Ella refers repeatedly to a number of people by first name (or abbreviation thereof).  I’ve been able to identify most of them, I believe.  This information is based primarily on the 1920 U.S. Census records, but also some other census years.

Ella – the diarist, aged about 71 at the time the diary beings.

Mark – her husband, aged about 75 and still working as a farmer.

Eliz. – Elizabeth, their daughter, aged about 46, and unmarried, living with her parents.

Geo. – George, their son, aged about 44, unmarried and living and working on his father’s farm.

Kenneth – their son, aged about 34 and working as a farmer elsewhere in Waterbury.

Ros. – Rosalind, Kenneth’s wife, aged about 29.

Marjorie – Ella’s niece, daughter of Kenneth and Rosalind, aged about 3.

Ida – probably a neighbor, Ida Alcott (or Olcott), around the same age as Ella.

Morris – Ida’s husband.

Bill – probably Wilfred Warner, aged about 56, who lived in Wolcott and by the surname may have been a relative of Mark; but if his daughter Rosalind is the same one who became Kenneth’s wife, not all that close of a relative, one hopes.

Clayton – one of Bill Warner’s sons, aged about 32, still unmarried as of the 1920 census and working as an assistant shipping clerk in a factory.

Mary – a sister of Ella’s, who would have been around 65 at this time.

Jennie – another sister of Ella’s, who would have been around 62 at this time.

The one person I have not been able to identify is Sarah. Judging by the contents of the diary, she was probably a friend and contemporary of Elizabeth, but she is not listed in the Warner households in 1920 or 1930, and I have not been able to pick a likely candidate from among the neighbors.  It’s possible that she was boarding with Mark and Ella Warner in 1923; I’m just not sure.

One of the things that has continually surprised me, on the occasions when I’ve done research on families, is the number of people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who never married.  Here, two of Ella’s three children never married. It’s an intriguing phenomenon that I mean to look into one day.