Day Books, 1852-1954

This series includes diaries, journals, travel journals, mother's journals, camp logbooks, and a "chicken book." The bulk of the diaries document the lives of sisters Edith F. Brooke Green and Mary B. Brooke. The volumes Edith wrote earlier in her life reflect her daily activities on the farm, including farm chores, Quaker religious meetings, local social gatherings, and visits from relatives and friends. Edith's later diaries trace her transition from girlhood to being a doctor's wife and her experiences as a housewife and mother. She documents the everyday activities of cleaning, cooking, and raising her two children (one of whom, Meredith, died in 1910 at the age of nine). After the death of her husband, Edith spent time with friends in Washington, D.C., and at "Falling Green" with her sister. She stayed in touch with relatives, reminisced, and followed the life and career of her daughter.

Edith kept several mother's journals documenting her experiences and the early lives of her children, Meredith and Mary. These journals are of special note for the vivid, detailed account they give of Edith's feelings about motherhood. Edith's daughter, Mary, began writing her own diaries at the age of ten. Mary F. Green's entries reflect her experiences at school and summer camp as well as her reading progress in the Bible and girl's novels. In 1920, Mary composed translations of French stories in the back of a journal that originally belonged to Henry Brooke.

The early diaries of Mary B. Brooke provide a view of daily farm life that is similar to that of her sister, Edith. Mary's later volumes show an increasingly reflective mood as well as concerns over money, loneliness, dependence on others, ill health, and the deaths of relatives and friends. Travel journals kept by Mary document trips to Atlantic City, New Jersey, New York City, Washington, D.C., Harper's Ferry, and the 1893 and 1933 Chicago World's Fairs. Mary also recorded the gifts she gave and received in little notebooks.

In 1900, Mary kept a logbook for "Camp Pine Knot," which referred to a week of summer leisure that friends and cousins shared at "Falling Green." Her cousin, Alice V. Farquhar, composed a similar logbook for 1901.

The sisters' grandmother, Mary Brooke Briggs Brooke, penned thirteen diaries between 1864 and 1875, the year she died. Mary's diaries reflect her daily life at "Falling Green," including gardening, visiting family and friends, attending religious meetings, and following the activities of her grown children. This series also contains journals that belonged to her daughter, Eliza Brooke. Eliza kept short notes to document her daily farm chores and social activities. A "chicken book" kept by Elizabeth Brooke in 1893 and 1894 tracks the egg production of her hens.

Arrangement is alphabetical by day book author's name.