H. Greene
H. Greene, Diary, 1886–1887.
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Institute.
H. Greene lived on her family's farm near Tiffen and Bascom in Seneca County, Ohio. Unmarried, Greene took responsibility for much of the domestic and farming work on the property left to the family by her parents who had passed away.
On New Year's, 1887, she traveled to New York City, where she stayed for four months with her friends the Cummingses. In her diary she records the daily life and social activities of an upper-middle-class urban family that included making social calls, attending the theater and lectures, and, of course, shopping. It is also possible that she exchanged romantic correspondence with a man named Perry, with whom she abruptly stopped corresponding in the late spring of 1887.
After her return from New York, her diary records family visits; the daily cooking, cleaning, and gardening; and time spent at the family's summer home on a nearby lake, where she took in German boarders. She also recorded the prices paid for foodstuffs, seed, dry goods, and the services of the day and domestic workers who helped her on the farm.
At the end of 1887 she and her relatives divided the family land. H. and her sister Angeline received the "home eight"—the land surrounding the family home—and paid another relative $2,000 for "the north forty." At the end of the year she wrote with much anticipation about preparations for another trip to New York.
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