When I wrote Full Cicada Moon, a novel that takes place in Vermont, USA, in 1969, I wanted the cultural and historical references to be as accurate as possible. For example:
- current and recent past events
- popular music, movies, TV shows
- magazines and newspapers
- fashions (clothing, shoes, fragrances, hairstyles and makeup)
- appliances and gadgets
And because Mimi, the story’s narrator, is fascinated by the moon and the Apollo space program, including accurate moon phases and weather conditions was also critical.
I found much of the information I needed from the internet—which led me to the books, magazines, and “Top 100” lists I needed. For example, I bought several issues of LIFE, TIME, CO-ED, and Tiger Beat magazines from eBay, as well as a Sears catalog, watched several documentaries on the PBS and The History Channel websites, and purchases several books from Amazon. Popular songs, records, and movies were easy to find. And the phases of the moon linked to dates were also easily found.
But when it came to weather conditions, that information proved to be more elusive. I searched for the conditions recorded for the city nearest to my fictional town of Hillsborough, VT, but the daily conditions were, at best, spotty. After all, 1969 is now considered historical and meteorology tech wasn’t as highly developed as it is today.
This is where my great-gramma Clark’s diaries came in. Although she lived in central New Hampshire, I took artistic license to use her entries for the weather conditions in central Vermont. (After all, I figured, they’re on the same latitude.) On each day, at the top of the diary page she recorded the weather condition and often the temperature. Her entries also often detailed the weather, especially if it changed during the day. For instance, a hot, humid afternoon might quickly have turned into a stormy evening.
Because of Gramma Clark’s low-tech method of tracking the weather, I was able to complete the information I needed to write my book. Little would she have imagined that something as simple as writing “Cloudy, 62 degrees” at the top of a page would years later help her great-granddaughter, but where tech had failed me, her diary came through.
In this most unusual time in history, you might never imagine how jotting down your day’s events—family life, the weather, how your garden is growing, and other details of your daily life—might became useful to future historians.
Here's a portion of the outline I created for Full Cicada Moon, which—thanks to Gramma's diaries—includes the weather.
