At Home Places Magazine Summer 2021

Waynesboro Historical Society collects pandemic journal entries

From left, Ginny Ingels, Reginald Hefner, Judy Lininger, Rob Cramer and Waynesboro Historical Society volunteer Ruth Gembe are pictured at the Waynesboro Historical Society April 29, 2021. Ingels, Hefner, Lininger and Cramer all kept journals throughout the pandemic and shared them with members of the historical society. Colleen McGrath

written by JENNIFER A. FITCH

Judy Lininger wishes she had more information about her grandfather, a farmer who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918.

When she learned the Waynesboro (Pa.) Historical Society was seeking journals to document the COVID-19 pandemic, Lininger wanted to contribute her present-day writings.

“I keep thinking one of my ancestors, someone from my line, will go to the historical society and read my story,” Lininger said.

A page from the journal created by Ginny Ingels of monthly entries with newspaper clippings during the pandemic in 2020.

Rob Cramer shows a journal he kept throughout the pandemic.

Judy Lininger included a photo of her grandfather, a farmer who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918, in a journal she kept throughout the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Below: A closer look at the photo

Ginny Ingels created a journal of monthly entries with newspaper clippings during the pandemic in 2020. Photos by Colleen McGrath

In March 2020, Waynesboro Historical Society supporters Ginny Ingels and Dorothy Kugler started talking about how little documentation exists for the 1918 pandemic. They wanted to ensure future generations have more information available to them about current happenings.

They put out a call for journals that can be bound and stored in the historical society’s library. Six people have kept up with regular journaling for the project.

“All of these people have journaled before, except me,” Ingels said.

Ingels has been creating monthly entries with newspaper clippings, whereas the others are doing daily entries with personal reflections. Participants said it has been interesting to look back on entries from the spring of 2020 to see how the pandemic took hold.

“It’s like we are learning as we go, even the medical people,” Ingels said.

Kugler said she wants to focus on how people felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. She remembers getting vaccinated for smallpox and polio as a child, but does not recall the fear that adults felt about those illnesses.

Kugler thinks about the people who are hospitalized, as well as those who lost or are separated from loved ones.

“We hear about these things, but we can’t see them or reach out to those people,” she said of providing care to others.

For Lininger, many aspects of her life in 2020 and 2021 differ from years past.

“I never thought I’d see the day when churches were closed and we couldn’t go to church, and we’d be wearing masks, even in a bank lobby,” she said, adding that she now watches services from her church online and takes communion herself in the living room.

Overall impressions

Joy Brown, of Waynesboro, watches Mass on television and takes communion from a priest who makes home visits. She has been careful to take precautions, particularly because she had two surgeries during the pandemic.

“It has affected everybody’s life in so many ways, but there are people out there who are still so reckless,” she said.

Brown said she is working with Ingels to contribute overall impressions of the pandemic for the journaling project, rather than a day-to-day diary.

Robert Cramer’s parents encouraged him to journal. He started doing it regularly when his father died.

“I have a lot of them,” he said. “I started in 1980.”

Cramer, a Waynesboro resident since 1976, hopes people who read the pandemic-era journals in the coming decades get insights into how we survived.

Family curator

Reggie Hefner, of Chambersburg, Pa., calls himself “the curator of a family museum,” based on his boxes of journals dating back decades. He was happy to contribute daily writings about the pandemic.

Hefner underwent open-heart surgery in 2020, and did not think he would recover.

“At least someone in the future will know what I was doing in the last years of my life,” he said of his mindset about keeping a journal.

Hefner was unable to have visitors in the hospital due to pandemic restrictions. Medical professionals expressed concern about his suppressed immune system, recovery from surgery and long-term chances, but he was faring OK a year later.

When Hefner looks back at his writings from the first few months of the pandemic, he is most frustrated that government leaders downplayed the severity and did not wear masks.

“We know now they were trivializing the seriousness of the health of the public,” he said, adding that in early 2021, he was surprised some people still thought the coronavirus was a hoax.

Ordinary milestones

Lininger, who has six adult children, missed having a Christmas gathering in 2020 with her family, but she was excited to get vaccinated in February 2021 and reconnect with them.

“All of this staying home and not seeing people, when you do see family and friends, it’s that much sweeter,” she said.

Lininger knows little about her deceased grandfather, Harry Kramer Layman, who died when her father was 4. The boy’s mother raised him on her own.

Reginald Hefner’s journal includes postcards written from friends around the world.

Reginald Hefner kept a journal throughout the pandemic. Photos by Colleen McGrath

Lininger muses on occasion whether someone will read her journal in 100 years. She fears her day-to-day routine will seem boring to some, but she has enjoyed documenting even more ordinary milestones like ordering groceries online for the first time.

Ingels said those keeping chronicles have hit some less positive milestones, such as getting COVID-19 or losing a job. She misses getting together with friends, including those at the historical society’s events.

“We correspond and the board meets virtually, but it’s not the same,” she said.

Kugler feels she has adjusted to some of the COVID-19-related changes to her lifestyle.

“I have kept myself basically isolated from everybody because I don’t want to carry it to someone else,” she said. “I’ve adapted to the fact that if I want to feel good about things, I have to stay home.”

She expressed gratitude for the people who are contributing journals.

“We appreciate the time people have taken and their insights,” she said.