My grandmother, Lina Dreher, was sixteen when she kept this diary. Lina and her sister Tillie work in the family bakery where they recently installed a candy counter and ice cream parlor. In some …
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My grandmother, Lina Dreher, was sixteen when she kept this diary. Lina and her sister Tillie work in the family bakery where they recently installed a candy counter and ice cream parlor. In some excerpts, it appears Lina begins turning to emotional eating.
August 18th
Got weighed yesterday and I’m so ashamed of myself for I weighed 131 lbs. They all say I ought to be glad of my weight, but they don’t know how I feel. I feel as though I’m going to get good and sick and then again I feel so clumsy. I never feel what you really call fine.
August 19 th
Gave up eating ice cream and candy. Haven’t eaten any since I’ve been weighed. Wrote a letter to Daisy [a friend who is showing signs of tuberculosis] and in it I promised to visit her my next Sunday off.
August 20th
Haven’t eaten any sweets yet outside of one or two pieces of candy. I don’t expect to keep this up forever, but for a time at least. Have decided to work without complaining.
August 21st
Ate a slice of cream today. [Early versions of ice cream, called cream, came in a narrow box and had to be sliced rather than scooped]. Will see how long I can do without it from Saturday on.
August 22nd
Ate two slices of cream today and a little candy.
August 23rd
Ate a little more candy. Will start my sweet fast again. Oh dear, will the time ever pass? It’s just two months to the day that Em died. It seems like two years. At first the time passed very quickly t0 me and when a month was past, it seemed like a day, but now quite the opposite is true.
August 24th
Have just finished the story of Camille. The main character died of consumption and the sufferings they described remind me so much of Em. I feel sad. I’m all alone in the store now for I have given Tillie her dinner and she went home. Now all I can do is think! Poor ma, she doesn’t seem to get over Em’s death at all. She’s always pondering over it. She liked Em so well.
August 25th
Cleaned the cases. Got done with work about 8:10pm and read from then till about 11:30, only getting up to wait on customers. It’s dark and cold now. You see it’s this way, Tillie gets up at 4 or 4:30am and opens the store and goes home at 5pm. I get up anytime I wake and bring the dinner to Tillie about 11:30am and then we’re together until 5pm and then she goes home and I stay until closing time, 11pm and then the next week we change off.
August 27th
Was judged to be 19 years old yesterday. The same person judged Tillie to be eighteen. [Tillie is 22]. Wherever we go, I’m judged to be two or three years older than Tillie, while she is judged to be four or five years younger that she is. Is it a wonder? She weighs about 100 lbs. and I weigh 131, and we are the same height.
August 28th
Ate sweets all week long, although not near as much as I used to eat.
August 29th
Rec’d a postal from Daisy saying that she wouldn’t be home Sunday and that I shouldn’t be angry, but tomorrow being her last Saturday off [she works at Bamberger’s Newark as a gift wrapper], she would stay until Monday. Daisy didn’t tell me how she felt although I asked her to do so in the letter I wrote.
August 30th
Got new corsets today. Still wear 18s although I am gaining all the time. Of course they are open wider.
August 31st
Weighed myself and I weigh 129 lbs. Must have lost two pounds from too much exercise.
To be continued…
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