Meet Bonnie

On this day in 1916 in Roanoke, VA B.W. Elmore wrote: Chilly and cloudy. Arose at 7:20 a.m. Made a fire. Got to office at 8:45. Have severe headache today. Emperor Franz Josef of Austria died at age of 86 years today. Went over home at 5:30 and ate supper. Papa returned $4.00 of the $6.00 that I loaned him. I left Mama's house at 8:35. Took box of candy home. Loaned Harry Raines "winning of B.W" Several things I should point out here. I am going to try and write exactly the same way Bonnie did, so some expressions etc. may sound odd and I am working from his hand written diary, which is in a small book and so the handwriting is much different than today's, so I may occasionally mess something up, if so please feel free to point it out to me. Bonnie was a secretary for the old Norfolk and Western and Railroad which was headquartered here in Roanoke. I have been told that it was not uncommon to have male secretaries during those days. He was a very meticulous kind of guy as you can tell by his posting of times and attention to detail, which made him a very good secretary. We will see more about this in coming days. I find his diary to be such a treasure because he writes of simple things like who made the fire today and yet also tells about things going on in Roanoke and the world. In today's post we read about the death of Franz Josef of Austria. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia (my how times have changed since 1916), I was able to tell that Franz Josef played an important part in World History and his death came during World War 1. So, when reading Bonnie's entries, we must keep in the back of our mind that a world war is going on. I also was curious about what was loaned to Harry Raines, who were Bonnie's in laws. Bonnie's initials were B.W. but surely there was not a book about him. Again, after a little research I found that there was a popular book about that time called "The Winning of Barbara Worth" thus the B.W. The book was published in 1911 and a movie was made from the book in the 1920's. So, grand-daddy was a reader and as we shall see he also enjoyed going to the movies. I am guessing that in the 20's he later went to see the movie by the same title as the book. Also, another little tidbit. Bonnie didn't always go straight home after work. Not that I think he was doing anything that he shouldn't have. He usually tells us what he did right here in the diary, like stop by the news stand, see a movie, etc. Times were different then, no TV, and apparently Mary (Bonnie's wife, we called her Nanny) took care of most of the care of the children. Remember Annah Lee is 11 months old and Norman her older brother is still at home too. I just thought it was interesting that on this night, Bonnie went to eat at his parent's house, stayed for 3 hours, and then took a box of candy home. Ooops, stayed too long maybe? Think he knew Mary was going to be a little upset? Also, it just dawned on me that Grand-daddy had a bad headache today and ate cheese last night. My dad, Andy, used to get really bad headaches and the doctor once told him they were cluster headaches and could be caused by eating too much cheese and/or chocolate. Andy loved cheese too. I didn't have any cheese last night, but I did have some chocolate, no headache today though.