Person:Amanda Brown (17)

'Mundy, Nov. 1st, 1879 'I have kept may diarys but afterward on looking them hover have founbd so much more that I wished to forget than to remember I have burned them all and had thought never to keep anohter butt the thought has come to me that perhaps in after years when my little ones have grown up & left the home nest--when I mifs the now ceaselefs chatter of their childish feet and their childish voices are hushed it may be in death or may be merged with the sober manhood or womanhood then will it not be pleasant to have some momento of their merry happy childhood. Ah some of those days look far awy now but they will come all too soon for my own happy childhood is as but a day back in memory and it seems but a dream that the fast flying years are gone & with them the days of my youth. But what shall I write and what leave unwritten? I do not wish to keep an account of every day's tranactions for the days are so much alike each one seems but the image of the last. Yet I would have a momento of my thoughtful blueeyed Carrie, my eldest born thou art the center of many hopes. The child of many prayers, my warmhearted impulsive Sarah. My noble boys, too, my darkeyed Clayton with his solemn looks and ways that conceal a world of mischief. My lovely delicate baby Dan, thy mother would preserve thy baby sayings & doings even after memory's power has departed. And Bertie too, thou orphan one thou hast long had thy place around our hearth and in our hearts. And darling D.C. my sisters only child, I can scarcely feel that thoug art lefs mine than those that call me mother, for didst thou not first open thy large blue eyes in this house & has not all thy short life been spent here. Truly it will be a sad day to thy Auntie when we must part. Baby Dan is just beginning to walk & runs under the tables without the least danger to that big head of his. Clayton has his first pants & thinks the legs are almopst as long as Papa's. Sarah aspires to the dignity of lacing her own shoes, but thies some knots wonderful to behold and fearful to untie. Carrie has just learned to knit & is busily kniting a sock for Papa. Dear little ones, will they ever know the depth of their mother's love? May the good Shepherd keep my lambs. 'Nov. 28th, 1921 'The years have come and gone and this diary begun so many years ago has never been written in except on the tablet of the mother's heart. But there it is inscribed far more plainly than ever could have been on this yellowed page. 'The children men and women out in the world and each one bravely filling their place in the world's sork, are widely scattered and some of them far away from mother and the old home. But more far away i gheart and mind for from over the many miles that be between us, come tender messages of lo0ve that brighten the days and make live worth living. And still the mother is pray God, keep my darlings.'

1. ↑ Shiawassee County, Michigan, Death Records, Record Type: Deaths, State: Michigan, County: Shiawassee
   Birth Date Calculated from Death Certificate.
2. ↑ Amanda Jane Brown. Whitmore, Amanda Jane (Brown), Family Records. Manuscript lists of birth dates, etc., updated by Sara Jane (Wh.
3. ↑ Shiawassee County, Michigan, Death Records, Record Type: Deaths, State: Michigan, County: Shiawassee
   Register No. 41. Death Certificate signed by A. L. Arnold, MD.

   Age 87 years, 2 months, 19 days; cause of death, influenza; birthplace, Tioga County, Pennsylvania; wife of Henry Whitmore; father, Clayton Brown, born in Pennsylvania; mother Sarah Hildreth, born in New York; Informant, Mrs Glen [Sara Jane Whitmore] Reynolds [daughter]; burial, Oak Hill Cemetery, Owosso, Michigan, 25 Feb 1937; undertaker Harry F. Smith, Owosso.

4. ↑ Shiawassee County, Michigan, Death Records, Record Type: Deaths, State: Michigan, County: Shiawassee.
5.   Amanda Jane Brown. Manuscript diary, 1879-1921
   Text of Diary Entry.
6.   Amanda Whitmore , in Find A Grave.