File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 8, page 25, July 8-11, 1856.jpg

Transcription:

[underta]king the cooking, and other domestic offices, and doing everything in the quiet, uncomplaining way peculiar to the man [Joseph Greatbatch]. I marvel at his patience. We — he, the boys [Fred and Edward Greatbatch], and I — took our meals in a room at the rear of the shop, the windows of which were darkened by almost totally closed shutters, in order to exclude the myriads of flies that flocked in towards the store. Beyond this was a partitioned space, containing the big cooking stove, and a small strip of yard with a hydrant in it. The upper portion of the house was comparatively unfurnished, the room which I, nocturnally occupied, in company with Fred, looking very bare. The routine of existence was as follows. By 5 the boys were roused by their father, to open the store &c. Breakfast over they went to weighing stock &c, Mr G being busy from morning to night. Two Representatives of purchaser and seller valued the stock. I went abroad occasionally, but saw little more of Philadelphia than during my former visits six years ago. It is a spacious, cleanly, monotonous place, objectionably uniform in its street physiognomy. Brick sidewalks, houses of the same material, with inevitable marble steps to them, trees and a lavish use of water are its predominant characteristics. Franklin square is a handsome one, and can boast a better acqueous display than any of the like places in New York. I like the squirrel feature, too, in Independence Square. Called at