Quite a few times in 1909, and maybe 1910 too, Jessie ends a diary entry with “burned wood.” I couldn’t think what this meant. Did she build a fire in the fireplace or somewhere else? Was she smoking cigarettes and using “burned wood” as a euphemism? Finally, I remembered that I have a decorative wooden disk that came from Grandmother. It was made with with a woodburning pen to make a picture, a picture that looks a little like Jessie, or at least like a girl of her period. If you look closely on the bottom right, you can see her name that she burned into the wood. I remember these kinds of kits from my childhood, and you can still buy them today. I’ve also added a postcard of Memphis from 1907.
