Apr. 23rd Tuesday

Took street car from Mrs. Watson’s for depot. Mr. B____* found Mr. Stevens there & came in to Ladies room with him introducing him to me as Mr. Brown & they seemed to enjoy the joke hugely to my mortification. But I soon saw who it was after putting on my glasses & I too enjoyed the surprise. He came with us as far as Omaha. He starts from there in a day or two for (?) with a car load of horses. We left Lincoln about 8 o’clock and reached Afton Junction about 3 o’clock where I now am writing this, & such a place it never was my fortune to wait at before & here we have to stay ’till 5 o’clock. & such poor accommodations; after climbing about 50 stairs reach a waiting room about 12×14 where about 9 poor tired travelers are obliged to wait ’till train on Great Western road arrives. 2 long freight trains have passed on the B&M road of from 50 to 70 cars each. Where we’ve been waiting, it’s a very sightly place being up so high. Can look over the surrounding country which is very broken & rough.

*referring to her husband, Chauncey Burch. In other entries she refers to him as C___.

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Traveling around Lincoln

I like reading about all the different modes of travel that Adaline and Chauncey use while on their trip. In Lincoln they used the street car system to get around town. Here is a map of that system to help give you a visual as to where they went. It takes a while to load but I like “seeing” their route. The train depot is on the middle left, and the route of their street car is in yellow and goes right across the middle of the map. You can see that they ended up a block away from their destination, just as she described! Just to compare, this is Lincoln today. The little area right around where it says Lincoln, is the area from the first map.

April 22, 1895

Bellwood, Neb. April 22, 1895

Mr. and Mrs. C.S. Burch left Bellwood on 9 o’clock train this morning for the east. Arrived at Lincoln at 11:30 AM. Took the South 17th street car for Mrs. Watson’s. Found a returned missionary, Dr. Stevenson, from China that lectures at Bellwood (?) Thursday eve at M.E. church. Also one from Japan who left & saw Rebecca in Jan. After dinner we went down street. Took South 17th street car and traveled to O & 27 street. Got off on 25th. Was just a block from Mrs. and Dr. Pebbles’ residence & the next door is No. 2520 N Street where Walter LLoyd lives. Was met by Mr. (?) at the door.

Had a very pleasant call there & Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd took us down street. Had a fine ride & came back to Mrs. Watson’s to spend the night. They each have very fine residences & we are having such a pleasant time here.

Explanations

The journal has seen better days. Years of being passed down from person to person have left it discolored, brittle, and faded. Imagine the old paper you tried to recreate in the seventh grade by soaking paper in tea or coffee and burning the edges. Many pages are so fragile that just trying to turn them will cause another small piece to flake off. For whatever reason, the first few pages are the worst. In some cases I just could not make out what Adaline wrote. So in the first few entries, there may be sentences that don’t flow like you think they should. But once we get further along, that rarely happens.

There are only a few other differences between the actual journal and what is written here. One is punctuation. She seemed to write out all her thoughts without using periods or capital letters, just little spaces. I added punctuation to make it easier to read. There are some differences in grammar that I left alone. For example, I just like how she writes “to day” instead of “today.”

I will also try to spell names correctly and consistently. Just like we often spell names based on how they sound, Adaline did the same. Sometimes a person’s name was spelled differently each time she wrote it! (I don’t know many people who could spell L’hommedieu. Lhomideu was not that far off!) By trying to spell them correctly, hopefully people looking for specific ancestors will be able to find them.

Welcome to 1895

In looking through papers from my family history, I discovered a journal from Adaline Burch, written in 1895. In it she describes her journey to her parents’ farm to help take care of their estate after their recent deaths. I love reading about how people of the past lived, even more so when they are relatives. I thought that others should be able to read about Adaline as well, so I decided to bring her into the 21st century by setting it up as a blog. I hope to make her life come alive by introducing you to her family, her home, and her time period as well.

Step back in time with me over 100 years. Welcome to 1895