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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 Thread of Life" - Friday, December 9, 1960

Phyllis went to the Regina game. I did chores by myself to repay her for doing them for me Wednesday night. I watched "The Thread of Life"- genetics - that Mr. Statler recommended. It was pretty interesting. I was going to go to town tomorrow afternoon, but now I guess I'll babysit for Fudges. Might as well make money rather than spend it. They've been working on our house. They took the front porch off, changed three windows and the back door.

4 comments:

Ron said...

Do you recall what the chores invovled? How long did it take? I remember my cousins always had to leave family gathering first to get home to chore.

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

The main thing we did was carry buckets of milk, as soon as my dad or grandfather had one full from milking our dairy cows (mostly Guernseys and Jerseys) from the barn to the milk house. We then poured it into the separator. When the milking was done my grandfather ran the separator (to separate the cream from the milk) while my dad let the cows out of the barn if the weather was nice or bedded them down for the night with fresh straw on cold winter nights.

It usually took two hours to do the chores, but that included the two-mile driving time between our two farms.

Catherine Gayle said...

I think this is fascinating, blogging your actual diary entries from so many years ago. Thanks for sharing them with the world.

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Catherine, thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. I appreciate your encouragement. Having met you through the Lady Scribes site, I have now viewed your personal blog and web site and they are beautiful.