calendar
An orderly arrangement of the divisions of time, as days, weeks, months, &c., adapted to the purposes of civil life, forming part of an almanac. — Webster, 1882
L.A. Dunklee, the photographer, has this week finished for some of his customers some very nice calendars. The calendar card is a regular photo mount and on these are placed genuine photographs showing different views from this locality. A.S. Carpenter’s calendars have a view of Third Street looking west from the T.H. Ruth corner. John Hasche’s calendars show different views of the interior of his meat market, while Carl Nelson, the merchant tailor, has a calendar showing his shop. These calendars are such that they will be highly prized by those receiving them, and they will be kept for years after the ordinary printed calendar has found its way into the fire. Mr. Dunklee will make a special feature of calendar work during the coming year. – January 1, 1909, Kingsbury County Independent.
Although all twelve months of the year and all seven days of the week are mentioned in the Little House books, only once does Wilder mention an actual calendar. In By the Shores of Silver Lake (see Chapter 4, “End of the Rails”), Laura notices “a calendar with a big shiny picture of a pretty girl in a bright yellow wheatfield” on it in the hotel in Tracy where Ma and the girls go to eat dinner before Pa meets them later that afternoon. Wilder didn’t mention this calendar in the Silver Lake manuscript, nor did she have Laura notice anything about the hotel as they entered the building except for the dining room itself.
If what Laura saw was a monthly calendar, it would have been turned to September, the month of the train ride when leaving Walnut Grove, and a wheat field would be appropriate to represent the harvest month. Typical calendars from the 1870s weren’t usually printed with large, glossy pages featuring a separate “picture” at the top with the monthly calendar below, folded and stapled in the middle or spiral bound. This was the style of calendars at the time Laura was writing the books. Laura could have seen a chromolithograph calendar featuring a girl in a wheat field, but it was more likely to have separate smaller monthly calendar pages sewn or stapled at the bottom of the image (as in the mockup shown here) or was one image with three monthly calendars printed across the bottom, the image representative of one of the four seasons; this was a common type of advertising calendar. A calendar image featuring a girl in a wheatfield was suitable to advertise flour or wheat seed, perhaps given to the hotel manager by a traveling salesman. Have you ever seen a September 1879 calendar such as Laura describes?
CALENDAR OF 1880 HISTORIC RELIC FROM PIONEER DE SMET BUILDING. Likely printed by Jake Hopp at the Kingsbury County News in the days when he published the paper from the back of the Fuller building, a ledger-sized 1880 calendar was found behind wall siding when the early Henry Hinz saloon and billiard hall was being torn down. The calendar was printed in four colors (black, red, blue, and yellow) and featured an advertisement for Gerald Fuller’s farm implement sales in De Smet. The image below isn’t in full color as it was taken of a black & white newspaper print of the original calendar from the 1960s. When Laura & Almanzo Wilder visited De Smet for Old Settlers’ Day in 1939, they visited with Aubrey Sherwood at The De Smet News office on Calumet and posed for a photo (below) in front of a display of historical photos and memorabilia on the wall behind them. The 1880 calendar is in the picture; perhaps Almanzo saw it when it was hanging in the Hinz building in 1880! From The De Smet News, June 1960:
One of the cherished relics in the possession of the De Smet News, is the calendar reproduced above, with a unique history. It was found tacked up between the studdings of the pioneer structure last used by Collins Produce when it was torn down more than 30 years ago.
Unusual was the condition of the light blue and red colors on the calendar, which was printed in yellow ink also. The brightness of the colors, considering the age of the printing, was striking, but explained by the fact that it had been in the darkness, likely from the first year it was printed.
An explanation that came to those who discovered the calendar was that the building had not been ceiled in when occupancy came that spring in 1880, when all business men were hurrying to open for customers. As fall approached, the inside wall was nailed on, apparently without removing the calendar, and it remained hidden from the light of day all those years.
The 12 x 16 calendar, as will be seen, bears the name of G.C.R. Fuller, this commonly known as Gerald, a brother of C.S.G. Fuller, the two partners in general store and farm operations, the location the corner that is now that of Buchele Drug.
The calendar proved of special interest to Robert C. Fuller, son of C.S.G. Fuller, La Mesa, Calif., on his visit to De Smet this week for Old Settler’s Day, returning for a week or so as he has for a number of years.
The calendar is of historic interest for the threshing machine of the period, the Buffalo Pitts Thresher, “for water, horse and steam power.
Of still more interest is the lower illustration, which is of the “horse power” offered for the thresher. On the four-wheel trucks is the turn-table for the horse power, the dolly wheel showing beneath the rim of the device, the sweeps extending lengthwise above. Removed from the trucks and staked to the ground, with the sweeps fixed in place, the team hitched to them, power was provided for the thresher.
The building itself was historic, one of the earliest in town, erected by Henry Hinz, Sr., for a recreation business. He had build another, the first in De Smet, but it proved too small, so the report has been, and this was erected to take its place. It long served for this purpose, was unused for some years before Claude Collins established his produce business there. Razing of the structure came some years later.
Old Calendars. Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t waste a calendar at year’s end; she framed ones she liked (or Almanzo framed the ones he liked). There are what are believed to be five framed calendar pages hanging over Almanzo’s bed at Rocky Ridge farmhouse. All are of Currier & Ives prints; at his head is Peytona and Fashion, with four others grouped on the wall at the side of the bed: The Road: Winter, Trotting Cracks at the Forge, A Midnight Race on the Mississippi, and The Lightning Express Train.
In addition to the ones over Almanzo’s bed, there are at least two other framed prints (suspected to also be former calendar pages) hanging at Rocky Ridge. These are of landscapes painted by Edwin Lamasure (1867-1916); his work was – and still is – often reproduced in calendars. These pictures are hanging in the parlor to the left of the front door.
Click HERE to open the “Find Like Years” page, where you can enter a calendar year and find which earlier or later years had the same day of the week relationship. This is fun if you find a beautiful, old calendar — especially a Little House one — and want to be able to use it. Realize, however, that if your calendar has labeled holidays that don’t fall on the same day of the month each year (such as Easter or Thanksgiving), they may not fall on the same date on both calendars.
Irish Calendar. In Wilder’s handwritten Pioneer Girl memoir, Wilder included a story that happened in the fall of 1879, as railroad workers were leaving the Silver Lake railroad camp at the end of the working season. An Irish family was ready to leave camp, but had a sick baby and were unable to travel. Caroline Ingalls went to see the family and knew what to do to treat the child and was able to cure it (the malady the baby suffered from wasn’t specified). The father tried to pay Ma for saving the baby, but she refused to accept any money. As the family was leaving, the man came to tell them good-bye and as he shook Ma’s hand, he “called on every Saint in the Irish calendar to bless her.” There were hundreds and hundreds of recognized Irish saints in the late 1870s; each saint had its own special area of intercession; and each saint was recognized on a special feast day (for example: St. Patrick on March 17). This was his way of asking for an abundance of good wishes and divine protection for Caroline Ingalls.
When the man hurried away, he left a five dollar gold piece in Ma’s hand. Whether or not this particular story is true or not, there are family stories of Caroline Ingalls helping out in times of sickness from this period.
calendar (SSL 4), see also Peytona and Fashion
Irish calendar (PG)