Vivian Mae Humphrey West
By Dennis Lantz Two years ago, while cleaning out the attic of the house I grew up in (on Ghent Hill, Sheshequin Township), I came across an old, cloth-bound, day journal that belonged to my grandmother… Vivian Mae Humphrey West. I did not know much about her life. She died quite young, only 24 years old, in 1941, almost twenty-nine years before I was born. I did not know this journal existed. My mother, Marlene Joanne West Lantz was only nineteen months old when her mother died. She never told me that she had the diary. The brown and tan cover is stained, the ribbony latch is broken. When you open it, you see discordant writing on aged paper. Some ink, and some faded pencil. It is a five-year daily diary where the author is given just a few short lines for each day… and when they get to the end (December 31 st ) they then go back to the beginning to start the next year. Entries are, by necessity, brief. My grandmother wrote in cursive, but her handwriting was neat enough to read