In "Bertha Caine Worked for the Red Cross" (Bunchgrass Historian volume 6, number 2, Summer 1978), Dorothy Matson wrote:
"Mrs. Bertha Caine of Pullman, Washington was born at Glidden, Wisc., 1902, and the family went to St. Maries, Idaho and homesteaded. She married Roy Caine and they came to Pullman Christmas Day in 1926. They had three children: Bernice (Mrs. Dick) Emerson, of Washington, D.C., Beatrice (Mrs. Harlan) Gilliam, Cheney and James (Bud) Caine of Spokane. Roy was a carpenter and worked for the college and helped build the first gym. They separated soon after and Bertha had to support her children by cleaning for people. She worked for 30c an hour, and walked to and from her jobs. During the depression, she traded a sack of potatoes for a lot adjoining her house."
This collection consists of a one-volume diary, in which Bertha Caine recorded her daily experiences at home and at work, interactions with her neighbors, including many well-known Pullman families, and discussed her relationships with her family and her estranged husband, Roy Caine. She often noted details about her finances--income from her work and from her husband, and her struggles to pay expenses.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions may apply.
[Item Description] Bertha Caine diary, 1927-1928
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
This diary was donated to the Washington State University Libraries by Susan Armitage (part of MS 2008-14). Helen Perry of the Neill Public Library gave it to Dr. Armitage, after receiving it from a library patron who had purchased it at a yard sale in 1988.
This collection was processed in 2009 by Cheryl Gunselman.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.