Ladies and gentlemen start your journals!

A family treasure that has been passed around from cousin to cousin in my family for several decades is a journal written in 1936 by my great-great-great aunt Sophie Alice Nickels. As a married adult woman she came by wagon train with several of her family from Indiana to settle in Missouri. Alice died March 17, 1937. Her niece was my grandmother. Here is some of that journal (spelling errors included.)

"My name is Alice Nickels, born in Clark County Indiana in 1856. The first thing I remember was in 1861. Pap went off one morning and came home at noon. He told Mother something and she cried. My sister, Janie and I went out to get some apples. I asked her what Mama was crying about. She said Pap had joined the army. Well, I didn't know what that was. And I couldn't see what she wanted to cry about that for. The war started in 1861, I don't know what month. He left home, but I can just remember how hard I tried to cry like the others but could never shed a tear.

"Pap was gone to war three years. I don't know much about it but one night we were sitting in the kitchen. Mother was sewing and as usual us kids were gathered around her. There was a light broken out of the window and someone had put a pillow in it. There wasn't any wind. All at once this pillow fell out on Mother. We put it back and it fell out again and the third time it fell out she jumped up and went and layed down on the bed. It scared us kids. Then pap came in. He came home on a furlough. Mother thought the pillow falling out was a token Pap had been killed.

"Time went on and Aunt Elvira got sick. She had a girl staying with her and one morning just at day light she died with heart trouble. Well, Aunt wanted me to stay with her. I said I would. Then I got to thinking I would have to sleep right where that girl died and got the idea in my head that I wanted to go home. I got supper over early. Auntie's boy and wife came. I asked her if she would stay all night and let me go home. She said, "I like to stay here." After I left she got to looking at the bed and got as I did about the sleeping. Her man started home. And she yeLled at her man to bring her nightgown back with him.

"Uncle said to her you can go home with him and stay. She told me she started home in a run.

"I had a half mile to go on the main road from Lexington and Washington, two towns. It was getting real dark by the time I got home. They had ate supper. I set down at the table and was eating, as I was too home sick to eat at Aunts. Mama came in and said why wasn't you afraid to come home in the dark on that road. I said, "No, I wasn't afraid but when I got to the branch we called it, then every frog in there said shame, shame, shame. She laughed and that was the last time I ever tried to work out.

"Mat was my dearest school girl chum. We had a habit, her and I at noon eating our lunch then putting our arms around each other. We would open the door. There was only one step. Our habit was to take hold the door knob, give the door a slam, then jump over the step and out on the ground. We done that once too often.

"Mat always wore black water broad dress, pleated on the waist. As we jumped one day, the door caught the bottom of Mat's dress and ripped it nearly all off the waist. I can see her yet how comical she looked. She wrapped around herself. I went in and got our wraps and we had to go half a mile to Mrs. Logan. Mat got one of Logan's dresses and put on while she sewed hers on again. After that we cut the jumping out. Oh dear old days. I love to think of the fun we had together."

Until the next time friends remember -- history is made up of the stories about the people who lived it. If you are really lucky, you can find a written journal from the past to make history live again. Now don't you want to start your own journal?