Janette McCalley Stowell diary, 1890-1906

Janette Stowell’s diary details the everyday life of a wife and mother at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. She writes of keeping a garden and growing flowers, caring for her children, entertaining friends, going to church and her involvement in a branch of the Chautauqua Institute.

In February of 1890 the Portland area experienced a damaging flood which covered Ross Island and washed away many buildings and homes. Mrs. Stowell describes walking to where the family could see the flood waters covering Ross Island and watching debris pile up at the Ross Island Bridge.

In the late 1890s she joined a reading club and was more involved in growing roses. By 1900, after a break in the diary of two years, she reports the family is in Sitka, Alaska where her husband is working. The final entry in the diary is for August 25, 1906.