I've just removed my grandmother's autograph book from it's acid-free wrapping.

It is 7x9" covered in paper that looks like leather - 2 corners are torn & show the cotton wool? padding & paper & cardboard underneath. It has Album written across the cover.

The cover is a dull crimson & the end papers are marbled in red & gold.

It was a present from her brother Cecil in 1918 on her 16th birthday. Entries are in elegant copperplate hands.

It was given to my mother in 1937 when she was 12, & I received it when I was 10 in 1962, so it has 3 generations of signatures & verses & some beautiful drawings. As one of the 1943 entries refers to my mother's sister, perhaps she owned it in her time.

Some pages have frames & lines for use, others are blank.

In 1919 one of my grandmothers friends drew the head of a woman wearing a very elegant cap. Another painted a sprig of a delicate white flower.

In 1946 one of my mother's friends contributed pencil drawings of Donald Duck as devil & angel.

=============

Original entries

from another of my grandmother's older brothers -
Kind words cost Little
But mean much.

another verse from 1918 -
God made man,
His first thought;
God made woman,
His second thought;
As second thoughts are best
Here's to the ladies!!

===========

Entries by my mother's contemporaries (the writing is not so elegant)

(simple drawing of a thumb tack)
He who sits on this
Shall shurely (sic) rise
(mum's sister, aged 11, 1943)


Good friends are like diamonds
Precious and rare
Bad friends are like Autumn Leaves
Found everywhere (1939)


Ladies afternoon Tea Party
Giggle
Gabble
Gobble
Get (1938)

Mary had a hobbled skirt
tied tightly in
a bow, and Every-
that Mary
went she simply
couldn't go
(1939 but obviously referring to early years - before WWI)

==============

my contemporaries

Make new friends
But keep the old
New friends are silver
Old friends are gold. (1962)


When God first made the world
He made man the stongest? (sic)
But just to give the girls a chance
He made their tounges the longest (my 8 year old sister)
'tounges' corrected with a 'u' inserted between 'g' & 'e'


Down in a valley
Carved on a rock
Are tree (sic) little words   (tree is corrected to three)
forget-me-not (10 year old friend)

=====================

One part of me sez. why was I given this precious book when I was 10, another part is pleased to see names I've almost, or sometimes, totally forgotten!

sandra