Josephson-Tolly.com
Anna Marie (Rogers) Tolly Journals 1958 thru 1984
Written by Anna Marie (Rogers) Tolly - wife of Otis William Tolly
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I have no idea how many hundreds of hours Mother devoted to writing these journals, but I consider them a valuable gift that she has left for us. There are twelve notebooks of all sizes, shapes and thickness, and they cover the period from Jan. 23, 1958 through May 12, 1984. I have only two complaints about her journals; first is that she didn't start recording this data earlier and second, that she was so frugal with her use of paper. Every notebook but #12 is completely filled from top to bottom, and edge to edge, with no spaces wasted for paragraphs, etc. Makes it hard to quit, as you may have to search for 20 minutes to find out where you left off. Had I known, furnishing her with notebooks and dark ink pens would have been a pleasure. It would really be great to find some diary's from her youth, as there are few people left who would know anything about her early life. She did a grand job and I found it most interesting reading. To whet your appetite, here are some of the areas covered in her journals.

Mother's relationship with God was central in her life. She dearly loved her home church (Hope Baptist) and all the folks that attended there, many of whom she'd grown up with. However, she also enjoyed the Mennonite church in Fairview, the various churches brother John and cousin Ellis preached at, the Temperance Baptist Church, the Skeels Baptist church, and was not allergic to visiting the various churches her children joined after marriage. She loved attending revival meetings, the involvement with missionaries supported by Hope Baptist, and was an active participant in area church conferences. When weather or physical ailments prevented church attendance, she worshipped via TV or radio and would spend an enjoyable time with her collection of gospel records. Serving her Lord was most important to Mother.

Family was also of great importance to Mother, starting with her immediate family. At the time of her death in 1985, her 7 children and spouses, grandchildren and spouses, and great grandchildren totaled approximately one hundred. She considered each of these individuals special, and followed closely their progress through life, attending every possible birthday party, graduation, musical recital, wedding or other special event in the life of her loved ones. Missing a Rogers reunion, Tolly reunion, Hope school reunion or Fairview school reunion was a major calamity. She loved visiting and being visited by all the brothers and sisters on both the Tolly and Rogers sides of the family, and cousins from Indiana were most welcome visitors. She loved to exchange visits with friends from her church and from the community. She obviously liked people, and they must have liked her, as her journals record a great number of these visits. Since her friends were aging at the same rate, her last two or three journals reported a number of 50th wedding anniversaries celebrated, and an increase in the number of funerals attended of friends and family members.

Mother's interests were broad and high on the list were her interests in food and clothing. All of the gatherings reported have detailed accounts of clothing worn and the extensive menus offered to the guests. The work "luscious" is used by mother a few hundred times to describe the quality of the food she served or was served. She loved to feed people, and described many instances of turning out a feast for guests who just dropped in, by transferring previously prepared dishes from freezer to oven to table in short order. Her seven kids were frequently guilty of the unannounced visit, sometimes 3 or 4 families of us, and we never went home with an empty tummy. This never seemed to disturb her.

Mother was very aware of what was going on in the world, following events such as presidential elections, inaugurations, Watergate scandals, deaths of Kennedy, Churchill, Eisenhower and other dignitaries. She followed the Space Program from Alan Shepherd flight in May of '61 through the Gemini & Apollo series and through the Sky Lab series in 1973, with her last space entry being about Operation Handshake (7-25-75) where U.S. and Russian Astronauts met in space. Many of the above accounts were reported practically verbatim.

So, these are the kinds of things you'll find in Mother's journals. It took me many hours to read through them, but I feel enriched for having done so, and recommend her journals as interesting reading for any family member.
 

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