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L.H : 1928 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT TRAVEL DIARY OF A YOUNG TEENAGE GIRL TRAVELING TO FINLAND THE HOME OF HER MOTHER'S FAMILY AND HER FATHER'S GRAVE

12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. On offer is a charming original 1928 manuscript diary handwritten by an unidentified, except by the initials 'LH', young girl, we estimate 13 or 14, maybe 15, who is traveling from we believe her home in New York to Finland, the birth country of her Mother. Using a 5 year diary gifted to her by her sister [?] Lea she writes regularly from July 1st through September 2nd and the sporadically through to November 26th. In a beautiful hand the girl writes with a joie de vivre always addressing her Diary as if it were a living being! A young maybe naïve girl she makes charming 'goofs' calling the steward the stewart, being shown some porcusos [porpoises] but goofs aside it is hard not to appreciate any young woman who can write: 'There's a movie tonight but I'm not going to go. I'm going to see some dreams.' Beyond this she is not too pleased initially with Finland. The home where she is staying is too primitive for her being wallpapered in newspaper and soot. The cemetery where her Grandmother and Father are buried is awful and unkempt and she promises herself to return and clear the mess and make them nice. She returns to better humor when they leave for other locales. Collectors and historians of early 20th Century Finland should be well pleased by the detail and observations of the charming precocious young woman. Here are some snippets: July 4 Then came dinner. They gave us each a whistle, hat and noise maker. I'm keeping them as souvenirs. I also swiped a menu and a flower from our table. I met a swell boy, he is a katzy dancer, that's how I met him. He's very interesting and he showed me some Porcuses (sic). Played a game of shuffleboard with him. There was dancing and fireworks until 10:30. July 12, they landed in Sweden: July 12 Well we landed and a great bus took us to the station at Goteburg. Here we tried to buy some oranges and I handed the lady 30 cents and she laughed at me, took the oranges away and handed me my money. Then I went to get Swedish money and got my oranges...Then we took a dinky train to Stockholm at 11:30pm. We didn't sleep a wink. But looked at scenery because it doesn't get dark here in Sweden. July 15 Well, I guess I am not going to like it any too well here. Where Martha lives it's halfway decent but at Laihoses it's awful. Gee the food is awful and they only have three rooms and the walls are papered with old newspapers and the roof is black with soot. Then we went to the graveyard to see my grandmother and grandfather's graves. They're left so carelessly that you can hardly tell they're there. I am going to fix both of them soon. She continued to find quite a difference between living in Finland and the USA: July 18 Anyway, after dinner we started and I was dressed in my best and so was Ma and we had to climb over 7 fences, and cross over 8 brooks, climb two big hills and walk thru two meadows so you can imagine what I looked like when I got there. July 19 Here we wash our clothes in the sauna and then carry them a mile and rinse them by the brook and carry them back again and try to hang them with what they call clothespins. They're like snappers and you press one end and the other end snaps and holds the clothes on the line. July 29 Well here we are in No Man's Land. There's only one house beside the one I'm staying in on the whole island. This morning for breakfast we had some flour pudding - ugh! Then I rowed Ma, Martha and me and 5 others to Putila - that's about three times the length of Baisly Lake. Oh Boy! I had some fun. Then we came back and for dinner we had potatoes and fish that wasn't so bad. Aug 18 Then we went to Lokalahti and were invited to stay overnight in Kelon Antila so of course we did. I slept with Martha awhile when I remembered the bed chamber pot full of p---. So I got up and asked Martha what I should do with it and she said "Throw it out of the window". I took her advice and hurried to bed. Aug 30 Then Martha came home and on the way she stopped for my pipe. I measured it and it's 29 inches long. I guess you can get mile long wiffs out of a pipe like that. In the evening we went to Roostens and I saw one of the first clocks used in Finland. The machine is made of wood and it only has one hand. So you can never tell how many minutes past anything it is. Had a nice evening.'. Manuscript. Book Condition: Good+

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