File 84 - Diaries.

Diary entries begin with March 8, 1867, but this whole section is marked cancelled and is re-copied starting April 8, 1867. It begins with a record of Tobias' trip to Missouri to see his father, leaving his wife Mary Schantz (nee Moyer) with their 3-year old son Orpheus and new baby Etta, born the previous October. Tobias' father Benjamin with his second wife Margaret and children had gone to homestead near Wellville, west of St. Louis, in 1866. Tobias records his impressions of the countryside, the people, the prospects, the discouragement of all but his father with life in Missouri (March 17th). On July 2 he returns to Canada to where he is then living (near "Campden" --Grimsby within walking distance.) Throughout the diary Tobias records the weather and a daily health bulletin, letters sent and received, as well as his daily reading. He goes through periods of recording his meals. Tobias also lists all the work he does every day. He mentions setting the water for porridge, making the bed, polishing his son's shoes, carrying the baby to church, etc. On Nov. 9 he took a bath, on Nov. 25 he "did not sleep short of midnight. Was talking with Mary about my thought, troubles about religion ...". All parts of the diary have been filled with writing, dating as far as 1889 -- some accounts, recipes both household and medical (many give source), a record of the family tree -- births, marriages, deaths, transcribed songs, and an account probably written in Conestogo ca. 1875 of his spiritual trials and tribulations dating from 1862 and his efforts to achieve inner peace. This account is continued in the "other book," although it is not clear what book this referred to.