Cumberland County woman hopes to find descendants of diary

Cumberland County, NJ (WTXF) - A Cumberland County woman rediscovered a diary that she found when she was 12. It's a diary that's from 1918. Now, she's trying to get it back to where it belongs.

Tracy Hampton turns the pages of personal history.

"His name is very clear in here. It's William L. Hunt and he's from Homer, New York," she told FOX 29.

The writings of a man from a time when life was simpler when family was everything.

"He wrote a lot of letters to home," Tracy said.

Tracy says she first found this diary when going inside an old shack that used to be on a field. She was just 12 years old at the time.

"You could clearly tell somebody at some point lived in it. There was a bed. There were books. There were a lot of personal things," she explained.

"I think with the adrenaline of getting caught, I ran out of there with this in my hand. And I got home and really didn't realize it. Was I going to return it? Oh my gosh no. I didn't want to get in trouble."

It would get tucked away for years until resurfacing in a box. She saw the date for the first time--1918.

"I was like oh my God! This is now 100 years old. How cool is that!"

Now, Tracy wants to get it to William Hunt's descendants and went into detective mode. She discovered daily weather reports and that Mr. Hunt worked a lot.

"I did read a couple things that he put in here where he was working with his dad breeding the cows, working on the farm--things like that. So I think they were very big into dairy farmers, too."

Even on Christmas Day, he worked all day. But he covered the bad days as well ike the time a pick pocket set him back a whole $1.75.

"I know if somebody gave this to me that I could read my grandmothers thoughts every day and how she lived, you can't put a price tag on that," Tracy said.