Chris H. Jorgensen notebook, 1891-1959
1 volume
Chris H. Jorgensen, a Danish immigrant who lived in Harlan, Iowa; California; and New Braunfels, Texas, kept this notebook from 1891 to 1959. He wrote in English and Danish languages, Pitman shorthand, and some version of English abbreviation. Jorgensen used the notebook to document genealogy and family relationships, listing out birth, marriage, and death dates as well as relatives' names and locations. He also maintained other lists relating to purchases of automobiles, household appliances, and clothing, with some specifics such as dimensions, mileage, and where they were acquired. The volume includes a list of books kept from 1893 to 1958 documenting Jorgensen's wide-ranging interests in religion, literature, philosophy, and sciences. Jorgensen also included very brief diary entries from 1895 to 1908 and 1947 to 1959, primarily noting places he worked, including lumber camps and vineyards in California. Two photographs, presumably of Jorgensen, are laid into the volume.
Jorgensen's notebook features multiple lists documenting his life, such as a timeline of his life from birth to 1938 when he moved to New Braunfels, Texas. Several sections of the volume are dedicated to Jorgensen genealogy, listing out family births, deaths, marriages, names of cousins, and other notable events like his father's naturalization as an American citizen on September 13, 1887. Other lists document the type of transportation he owned, when they were acquired, as well as purchasing details and their mileage. He also listed out dates and details about goods he purchased, like hats, watches, typewriters, electric washers, glasses, pens, and more, sometimes with their dimensions. He listed out businesses and medical practitioners, particularly optometrists, he appears to have frequented. He copied some of his official documents, like licenses, his naturalization certificate, and a warranty deed. Some of these copies provide physical descriptions of Jorgensen.
Chris Jorgensen wrote lists of publications he owned or read from 1893 through 1958, including books, periodicals, and other texts. He read deeply from religious works, with several relating to spiritualism, Mormonism, Unitarianism, Catholicism, Swedenborgianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, Seventh Day Adventism, Christian Science, and others. Other publications relate to California, science and agriculture, temperance, almanacs and geography, education and music, philosophy and ethics, and more. Jorgensen was also actively reading literature, ranging from classics like Aristotle, Milton, Dante, and Shakespeare to contemporary works by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Willa Cather, H. G. Wells, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wright, among many others.
Jorgensen titled two sections of the notebook "diaries," writing brief entries from 1895 to 1908, after he moved to California. He primarily recorded the lumber camps, vineyards, and other places where he worked. He also wrote about items he purchased and notable events like natural occurrences and workplace accidents. The diary entries begin again in 1947 and continue until 1959, with brief notes about places he may have been, various businesses and purchases, and some events like the end of rationing in 1947, the 1948 presidential election, a lunar eclipse, among others.
Portions of the notebook are challenging to decipher, as they are written in a combination of Pitman shorthand, Danish, English, and a currently unidentified form of English abbreviations. Some of these entries appear to include dates and some form of financial accounting. Jorgensen appears to have a particular interest in ethnology, natural history, and books, as references written in standard English appear intermixed with Pitman shorthand entries relating to these topics. Some of the entries appear to document visits to Chicago for the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and another to a county fair in Iowa, seeming to note exhibits or content seen.
Several thumb prints made in ink are present in the volume, as well as several stamps used for his name and address. One features a bicyclist falling off his bike. Two photographs are laid into the volume, presumably of Jorgensen.