I assumed the diaries would be dark, astringent and antiquated, like sipping vinegar through an iron lung. But my grandmother had as much fun as any molly-gobbler at Coachella. She records three primary passions: eating ice cream (“ ... in the afternoon we had ice-cream. Oh delicious memory!”); going to church (“The minister preached on ‘cheerfulness,’ and it was awfully good”); and singing with her friends — that is, when they weren’t laid up with the mumps, or the grippe, or any of those other mysterious old-timey diseases.

But my teenage grandmother’s great genius was flirting. Those amazing boys! The “peachy,” “dandy,” “charming” boys of Gloversville, anointed with adjectives now reserved for Yelp reviews of bed-and-breakfasts. I can barely keep up with her crushes, or their fluctuations in status: “But what do you suppose [Peggy] told me? That Bill was mad at me because he thought I was mad at him because he talked to Velma Thorne! And there I didn’t even know he’d been talking to her! Wasn’t it funny. ... So I told [Ralph] to tell [Bill] I wasn’t mad and it didn’t bother me how much he talked to Velma!” It turns out poor Bill, being “stout” and a cigarette-bummer (“I hate to see a fellow smoke when he’s with a girl on the street, don’t you?”) was no match for Grant. Or Jonsey. Or the mysterious “Sunshine,” who, if my grandmother is to be believed, was, for one summer in 1911, the most alluring young man in the universe: “one grand rower, fisher and sportsman. Really I never saw anybody like him. Emma & I are both dippy over him!”

Arguments with adults are referred to but never detailed. She doesn’t resent her mother’s discipline, even when she gets a “lovely scolding” for finishing someone else’s ice cream. In contrast, I used my own teenage diary as a petri dish for cultivating ever more potent strains of bitterness, in part through recording every injustice I suffered: “We’re having a party in Latin tomorrow. I got mad at Mom because she only got normal chips. She said everyone likes normal plain chips. I mouthed off at her.” I like to think my teenage grandmother’s superior personality was due to her being 16 before the invention of “cool” as a virtue, or even, for that matter, “teenager” as an identity. Being surly is a challenge if it’s not expected of you. Or if you’re too busy eating ice cream to bother. (I also acknowledge that she was objectively a better teenager.)