Our hero, Lennie Davis, works on neighboring farms all week, thrashing oats, shelling corn, fixing fence. Finally, on Friday afternoon, he gets some time off and bums around town. And in his entry for August 27, he goes bicycle riding!
Sunday, August 14, 1898
Frank went to Chicago. Art & Charlie came down. Walked out to Petersons.
Monday, August 15, 1898
Thrashed for Dillon.
Tuesday, August 16, 1898
Thrashed for Dillon until 4 PM. Stacked oats rest of day.
Wednesday, August 17, 1898
Finished stacking oats. Fixed fence. Came home.
Thursday, August 18, 1898
Shelled corn for Anderson.
Went out to Porters (sp?) with Ida LeMay.
Friday, August 19, 1898
Shelled corn. Bummed around town in afternoon.
Saturday, August 20, 1898
Helped ?? (sp?) in shop. Hotest day in Neb for years. 104 degrees.
Another week has gone by. The weather has turned hot. This following week Lennie takes time off to play.
Sunday, August 21, 1898
Another hot day. Went to Presb Church. Took Ed and Ells (Ellis Paulson) home.
Monday, August 22, 1898
A hotter day than Saturday. Band practice. Went to lecture at Prest. Church.
(Hotter than Saturday? Hotter than 104 degrees!! Please be reminded that the Presbyterian Church did not get air conditioning yet for decades!)
Tuesday, August 23, 1898
A cool day.
Fixed pictures in this book.
(Lennie is speaking of his diary. In the front and back inside covers he had glued tiny photos. Unfortunately, they are faded beyond recognition. These tiny photos are not to be confused with the photos in his pocket-size photo album which contained dozens of well preserved photographs of friends, self, and yes, even his dog, "Sport". )
Wednesday, August 24, 1898
A nice day. Worked for Edmond & Bradford. Went down to tennis court.
Thursday, August 25, 1898
Did not work. Shellington's farm caught on fire. Woodman's pinick at ?? (sp?)
Friday, August 26, 1898
Helped George and Charlie put up hay.
Got a letter from Sioux City to play for Carnival.
(Lennie and the Wakefield Cornet Band have a gig!)
Saturday, August 27, 1898
Guy and I went out to the country on bikes.
Aha! Lennie is enjoying the weekend! We wish we had a photo of his bicycle, but we don't. However, as you can see from the prints included here, bicycles haven't changed an awful lot, but costumes have! Especially for the gals!
.
The weather is pleasant in Wakefield, Nebraska, this fine week in June 1898. Our protagonist, Lennie Davis, age 17, continues to write in his pocket diary. He's sparse with his words but his few short sentences give us a picture of his daily activities. Lennie's words are in bold black.
Sunday, June 26, 1898Nice Day.Made ice cream.Ellis P (Ellis Paulson) and I went to Emerson.
(Emerson is a small town about 10 miles east of Wakefield.)
Monday, June 27, 1898Went to the country with Charlie.
Band plaid. (I hope Lennie "plaid" better than he spelled!)
Tuesday, June 28, 1898Did not do much.
Dull times since soldiers gone.
Wednesday, June 29, 1898A hot day.Ran foot races in street.
Thursday, June 30, 1898Nice Day.Staid at livery stabel in evening.Guy and me ran races.
Friday, July 1, 1898Social at P. Church. (Presbyterian)
Band practice.
Saturday, July 2, 1898Shined Carlsons and Kyles and my own horn.
Bad (band) suits came. (You can click the photo for a larger view of Lennie in his band uniform. He played in the Wakefield Cornet Band.)
On page 3 of the Omaha Bee of July 1 we read the following: Dateline June 30, Tecumseh, Nebraska. “Harvest is on in earnest in Johnson County and there never was a time when men were so scarce. There is a great demand for harvesters and any man who can shock wheat and desires work is in the field. The wages paid generally is $1.50 per day and board. The harvesting together with the building in the city and the railroad grading work on the Burlington south of here has been a boom to the laborers of Tecumseh (Nebraska) this summer."
Lennie lives in Dixon County which is well north of Johnson County. Oat and wheat harvest will not begin yet for another couple weeks. When it does, Lennie will be shocking oats and hay. He's an industrious fellow and will undoubtedly earn a man's wages. And he will not complain of the heat.
But Lennie does complain of dull times since the soldiers left Wakefield last week. Those men are on their way to fight in the Spanish-American war. This week page 1 of the Omaha Bee tells us that fighting will begin soon near Santiago, Cuba.
.
Charles Leonard Davis is seventeen years old in 1898. The following are entries in his small pocket diary. The words in bold black are Lennie's. I'm blogging Lennie's diary day by day (or week by week). I'm a bit behind but I'll catch up later this week. Meanwhile...read more about the Wakefield Cornet Band.
Sunday, June 19, 1898Got my picture taken.
Went to Presbyterien. S.S. girls & boys together.
(Boys and girls together! I hope they behaved themselves!)
Monday, June 20, 1898Ollie and ma took me out to Fritz to plow corn.(Ollie is Lennie's older sister. Married. Lennie is undoubtedly using horses to plow corn.)
Tuesday, June 21, 1898Hot in afternoon.
Rained in forenoon.
Plowed corn.
Tired as the D_ _ _ _.
(That's right...this Presbyterian boy refrains from spelling out "devil". His mama is raising him right.)
Wednesday, June 22, 1898Worked a half a day walked to town watched soldiers drill.
Thursday, June 23, 1898A hot and windy day.
Soldiers got word they were agoing to leave.
Friday, June 24, 1898Soldiers left on 7:30. (the morning train) 
Big crowd, sad, town seems lonely.Stormed hard.
IOGT. (Lennie attends another meeting of the IOGT lodge group.)
Saturday, June 25, 1898Nice day.
Went in country with Charlie.
Band played in street.
Speaking of the band...remember when I mentioned Lennie playing in the Wakefield Cornet Band? (read here). Lennie is not in this photo but his brother-in-law Carl Schulz is. He's the guy just to the left of center with the blonde mustache. I do not know the date of this first photo but you can see there are men and teen boys in this photo.
We recently visited the small museum at the old train depot in Wakefield and I found another photo of the band. This second photo was taken in 1904 when Lennie would have been 23 years old. He is not in this photo either. As you can see the band members are school age. Perhaps there were two cornet bands...one for adults, one for teens.
This 1904 photo included the following names:
Ray Larson, ? Woodward, Guy Diltz, Carls Anderson, Ernest Longe, Carl Diltz, Ed Burnamn, Willie Hide, Bryon Busby, Walter Carlson, Tip Hiyl, Ed Larson, Howard Shumway
Earl Leonard, Vilas Hiyl, Lloyd Busby, Harry Johnson, ? Ebersole, ? Shumway, Clarence Johnson, Maarvin Leamer, D. L. Leamer, Walter Howard, D.C. Leamer. (The band director was the depot agent but I don't know which name is his.)
If you've been reading along, you know that Lennie (Charles Leonard Davis) played the cornet in the Wakefield Cornet Band. So did his brother-in-law Carl Schulz. And so did several of Lennie's friends.
The group photo must have been taken before Lennie began playing, because Lennie is not in it. However, a couple of his friends are already in the band. How do I know they are his friends? Because their individual photos appear in his pocket-size photo album in the form of what we would call thumbnail photos. (Click for a closer view.) 
. .
This, of course, is Lennie. And the next photo shows his "Friend A" who also plays cornet. We do not know his name but you can find him in the group photo, back row, first on the left.
Friend "B" appears in the back row, second from the left. He, too, played the cornet. He was a dapper young fellow.
. .
. .
"Friend C" played the bass drum. At least I'm pretty sure this is the same fellow. Take a look yourself.. .
Photos of "Friend D" also appear several times in Lennie's album. In one photo he is jauntily wearing a top hat and posing with a buddy. His buddy must not have a top hat and wears his regular hat for the photo. This fellow is not in the group photo so we do not know what instrument he played.
. .
. .
Now that I've (namelessly) introduced you to several of Lennie's friends you can go back to my previous post wherein I told you how the Wakefield Cornet Band became "art" (thanks to artist Artist Charlotta Janssen).. .
.
Sunday February 13, 1898
Lennie writes:
Gim and me took in the town.Frank Schulz is gone.Home for dinner.Frank Schulz will play an important part in Lennie's life. Frank is a younger brother to Charles Schulz who married Lennie's sister Flora Olive (Ollie). You will remember that it is Charles whose face appears in the photo of the Wakefield Cornet Band. As of this writing Frank Rinhold Schulz is 22 years old. Frank was 8 years old when he left Germany with his mother and siblings for the wild prairies of Nebraska. By this time in his life Frank undoubtedly spoke the language of his new country, but his accent would be heard as clearly German by his friends and neighbors. Yah?Soon Frank is going to marry (1899). Perhaps that is where he has gone...to visit his future bride. Lennie doesn't say. He just says Frank "is gone". Frank and his soon-to-be bride Dena will eventually have (at least) eight children. Frank's niece, Alma Matilda Gazena Kuckku, will be orphaned in 1907 and will come to live with Frank and Dena. And she will meet Lennie. And she and Lennie will become the grandparents to my Hubby. And I'm getting wayyyy ahead of myself here.Lennie will announce important happenings in the coming week. Big news!.
Lennie loved photography. Earlier I mentioned that his diary included postage-stamp size photos. But I was mistaken. There are TWO little books in Hubby's possession. One is Lennie's diary. The photos are in a second pocket-size booklet. I've found the album but cannot find the diary itself. Several years ago I had typed those entries and made copies for family and I am posting from that typed copy. But I cannot find the original diary. I know it's here somewhere. But where?
Here's a pic of the photo album. As you can see, there are numerous pages with 4 to 6 photos each page. Many must be Lennie's classmates. But many photos are later when Lennie was a young adult in his early twenties.
I've already posted Lennie's diary entries for February 1 and 2. So today I'm just going to show you some photos from his album. As you can see the individual photos are less than an inch square. I've scanned them at a high resolution to produce this copies. I especially like this page where Lennie has included four portraits of himself. Note that his suitcase is marked with his initials. (You can click for a closer view.)
Here's another member of the Wakefield Cornet Band. But I don't know his name. He must have been a friend, though, for Lennie included his photo in his little book.
Below is a portrait of Lennie's brother-in-law Charles Emil Schulz, and his wife Flora Olive Davis (Lennie's sister). Lucile in the front row is their firstborn, born in 1899. This photo must have been taken about 1903. The little girl in the background is possibly a Davis relative but I do not know for certain. 
When he was a teenager Charles emigrated here from Germany with his widowed mother, Albertina Schmidt Schulz, and his siblings Maria Louise Helene, Anna Louisa Marie, and Frank Rinhold Schulz. Ollie's family, on the other hand, had been in this country for at least two hundred years (and as of this writing, three hundred years!).Ollie may be pregnant in this photo with little Lucile's brother, Leonard, born in 1903. Sadly, Ollie died in childbirth in 1908 with the couple's third child, Charlotte. But Lennie does not yet know that when he pastes this tiny photo of his sister and her family in his album..
That Lennie! His diary was a small notebook that would fit into his shir
t pocket. It's not surprising that each day's entries were limited to a few words.
The book also included postage stamp size photos glued several to a page. One of those photos was Lennie wearing a band uniform. I posted that photo yesterday but I'm including it again today because I want you to see that Lennie is wearing the uniform of the Wakefield Cornet Band.Surprisingly the quality of the thumbnail size photo was good enough that my scanner was able to copy Lennie's picture at a high resolution so that it could be enlarged. Who would think they could take such good photos in 1898! Old photos are sometimes like that. If you want to check for the amount of detail availa
ble in an old black and white photo, simply look at it through a magnifying glass. You may be surprised that you see details with a glass that you don't see with your eye. If so, the photo can be scanned at high resolution for enlargements.
This photo of the "Wakefield Cornet Band" is undated. And, no, Lennie is not in this particular photo! But his brother-in-law is. In fact this is the fellow Lennie mentions in today's entry.January 8Big ??? in town. (Sorry, I just can't read that. Too bad...it may have been exciting!)
Got Chas. S. cornet. (That's Charles Emil Schulz, Lennie's brother-in-law.)Slid on hill. (Again! That Lennie was a sledding fool!)
Charlie Schulz had married Lennie's sister, Flora Olive, in August 1895. I'm guessing this may be their wedding photo.Charlie and his brother, Frank Schulz, were instrumental in Lennie meeting his future wife. But that's a long ways in the future yet. Perhaps we'll mention her later.
Here's something interesting about this vintage photo of the Wakefield Cornet Band. Artist Charlotta Janssen used this vintage photograph as the basis for a painting in her series "Americana on Canvas". You can read about Janssen's version of the Wakefield Cornet Band here.
