Junque Journals: Now and Then

By ANGELA KELLOGG-HENRY

Cleaver Managing Editor

On a recent visit to the Rustic Owl shop in Harrison the owner Malissa Dinnan shared with me a beautiful ‘junque journal’ that our mutual friend Lisa made for her. Lisa owns Lismore Paper and has done line drawing art and other projects for the Cleaver in the past as well as is one of our print customers. The journal is a shabby chic styled journal with envelopes for tucking in other papers or letters and unique pieces of paper old and new to create writing pages. Of course, it has an owl on the cover!

I had never heard of a junque journal by name, but I instantly recognized it as familiar. A junk or junque journal is a book of recycled or found materials or old papers used to write, draw, paint, or whatever the owner would enjoy. It’s often used for journals or an idea book.

The concept was familiar to me because my friend and co-author Cody Beemer had shared such a book from the 1920s and 1930s with me several years ago. Beemer’s great aunt Marie Beemer Bailey had a used a large 16x11, leather bound journal from the Wilson Bros store in Harrison and retrofitted it as a diary and scrapbook. Beemer and I lamented at first that the ledger which dates to the late 1880s in Harrison was partially covered in girlhood poems, diary entries, photos and other entries which covered names and business information from that era. For history lessons, Marie’s musing and memories proved just as interesting or more as an old store ledger.

I’ve written other articles about Marie Beemer Bailey in the past as she is a compelling and interesting citizen of Harrison’s past.

The ledger originally kept track of sales and payments for the Wilson Bros store and includes entries for many businesses, citizens, the village of Harrison and even the infamous James Carr, all customers of the store in 1887. The Wilson family founded most of Harrison with their sawmill, ice works, general store, and built numerous homes for themselves and their workers. The Beemer and Gosine families arrived as early as the Wilsons, by 1879-1880 when Harrison was founded.

Clearly, Marie was using whatever materials she had on hand for a journal, and no one really cared about the 40 plus-year-old ledger at the time. Marie was born in 1901 to Oliver and Lena (Gosine) Beemer. She would have been in her teens and twenties when she kept this particular book. She filled it with diary entries and in particular correspondence she sent and received, poems cut from newspapers and magazines, books read, and other goings on in her life and in the lives of her friends and family. Marie later kept detailed 5-year diaries for most of her life which are still in the Beemer family. Some entries in the ledger are also by Marie’s siblings or other family members that include handwriting practice, doodles, jokes, and drawings.

On March 12, 1922, she writes, “Grandma [Anna Albro Gosine] died at 10:30 p.m. today.” And the next day she records, “A beautiful but sad day.” And two days later she writes, “Grandma’s funeral today. Another beautiful day. Was over to Mrs. Dobson’s tonight.”

A month before that she records her father’s birthday with an entry that lists many early families of Harrison. “My Dad’s birthday (73). We had a wonderful feast. A few guests were Mr. and Mrs. Jack Joos and family, Mr. and Mrs. Nelt Bailey and family, Pat Bailey and kids, Lena and Minnie Dobson, Howard Bailey, Judd Davis, Zeno Budd and Susan Jane. Oh, a wonderfully, lovely day.” She married Fred Bailey in 1926, and he is mentioned often in this diary.

She’s teaching school already in her early 20’s during this period of time. She records books she’s reading for herself such as Little Women and books she’s reading to her students. One day she writes, “Some of the pupils went barefooted today. This is a beautiful day.”

Another typical entry from 1921 reads, “Ellen Fox is assisting Grandma today. Phil is working on his house. I am down to grandmas yet. I act as errand girl. Went to a dance at Oak Grove tonight. Also to Dreamland Theatre. The name of the show being “Something Different.” Grandpa [Oliver] Gosine’s birthday today. He is 69 years young. I went out to the farm today. Rob and Fred were over.” The Dreamland Theatre was on Main Street in Harrison from 1915 to the mid-1920s.

A Wilson Bros store book is mentioned in the Cleaver in 1954 by a reunion of ladies who were referred to as the Jackpine Savages. This ledger appears to be intact and from 1891. The clip reads, “Old photographs and a big old account book of 1891 from the old Wilson’s Store, where now stands the Good Luck Restaurant, causing much fun and laughter. There were the accounts of the Kastens, Darlings, Harpers, Mixters, Richardsons and Joos. Coffee 25c, Eggs, 16c and events corsets, 50c.” The location of the Wilson Bros store and the Good Luck Restaurant is now the location of Country Flowers and More.

Both of these junque journals, while a hundred years apart, have some things in common. Both reuse materials to create something to write in as a keepsake.