Just when Library School was getting all dry and stressy, the simple joys of research come to the rescue.

Among the many cool databases my school library subscribes to, I found Alexander Publishing’s North American Women’s Letters and Diaries collection. Which is basically just what it sounds like: a database of letters and diaries, all available online with full text and searchable by date, subject and author, as well as historical and personal events.

I searched for mentions of the Titanic’s sinking, and ran across this letter (written on my birthday, as it happens), that I knew was written by a Quaker before I even got past the date:

Fourth month 23, 1912.

Dear Gertrude –

Theodore Roosevelt spoke in Greensboro yesterday; Joe Dixon was with him. I did not hear or see either one of them. I was asked to make another speech in Greensboro on education, and I had to prepare my paper on very short notice. On Seventh day afternoon Virginia Ragsdale invited me and several other friends to supper at her house. We had a lovely time. The dogwood and Judas trees were so pretty. As we went along in the train, it looked as if we were going through a park. On First day I had a nice visit at David White’s. I spent the night at Aunt Gertie’s and came home about seven o’clock yesterday. Thy father met me at the trolley. Rachel is rather upset over her ocean trip since the terrible Titanic disaster. I think travel will be safer now than heretofore, but one contemplating a voyage just now would naturally feel uncomfortable, I suppose.

I have been hard at work on the yard whenever the weather permits. I am so interested in it that I do not like to do anything else. This afternoon I expect to go to Todd’s and get some tomato plants, egg plants and a few shrubs for the public school ground. I have not had much done on thy tennis court yet; I hope to put Al at that job after he plants corn. He is very busy now plowing the bottom land at the farm. He and Walter think that they have cleared a very fine strip of land. I hope it will produce enough corn to feed our horses and cows.

Lovingly,

Mother.

From Hobbs, Mary Mendenhall, 1852-1930, Letter from Mary Mendenhall Hobbs to Gertrude Mendenhall Hobbs Körner, April 23, 1912, in Letters to Gertrude, 1910-1913.. Shamburger, Mary I.. Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston & Co., 1936, pp. 175. [Bibliographic Details] [4-23-1912] S7477-D095

And there you have it: history, happening someplace offstage while meanwhile at home the yard work gets done and the dogwood and Judas Trees are blooming at Virginia Ragsdale’s house and no one has time to listen to Teddy Roosevelt.