As I read my grandfathers’ journals I’m enjoying the challenge of trying to understand and visualize what he was writing about. The reward of this process is getting a better understanding of a person I do not remember and gaining insight into my family. Since Poppa passed when I was around 2 all I know of him are the stories I’ve heard and the photographs I’ve seen so it’s enlightening to be able to see his thoughts.

I knew from family lore that Poppa was a very religious person so it was not surprise to see he was reading Billy Graham on Feb. 5. I had to Google ‘Billy Graham’s Decision’ thinking it must’ve been a book. Turns out it’s a magazine.

I also Googled his friends book and got this:

The second result seemed the most promising so I clicked on it and got this:

Dang. I would have liked to see the book, though Gilbert & Sullivan were one of my Dad’s favorites and one of my fondest memories is of his performance in “Pirates of Penzance”.

Well, this is interesting thanks Google:

I don’t recall much discussion of anyone in our lineage being direct descendants of people who settled Texas prior to 1846. Now I want to find documentation.  Ancestry.com seems as good a place to start as any.

I suppose it’s apropos that his day finishes with a walk to church since he spent the day Reading Billy Graham. I do wonder if it was necessary to note the reason Mimi was not going with him.

It seems Poppa was a bit snarky as evidenced by his comment on Feb. 5^th regarding my grandmother, and his opening entry on Feb. 6^th referencing my uncles preference to go by his middle name rather than his first. (Fun fact: my dad, my mom, and my brother all go by their middle name.) The remainder of the Feb. 5^th entry begs a couple of questions. One, how did my uncle get to his dentist appointment, and two why didn’t he make his own way back?

Not much of note for 1908 aside from continued spelling errors and my curiosity piqued by the printed information at the top of the page. Apparently ‘Erispelas’ is a skin rash and ‘prophylaxis’ is an action taken to prevent disease. Huh, this Pepto-Mangan stuff seems pretty versatile.