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Boys coming to the party scene changes the life of Clara Petrat.  She gets her brown dress and $1.95 hat from peach street.  She tells of emotions feeling “blue”.  Clara tells of going down the street to various friends’ homes. She studies hard for her English exam. 

Here is the tale of two Erie buildings.  Each were extraordinary late Victorian structures, beautiful and sturdy that led surprisingly short lives.  This is quite the opposite of what this blog is normally about, however; they are stories worthy of being told. 

Clara Petrat tells of her activities: going to Market, Butcher, Sunday school, Buffalo, Opera House.  She studies diligently for Algebra and History examinations.  There is a quarrel between Papa and Willie.  Then there is a Social with much preparation including purchase of peaches, ‘got plates, forks’, put on her ‘purple flowers dress’.  Then later ‘pick peaches’.  Since the beginning of her diary, Clara has improved her writing skills, but still needs more.

Erie is fortunate to have so many lovely neighborhoods that add to the happiness of all its residents.  I found it interesting to read about the transformation of one very industrious farm in 1888 into a premier neighborhood today.  The foresight and love of Erie was evident in the farm owner and those feelings are not lost today by its current residents.

Clara Petrat tells about President McKinley’s assassination and funeral in September, many flags were out.  This diary excerpt is April 2 -Sept 20.  She skipped some pages and resumed writing December 4.

Michael Shaara’s novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, first published in 1974, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the next year. The book has been republished many times and is on the reading list for many U.S. Army officer programs as well as other military academies. The book was also the basis of director Ronald Maxwell’s 1993 movie Gettysburg.

I wish all my readers exactly what the title of this blog says, always. The reality exists though, that an inevitable part of life is death.  With that in mind, let’s take a brief look at the history of some cemeteries in Erie.

Take a virtual tour of the Battles Estate Yellow House

Clara Petrat’s diary was copied exactly as she wrote it, so there may be some of her writings that will puzzle us.  (What was the Friday evening ‘frace’ that she attended?)

In her brown bag diary, Clara lists her activities including: Thanksgiving, Girls Literary Society, a list of her Christmas gifts(some similar to today), on March 5 Prince Henry ‘come to Erie’, going to the Library, making candy and more.

On May 31, 1985, thirty-five years ago, a deadly tornado outbreak, that started over the mid-west and intensified over central Ohio, ripped through the region causing the second deadliest natural disaster in Pennsylvania’s history. 43 separate tornadoes would clain 89 lives and uwards of 700 million dollars in damage. 65 fatalities in Pennsylvania places the May 31, 1985, tornado outbreak second only to the 1889 Johnstown Flood which claimed 2,200 lives.