HOLOGRAPHIC DIARY OF A YOUNG CALIFORNIA WOMAN WRITTEN IN 1914 de [California]

A holographic diary and journal written in 1914 by a young California woman from Rio Bravo, California, a former settlement in Kern County, along the Santa Fe railroad near Bakersfield. The 50-page journal begins on January 30, 1914 with its author, 15-year-old Rosy Luella Thomas writing about her daily activities. The entries run through February 14 and center on going to school, playing with friends and doing odd chores around the property, where she lives with her sister and aunt. February 2, 1914: "Monday I got up at seven o' clock. We were hurrying around so as not to be late for school. Then we went out and brushed and harnessed the horse.  After breakfast we got ready and went to school. But we were around 10 minutes late. We got home late from school and we had to get in wood and get supper, and we went to bed about half past eight." Following the diary entries is a 30-page original story Thomas titled "Rosilie and Her Dog," about a young girl who becomes lost on her way home from school and misses her parents and her dog, whose name is Sleipnir, presumably named after the eight-legged horse of Odin in Norse mythology. In the story, the young woman was eight years old when she stumbled into a mountain cottage, fell asleep and was later awoken by the owner of the house, George, who was so taken with her beauty, he never wanted her to leave. She lived with him in chaste, domestic bliss for several years until she grew into a young woman. In time, Rosilie was reunited with her dog and her parents, who instantly took a liking to George, so they all moved to her parents' house and later to the city. "They had many happy hours talking together of how they met and the little old cabin," she wrote at the conclusion of her story. "Sleipnir was still living and was lying on the hearth rug in a beautiful house. In their old age when they would talk of the little brown cottage way up in the hills, George would sing to Rosalie 'Your hair was then a golden, but now a silver hew, and we have lived together, all these years we two.'" According to ancestry records, it appears Rosy's father, William, died in 1909 and her mother, Dovie, who subsequently remarried and had two more children, died in 1912. By the time of the writing of this journal and story, Rosy was an orphan. Just a year later at the age of 16, she married John Duns, a man 10 years her senior who worked in the oil fields around Bakersfield. They had two children, and Rosy died in 1938. Written on ruled line paper and hand stitched into tan paper wraps with the words "A Young Girl's Diary" handwritten in the cover. The covers are worn, a bit stained and edgeworn and the contents are overall in very good condition.