I am not familiar with historical New Year’s traditions, southern or otherwise. It is my understanding, however, that in most rural situations people ate a non-varied diet. That is, in areas where they ate pork and peas, they ate them almost all the time. That said, with hog-butchering season being in the winter, it seems plausible to posit a connection between New Year’s and fresh pork.

As for Southern traditions in general, in 1900 East Texas (on a present-day map, roughly east of I-45) would have been part of the cultural “South.”

Thanks for the mission memories. Mine are similar: not much introspection, lots on the parades of cross-dressers and the black-powder-in-newspaper firecrackers.

Could the actress’s name be Ada Rehan? I see a New York Times article from 1904 mentioning a production of “Taming of the Shrew” starring Ada Rehan and Otis Skinner.

Those are very touching entries from the missionaries. I just glanced at both New Years in my mission journals and see that I mentioned it both times; once I said “…because it’s New Years, here are some goals…” and the other time mentioned the way the German New Years’ celebration affected us: firecrackers and fireworks left all over the streets, shards from smashed bottles going through our bike tires, a lot of intoxicated citizens the next few days, and a few contacts that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been the holiday. Enjoyable accounts, but nothing introspective like these missionaries.