eilene's almanac — the four septembers
Kerr County Historical Society, accession K.C.H.S. 1996.045. Four pocket farmer's almanacs (Center Point Mercantile, Center Point, Texas, 1968 / 1969 / 1970 / 1971), cloth corners worn, bundled together with a length of brown butcher's string. Found 1996 in the second drawer of the kitchen sideboard at Rt. 2 Box 18, Center Point, Texas, four feet from the Prince Albert tobacco tin that yielded K.C.H.S. 1996.044. Each volume in Eilene Pickens Stowe's hand throughout, pencil, household entries — weather, prices, mending, visitors. The September leaf of each year carries one entry in black ink, in the right margin beside the moon-phase column. Those four entries are the only ink in any of the four volumes.
1968 / September leaf. Pencil entries Sep 1–30: a calf sold at Comfort, R.A. brought feed, the Pentecostal woman with the beans, weather. Black ink, right margin, beside the 14th:
14th — no letter today. Walked to the box twice.
1969 / September leaf. Pencil: school started, the well sanded again, R.A. fitted a fan-belt to the Ford. Black ink, right margin, beside the 14th:
14th — no letter. The mailman waved as he passed and did not stop.
1970 / September leaf. Pencil: cousin Mae's wedding in Comfort, the price of feed, three jars short on the pear preserves. Black ink, right margin, beside the 14th:
14th — no letter. Two years on Wed., three on Fri. I will not count again.
1971 / September leaf. Pencil: a quiet month, R.A. took the Ford to the lot, October coming. Black ink, right margin, beside the 14th — struck through once with the same nib, but legibly:
~~14th — no letter. The drawer has the one he wrote.~~
The black-ink hand does not return in the 1972, 1973, 1974 almanacs in the same bundle, which are otherwise filled in pencil in the same hand. The four September entries are the only ink in any of the four volumes. The 1971 entry is the only entry in any volume that was made and then struck. — C. Reames, archivist, accession note, 12 March 1996.