Nearly every month there is a summary of visits made and visitors. The details of whether there was an answer at the door, the length of the visit, who was encountered on the street, the casual chat at the gate or who was met at the train station are noted. However, the content of the visit is not revealed except occasional intriguing descriptions of illness. Deaths, especially in winter, occurred with stunning regularity.

Mass transit was a reality during these years. People moved easily to Camden, Philadelphia, Merchantville, Paulsboro, Atlantic City, Seaside Heights and New York City by train and ferry. Christmas shopping was done in Philadelphia at Wanamaker’s, Strawbridge’s and Gimbels. What was purchased we never discover. Frequent trips were made to Camden and Philadelphia to the bank, the dressmaker on rare occasions, physician specialists, to collect rents on property owned in Camden, or to collect dividends from Pennsylvania Railroad stock which had fallen dangerously low during some of this time.

Relatives in Camden were visited often and they came to Haddonfield for holidays and vacations. The writer and her sister joined other family members on summer holidays at the shore, the Poconos and to the Ebert farm in Osage. Dealing with mosquitoes at the shore resorts is as close to an emotional response as we are privileged to share. However, the first ride in an automobile elicited capital letters and exclamation points! Eliza, as expected, did not care to go for the ride.

We hear about the weather in great detail, when sleighing is good and when the streets are too muddy for walking. We learn that the sisters seldom if ever went out in the rain or if dark clouds threatened, even if they were fully dressed and ready to go. Parties, teas, concerts and funerals, even of relatives, were not attended in inclement weather.

We learn when the grape vines and roses are pruned, we know when the strawberries, peaches and pears are preserved, when the Magill’s cow ran dry. We learn about summer and winter bonnets receiving updated trimming; only once is a new bonnet or winter coat purchased. The routines of house cleaning are numbingly predictable.

Amidst the minutiae of daily living, the role of the church is very prominent. The early years of Grace Church in Haddonfield are chronicled in detail. The activities and constant fund-raising to build the church, select clergy and do charitable works is outlined. The sisters were active in the Daughters of the King, the Needlework Guild and the Women’s Auxiliary at the church. Louisa Gibbs was a local director of the Guild and one entry notes that 800 garments were made. Collections of clothing were made for victims of fires, earthquakes in San Francisco and Mexico, mountaineers in Kentucky and North Carolina and the inner-city poor.

Elderly neighbors who needed help for survival received funds periodically, a delivery of coal or money to help with a funeral. Male relatives helped the women with heavy chores such as planting a garden, shoveling snow, painting the house and providing rides by wagon and carriage to various out-of-way locations. A young nephew came on the train from Ashland to Haddonfield to attend school, had lunch with the sisters and helped them with chores on a daily basis during the school year.

Miss Gibbs’ busy life was interrupted suddenly and tragically when she was struck by a train en route to Atlantic City at the Main Street crossing. Her sister Eliza’s life was changed drastically by Louisa’s death. They had lived for one another, according to niece Louisa Gibbs Cuthbert Hopkins who wrote the last entry in the 1911 diary.

Eliza went to live in Osage on the Ebert farm with cousins. This is the last we know of these sisters except for an occasional note of nostalgia in letters by other family members in the Rhoads Collection.