About the diary writer
- Barbara McDowell Whitt
- Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
- ~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.
"The Eighteen Cousins Journal" - Thursday, February 4, 1960
Today was Grandpa's birthday. Mom, Daddy and Ann went out there tonight while we had choir practice. After school Phyllis went to Betty's for a surprise party for Martha. I'm glad this week of school is about over. I am so tired. I have to get "The Eighteen Cousins' Journal" written, Mrs. Cowan's valentine sent, and (for tomorrow) a current event and geometry done.
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6 comments:
Am I remembering right that Mrs. Cowan was your pen-pal who lived in England?
And I think I also remember stories of the Fifteen Cousins Journal - did you just write about what was going on with all your cousins?
Hi Suzanne,
Yes, Mrs. Cowan lived in Coventry, Warwickshire, England. My Grandmother Kingsley had been exchanging letters with her and thought I might like to as well. I wrote to her for 17 years before going to visit her in the summer of 1969. We took a bus trip to Wales, northern England and Scotland. We went on the same trip that my cousins, Rhoda and Mary Estep, had gone on the previous summer.
All of the cousins (or my aunts) contributed happenings going on in their lives and I typed them into a two column format and ran them off on the mimeograph machine (or duplicator) at school. I then sent the finished copies to each of their homes.
Do you have copies of the Journal still?
Ron, I came across a copy of the Fifteen Cousins Journal not long ago. John Leet took over the editing responsibilities after I thought I was too busy to continue doing so.
I still love the Round Robin letters your mom and aunts wrote. I think the insights and history in those everyday activities are so interesting. Does the Cousins Journal provide as good reading as the RR?
Yes, the copy I found was interesting to read--especially, I think, the contributions from the aunts who seemed to be sending "as told to me by..." types of information. Now that I think of it, we were probably past 15 in the number of cousins because I remember Aunt Peggy writing about Rikki, Sonja and Sheri. In my diary I had actually referred to the Journal as the cousins' round robin, but I took the liberty of changing the name to the Journal for clarity's sake when I wrote my posts. As additional cousins were born, the number in the title went up accordingly.
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