Old Diaries Give Insight into the Everyday Life of Times Gone By

I love old diaries, especially those that have a connection with the Mohawk Valley, so I began reading the one I had just bought with great excitement. A farmer near Fort Plain, New York kept it during the year 1917. But my excitement turned to disappointment when I discovered that his most common entry was "Today I spread manure." On occasion there were different entries, but none were very interesting.

As I read, I hoped to find some reference to World War I, the most horrific war the world had ever seen up until then. 1917 was the year The United States entered the war. Troops from the Second Provisional Regiment of the New York Guard were guarding the locks on the Erie Canal against sabotage, including the one in Fort Plain. Everybody was talking about the war and singing "Over There." Everybody, except for my Fort Plain farmer. He never mentioned the war once in his diary.

At first this annoyed me. How could someone write about spreading manure when such a terrible event was going on. It reminded me of the poem, Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden, part of which reads:

"Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure..."

Should Everyday People Be Expected to Record Important Events in Their Diaries?

When there are fields to be plowed, should a Greek farmer be expected to look up and watch as a man who has attempted flight falls into the sea? Should a Mohawk Valley farmer be expected to think about the war that was to end all wars when the cows never stop eating and making manure that has to be spread on the fields?