Author: Emilie E. Palmer
Date: 28 September 1859
Location: Emilie E. Palmer 1859 Diary, Record Group 19/2, Oberlin College Archives
Document Type: Autograph Document
Introduction:
Here Palmer discusses discusses her mother’s visit during Commencement and her decision not to return to Oberlin for another term; it can be assumed that her mother persuaded her to leave school because Palmer writes two months earlier, “I don’t know what to do unless I can stay here next term. I cannot bear the thoughts of leaving. I never formed such strong attachments as I have this term with the ladies here. The most of them are Christians and there exists such a sisterly feeling among them.”1
She also writes about becoming a member of First Congregational Church, for which her parents gave permission. This entry highlights the influence of her family in her decisions. She was overjoyed when every member of her family followed her lead and became a “member of the family of Christ.”2 Charles Grandison Finney likely influenced her commitment to the Church, as he was president of Oberlin College during the time Palmer attended, from 1851 to 1866. He no longer held revivals but still deeply influenced the theology of the college and town. Palmer once attended service at the Episcopal Church, the second Church erected in Oberlin, but she wrote, “It seems like an empty form to me.”3
In the second half of the entry she grieves the loss of her grandfather. However, she is comforted by knowing they will reunite after the Second Coming.
Transcription:
September 28
More than a month has passed a month fraught with interest and one of real life. And yet in all this while my journal has not been touched. Tonight my mind is wandering back over the scenes of the past few weeks. Ma came the Saturday before commencement. Oh! How glad I was to see her and how much I enjoyed the visit. The commencement exercises so filled with interest I shall never forget. My week of decision, whether to go to school another term or to do housework at Uncle Mark’s, and the final decision in favor of housework. The parting with my friends and school companions, and then bidding Mother, Brother, and Sister good-bye. On the fourth of September I became a member of the Oberlin church. That was a day I never shall forget.
September 15 Cordie4 commenced operation in Painsville.5 Tonight I rec’d. a letter from home. Grandpa is dead; he died on the tenth Saturday afternoon about two o’clock. I had expected the news and I know he is better off now than when suffering here. Yet when I read the news, I wept bitterly. When he bade me good-bye last spring said he, “I don’t know as I shall ever see you again.” And he never will till the resurrection morn. Then I shall see him beautiful and holy without spot or blemish for I know he was a Christian. He bore the cross on earth and has gone to receive the crown laid up for him in Heaven.
I thought I should write a letter tonight but I am to [sic] tired.
Transcribed by Natalia Shevin
1 5 August 1859, Emilie E. Palmer Diary.
2 29 January 1860, Emilie E. Palmer Diary.
3 26 June 1859, Emilie E. Palmer Diary.
4 Palmer’s aunt.
5 Painesville, Ohio, located 70 miles from Oberlin, Ohio.
