Diaries open window into past

SANDPOINT --"I would have loved to have met her. She sounded kind of feisty. She was diplomatic, but she had strong opinions. She was very liberal in women's suffrage and the Civil War (effort)," said local author Cindy Metsker Hayes of her great-great-great-aunt Emily. "There was a call for linen for bandages, and she and her sister went around and literally asked their neighbors for sheets of their clotheslines."

"Aunt Emily's Diaries," a compilation of journals by Hayes' ancestor from the late 19th century, is the next best thing to a time machine. Hayes is responsible for selecting, collecting and publishing the details of daily life as related by Mrs. Emily Wheeler Spencer in 17 diaries written between 1875 and 1905.

Published by Keokee Press of Sandpoint, the book features nearly 300 pages and a forward by Cher Metsker Belcher. It came out this year, a little more than a century after Emily's death.

Emily lived and flourished in the northern Indiana village of Kendallville in the 1800s until her death in 1915 at age 89. Through her personal writings, she shares stories of heartache, loyalty and perseverance that are endearing, timeless and inspiring," according to the book description.

Hayes' mother safeguarded the diaries for decades, and ultimately, Hayes and her siblings inherited them.

"It was kind of serendipity. I had retired and was looking for a project," said Hayes. "It took about three years of transcription from the handwritten diaries to an electronic transcripts.

She said that the diaries were in excellent physical condition, but Aunt Emily's handwriting was challenging to decipher.

"It must have been before dictionaries were invented, judging from her spelling," Hayes joked.

The author grew up just 60 miles from her ancestor's Kendallville home. After some moving around, she settled in Sandpoint in 1987. Before her retirement, she worked 24 years as an itinerant teacher for the Idaho School of the Deaf and the Blind.

"I covered five counties," she said, "converting printed material to Braille and synthesizers so the students could stay in their own homes."

Hayes believes her Aunt Emily, who also spent the majority of her days at home, kept diaries as a natural extension of her prolific letter writing. She added that it may also have been a safe place for Emily to express herself.

"She was always very diplomatic on the outside chance that someone did read it," said Hayes. "She and her husband reared several children (not their own), and she sometimes made comments that she wouldn't choose to do it over again."

When Emily's sister was widowed, she moved in with Emily and her husband, bringing her three girls into the household. When one of these nieces grew up and had children of her own, her death left two more children for the Spencers to raise. The couple acquired two additional children that Hayes cannot account for.

Although Emily devoted little ink to the topic of her husband, Edward, the couple enjoyed good standing in their community.

"He was a hard worker. They were very active in their community. They built an opera house called the Spencer Theater. It’s called the Strand now in Kendallville, Ind. He was a rancher and owned a lot of real estate. He was the president of the county fair board."

Hayes also said she came across a few surprises as she read through and transcribed her aunt's diaries.

"I was really surprised when it came to the women's suffrage movement. The momentum started way before the amendment was signed," she said. "In her diaries, she said she wouldn’t see (women voting) in her lifetime, but she had seen the tide turning."

The diaries also contain some descriptions that make them valuable as historic documents. Emily speaks about the Spanish American War, including mentions of Clara Barton and Teddy Roosevelt. However, what really impacted Hayes the most was Emily's descriptions of hardship and death.

"(Large numbers) of people died from tuberculosis and yellow fever in the Spanish American War," she said. "Lots of infants died. "Emily wrote that when her sister had a bunch of teeth removed, she couldn't remember what they did before chloroform."

"It made me more grateful for the things we take for granted," Hayes said.

Information: auntemilydiaries@gmail.com, www.amazon.com/Aunt-Emilys-Diaries-Cindy-Hayes/dp/1530810477