Robert Shields

Robert William Shields (May 17, 1918 – October 15, 2007) was an American minister and high school English teacher best known for writing a diary of 37.5 million words, which chronicled every five minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997. Shields's diary, which filled 91 boxes, was longer than those kept by the journalist Edward Robb Ellis (21 million words) and the poet Arthur Crew Inman (17 million words), and 30 times longer than that of Samuel Pepys (1.25 million words).

Biography and personal life Robert William Shields was born on May 17, 1918. Shields graduated from Franklin College. He eventually attended several theological schools and became a Protestant minister. Shields served several churches before becoming a high-school English teacher in South Dakota for a time.

Shields was married to Grace Augusta Hotson, with whom he had three daughters: Klara, Cornelia, and Heidi.

Diary

Believing that discontinuing his diary would be like "turning off my life", in the collections of Washington State University, to which he donated the work in 1999. In a May 2000 interview he said "I've written 1200 poems and at least five of 'em are good."

The journal for which he became known was not the first he had tried to keep; he had tried to write one at age 17 to chronicle a romantic relationship, but abandoned it after losing interest in the project. Shields said that it may not be read until both he and his wife died; she died in 2024 and the university began cataloging the collection that year. However, many excerpts have appeared, including the following:

July 25, 1993 7 am: "I cleaned out the tub and scraped my feet with my fingernails to remove layers of dead skin." 7.05 am: "Passed a large, firm stool, and a pint of urine. Used five sheets of paper." April 18, 1994 6:30–6:35: "I put in the oven two Stouffer's macaroni and cheese at 350°." 6:35–6:50: "I was at the keyboard of the IBM Wheelwriter making entries for the diary." 6.50–7.30: "I ate the Stouffer's macaroni and cheese and Cornelia ate the other one. Grace decided she didn't want one." 7.30–7.35: "We changed the light over the back stoop since the bulb had burnt out." April 30, 1994 11:00–11:30: "I picked over parts of Newsweek and Time and Harvard magazine and reread them while I ate about a dozen leftover fish sticks. (Cold.)" August 21, 1994 2:25–2:35: "I checked on whether our county tax payment had been received. It had." August 13, 1995 8.45 am: "I shaved twice with the Gillette Sensor blade [and] shaved my neck behind both ears, and crossways of my cheeks, too."