The Moos Family Life

Jean took his family, Virginia, 7 year old Ruth, 7 month old baby Henry and his mother-in-law, Maud (b 1845), for a month and a half vacation on their new property.
As Maud kept a diary of the vacation we are privileged to have an idea of the Moos family experience in their first year at their summer residence on the lake and getting there. Jean himself had left earlier for Blackstone to make sure everything was in order to receive his family.
An excerpt from the diary outlines the trip from Bethany W. Va. to Kelley Island:
Friday, July 17th - ... We left on 9 o 'clock train. Made good connections at Wellsburg. Got to Pittsburgh at noon.
That night they stayed at one of Jean 's sister- in-laws then:
Saturday, July 18th - ... Had a pleasant

It is clear from the diaries that the Moos availed themselves, as those previous arrivals to the lake, of the local population. John Jennings did the transport and mail, Philip Harrison the grocery store, newspapers and T. Eaton or Michie and Co. orders, Wilfred Moore the milk and bread and Wes Woolman for labour and odd jobs. They, even though just newly arrived, had friends with the other seasonal residents such as the Pattersons, Burrells, themselves only a few years more senior on the lake to the Moos. They would also meet the British Consul-General in the US, Wilfred Powell and his family. One day Jean and family rowed down the lake to the Powells, for dancing with Jean playing the violin for music. However, domestic chores remained for women — as Maud put it, the “cleaning and redding up” the cabin. “readding up” is, according to grandson Robert, a western Pennsylvanian Scotch-Irish term for getting the place ready.
The Moos stayed on the lake from July 20, 1914 (Jean a bit earlier) to August 31st 1914 a critical time in world history. The trigger for the First World War was the assassination of Duke Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie on June 28. The first declaration of war, by Austria-Hungary was on July 29 followed by Germany on August 1. As the Moos rowed over to Oriole Island, after supper, to “call” on the Pattersons, Germany started attacking Luxembourg and Europe was inevitably going into a full war spiral. From Maud 's

Summers in the north can be dry and the forests thus are prone to fires. In August 1913 large areas north and east of Parry Sound were on fire and were very threatening to settlers and villages. The fire reach its peak and Blackstone in the third week as a “special despatch from Blackstone” to the Globe & Mail indicated in the Aug 21st issue: large fires are raging to the south [of Parry Sound] and a quantity of the cordwood of the Canada Chemical Co. is burning fiercely.
The same day issue of The Toronto Star claims to explain the cause of the fire:
Over forty years ago much of this territory was burned over, but has since grown up to small white pine, poplar, spruce, and balsam, with tag alder coulies, which together made the best of deer covert. The country was however, still a mass of fallen, rotting logs and brush, which the present dry season has made a carpet of tinder that only awaited a spark and high wind to wipe it up entirely ....
.... Contrary to the usual theory, the railways were not responsible for these fires. The cause lay with careless settlers, who set out fire without taking due precaution against it