The following notes I wrote in 2009 after first transcribing the diary. I've learned a few things since then (and managed to contact some of Add's descendants!) and have tried to keep it up to date. I've made Celia's spongecake below several times, and it's delicious. I hope you've enjoyed the diary!
“Epilogue.”
Had Celia continued to write for only 2 more months, she would have recorded the sad tragedy that befell the family on June 9: the passing of their mother. I haven’t found any records saying what Mrs. Weaver died of, but it could have been a relapse of the illness Celia recorded her having earlier.
The next major event in the family was much more joyful. On April 4, 1873, Melia married Mark Baughn. She had three daughters in the years shortly following: May, Almeda, and Lottie.
Similarly, in 1877, Add’s son Floyd married Elizabeth J. Shepherd in Saginaw. I have no records of him following this marriage.
On April 25, 1883, Bill finally got married. His bride was Caroline Mascho, and they had two sons: Milton J. and Lewis James.
Clara married a few years after that to Sheldon D. Woodworth. They had a son named Earl and lived, as far as I can tell, happily ever after.
Celia, unfortunately, did not live happily ever after. She died at the relatively young age of 38 on January 8, 1888. I can’t quite figure out whether she ever married, as I have found evidence for both suppositions. She was shortly followed by her brother Rob (on September 11 of the same year) and her father.
Add died an elderly widow on July 21, 1899, Henry having died in 1887, shortly before Celia. According to her obituary in the Milford Times, she had been sick for a long time before her death, so it wasn’t a surprise.
Will’s death, however, was a shock, and his obituary is quite interesting to read. When he was 70 years old, in 1916, he was walking across some railroad tracks on his way home. An automobile’s headlights and a boxcar kept him from seeing the oncoming train, and he was too deaf to hear it. As a result, he got tragically run over, and died.
The final record I have of the family is Melia’s obituary. She died on March 14, 1923, at the age of 74. She was ill for a few weeks before her death, and had been in rather poor health for some time.
Clara was the last to die, but I don’t have any date. I do know, however, that she outlived Melia.
Celia wrote several things in her journal other than regular entries. Under the dates for January 4 and 5, 1868, she records the following recipes:
Nice Spongecake:
5 eggs, 1 tumbler full of sugar, one ditto of flour.
Directions
First beat the white of the eggs to a stiff froth, and then beat the yolks and sugar to a cream. Sift your sugar and flour and stir it just enough to mix the flour and no more. Bake as quick as possible.
Recip[e] for Frosting:
21 heaping tea spoons of powdered sugar added to _____. Beat in whites of eggs.
Nice Jelly Cake:
4 eggs
1 teacup sugar
1 teacup flour
1 teaspoon of soda
Bake in 4 sheets.
I haven’t tried any of the recipes yet, but learned that a tumbler-full is a drinking-glass-full. I plan on making the “Nice Spongecake” soon.
The other things that Celia recorded in her journal were short notes on purchases made, mostly in the 1870s. The dates on the last page are April the 21, 1873, April the 29, 1873, and November 1874. In the dollars/cents columns is recorded “9 was lonely [?],” “9 left,” and “went to tea [?].” Her handwriting there is so small it’s nearly impossible to read. Her other entries are usually vague, undated, and unclear, such as: $5.00.
There, in the nearest entirety that I can get it, is, as she scrawled on the inside of the front cover, “Miss Celia Weaver’s Diary for 1868.” It is a detailed and cultured portrait of mid-nineteenth-century Milford, Michigan, including notes about everyday life along with a certain person’s thoughts and feelings about things, introductions to various personalities and events, and anything else one could want to know. This is Celia Weaver’s diary.
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