jan H. House, former director of the Berrien County
Historical Association, who helped with initial research on the Graham
family; Virgil W. Dean, Ph.D., editor at the Kansas State Historical
Society; Diether Haenicke, president of Western Michigan University,
whose timely donation of grant funds allowed the purchase of a com
puter to make the editing process much easier and faster; Bonnie Coryell
Hatch and Homer Hatch for information regarding Kansas traditions and
terminology; Rachel Lynn Ayers and Bethany Leigh Ayers for a careful
reading of the manuscript; and most especially Candace Seymour Myers,
whose support is always a timely affair, and James Smither, for taking on
extraordinary amounts of childcare so Momma could work on this.
For those wishing to learn more about the times in which Addie
Graham lived, her journal is used as a resource for part of the permanent
exhibit, "Growing Up in Michigan" at the Michigan Historical Museum
in Lansing, Michigan.
Introduction
Susan Armitage
y
ou are about to meet two engaging young nineteenth-century
women and share important experiences with them. Adeline and
Julia Graham, daughters of a prosperous Michigan farm family, kept
diaries during key moments in their young lives. Addie, the younger sib
ling, consciously kept a very personal and literary record of her adoles
cence (ages 15-19) during the years 1880-84. The next year, older sister
Julia penned a less personal but equally interesting account of her great
"adventure" homesteading in western Kansas. Taken together, these two
diaries tell us many things about the opportunities and
challenges facing white, middle-class women in the latter part of the
nineteenth century.
Adeline Graham's diary affords us a fascinating glimpse into the dif
ficulties young girls of the middle class experienced as they confronted
nineteenth-century notions of appropriate gender roles. Addie, (or
Adam, as her family and best friends called her) was a "tomboy." In part
the term described a joy in physical activity such as the riding and ice
skating that Addie and many other young girls so enjoyed but that they
were expected to give up as they became "young ladies." Young girls on
farms and ranches like Addie who enjoyed the freedom and physicality
of horseback riding may have most regretted the changes of adolescence.
Agnes Morley Cleaveland, growing up on a New Mexico ranch during
the same time period, saw a sharp divide between the free horseback
riding life of her childhood and her expected female adult role: ranching
was, she said, "no life for a lady."l In Addie's account, the moment of
truth occurs when her new sidesaddle arrives, without the leaping hom
that would have allowed her to continue to jump fences. Bicycles, which
1 Agnes Morley Cleaveland, No Life for a Lady (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1941; reprinted Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977).
1
