Appeared in Spring/Summer 2025 Gazette
by Tori McCausland, Previous WHS Intern

Caroline Harnsberger, undated.

I never thought I would find a kindred spirit from the past. When I picture the life of a woman during World War II, Rosie the Riveter’s strength and “can-do” attitude immediately come to mind. And while Caroline Thomas Harnsberger’s volunteership with the Red Cross and reflections on food and gas rationing echo this image, her personal journals provided me with a new, accessible vision of womanhood in the 1940s. It is one thing to view World War II and the Great Depression through the impersonal lenses of history classes, books, and Hollywood. It is another to experience them in “real time” in the eyes of another young woman. Through journal entries, newspaper clippings, photographs, handwritten lists, and even golf score cards, Harnsberger constructed a microcosm of life for many middle class women. The reality she described in 17 composition journals allowed me to feel the aftershock of the Great Depression, experience Hitler’s rise from a distant “lunatic” to a fascist leader, and witness the beginning of the civil rights movement in the news articles she collected. I heard of the invention of radar, the dropping of the atom bomb, and the explosion of the Hindenburg. I read Time Magazine’s October 1944 article “U.S. At War,” and perused Ravinia Festival’s 1953 programs. But while Harnsberger’s journals showed me a history unfolding, it was my acquaintance with Harnsberger herself that made a lasting impression.

Known primarily as a Mark Twain authority, musician, and a longtime Winnetka resident, Harnsberger’s life experiences of the 1930s-60s were only recorded in her personal journals. After over half a century, and a donation of her possessions from Harnsberger’s family to the Winnetka Historical Society, these journals came into my hands as I began processing them for the WHS’s archives. I read them with almost no knowledge of her life, but through her musings, philosophies, and intellectual curiosities, I came to know a remarkable woman who lived through immense global, political, and social change without losing hope or sense of humor. I laughed at her witticisms and felt her political frustrations, and I found myself relating to her in ways I did not expect. I, too, have spent much of my life living in Winnetka. And I hold similar values in art and music; humor and curiosity. And just as World War II brought uncertainty into Harnsberger’s everyday life, the Covid-19 pandemic taught me what a life of uncertainty felt like.

Title page of Winnetka: The Biography of a Village.

Growing up in the time of high tech gadgets, social media, and fourth wave feminism has made the events from Harnsberger’s journals seem very far away. But although we were born almost a century apart, I connected with Harnsberger. Her journals bridged a historical gap, transporting me back in time. What I was ultimately left with after reading them, was a fresh perspective of what life was like for many women in the early and mid-1900s, and perhaps even a new friend across time. ■