Kaaterskill Books

[Women. Christian Science]. Anonymous.

[Manuscript] Melancholic Diary of a Well-to-do Christian Science Woman From the Boston Environs.

1915-1917. 338 manuscript pages [of 365 diary pages plus 30 pp. printed matter]. 8vo. Limp pebbled leather, all edges gilt. Edges worn, spine ends chipped, otherwise very good copy, small bookseller ticket on rear pastedown. Item #45680

Diary of a female Christian Scientist, from the Boston area. The journal runs steadily from January 1915 through July 1915, accompanied by intermittent texts and scriptures pertaining to Christian Science. Thereafter the journal is inconsistent, and likely dates from 1916-1918. The author worked for a Sunday School and did occasional work for the Christian Monitor. She was involved with the Philergian Society (an affiliate of The First Congregational Church of Jamestown), and the Women’s City Club of Boston, with whom she traveled to the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. A busy woman of means, she shops and dines out frequently, particularly in Jamaica Plains, and attends performances & shows on a fairly regular basis. She has a close-knit group of friends, many affiliated with the church, and a boyfriend, Frank, who is wealthy enough to own a Stutz car. However, despite maintaining an active social life with her friends and family, she often seems melancholy, a proclivity which even her religious devotion cannot assuage. This tendency manifests in her entries, at times blatantly. For instance, she tells us in February 1915, that she is “…completely discouraged with life. The selfishness of mortal mind overpowers my resources…” It also surfaces subtly, when she describes her social experiences. In May of 1915, she lamented attending a board meeting (presumably of the Philergian Society), stating that she is “sorry to belong as it seems like valuable time wasted.”

Her melancholy subsides later in May, when she decides to go on a trip to the Panama-California Exposition with the Women’s City Club of Boston. As the trip draws near, her journal entries become markedly richer in detail, and significantly longer. When she leaves on June 6th, she is joined by her friend Helen, who had previously been “disagreeable” about the California trip. On the first day of their trip, while traveling through Montreal, Helen gives further insight, when she says that the author was “born with a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon because so many good things come my way.” En route to California, our author remains engaged, and consistently upbeat. The journey to California took about two weeks by train, and included extended stays in Niagara Falls, Chicago, and Banff. While traveling through Vancouver and Seattle, she noted the presence of “Jap - porters, bell-boys.” They arrived in San Francisco on June 21st and spent a week exploring the region and visiting the Exposition. While there, she viewed the Panama Canal by Phonograph and heard Saint-Saens’ “The Promised Land,” which she described as “a failure from a musical stand point.” They departed San Francisco, and made their way into San Diego, where she enjoyed the beauty of the Mexican aesthetic, before beginning the trip home. The eastward route took them through the Grand Canyon, the Great American Desert, Colorado Springs, and the Cave of the Winds (Colorado), which she described as “the most wonderful place I was ever in.” When she arrived back in Boston on July 14th, Frank picked her up in a new car, and she described her return home as a “heart breaking experience that only time healed.”

Following her return, the journal’s timeline and entries become scattered, and the dates less clear. The header date of “1915” is, at times, crossed out, and “1916” or “1917” is written in its place. During this time, she resigns from the Sunday School, and Frank rents a cottage in Pocasset, where they stay for the month. She seems content during the time away, but the entries are notably dulled down once again. After they leave the cottage, the diary becomes a repository for devotional texts, and is filled with quotes from the Christian Science Sentinel and the Christian Science Monitor. There are a few brief entries, including one about seeing part of an Anti-Suffrage parade, but they are of little consequence.

Price: $450.00