Rita Scherman

Cover of Rita Scherman’s Diary, 1894.

Dried flowers and newspaper clippings from Rita Scherman's diary, 1894. 

Rita was born in Canada, but spent many of her adolescent years living in England with her grandparents. This diary documents her stay in England, but some pages are written in memoir-style about her younger days. Rita also saved newspaper clippings and dried flowers in the pages of this diary.

Diary of Rita Scherman, 1903. 

Inside pages of Rita Scherman's diary, 1903

Most of this book after the first few pages is empty, but this is a most intriguing diary. After flipping through a number of blank pages, the reader finds April 11’s page with the date having been marked through with ink. Rita has also written, “About 1908– This is something I want to remember.” This diary was produced in 1903, so Rita must have returned to this little red book many years later to discuss an experience from 1908, of which she writes about for 7 pages. 

Even more curious is the experience she discusses, which continues: “I have had one other such experience in my life - a sense of belonging in (or to) another world, another plane, a sense of being two selves, one a real, the other a kind of dream self.”