'Be a Good Neighbor" by Jane S. McKimmon, 1937

“Be A Good Neighbor” by Jane S. McKimmon, State Home Demonstration Agent and Assistant Director of Extension, N.C. State College, Raleigh, in the November, 1937, issue of the Carolina Co-operator

If you were asked what kind of community you would choose were you looking for a place to make a home, what would you say? I would choose a friendly neighborhood where people visit each other, where they come together often for good times, and where they discuss things of interest to the community; I would like a community that enjoys plays and games, and where people often joined in recreation. Wouldn’t you like to live where your neighbors would ask you to dinner sometime and where you in turn would feel free to have them break bread with you?

Family hospitality is one of a community’s best assets and I do not believe all of us realize just how this hospitality raises a neighborhood in the estimation of a prospective home buyer.

I am today seeing people in farm communities who are really putting into practice the things that make a desirable neighborhood. Suppose young couples could solve their household drudgery problems through neighborliness as Mrs. Lloyd of Durham County and one of her neighbors did.

Both of them had the family ironing to do each week and they planned to do it together. After dinner Mrs. Lloyd put her rough-dried things in the back of her car and took them over to her neighbor’s and there they pressed clothes while they talked about all kinds of interesting things. The ironing was finished before either thought about being tired and where was the drudgery? Gone! It didn’t exist where pleasure was.

For supper Mr. Lloyd came in and two men and two women neighbors sat down to a friendly meal together which had been prepared by both women. The next week it was Mrs. Lloyd’s turn to be hostess and both ironing and supper were in her home. I think such neighborliness would add to the desirability of any community as an abiding place, don’t you?

Community Meeting Place

Much of what might be done in creating a neighborly spirit is hampered by the lack of a community meeting place. The school house which formerly served this purpose has been abandoned for a consolidated unit situated elsewhere and neighborhood Home Demonstration Clubs are turning some of these old school buildings into community centers or are sponsoring the erection of small log houses for meeting places.

One hundred of these have already been built and 130 new buildings are now planned through WPA cooperation.  These log houses have a 50 by 10-foot auditorium with a long, narrow kitchen in the rear, seats built around the wall, and extra folding seats provided. And they are intended to serve the whole community.

The county owns the site and the neighborhood Home Demonstration Club is sponsor for the building. The grounds are to be planned and planted, and we hope it is the 4-H Club boys and girls who will do much of the actual planting and cultivation.

I know nothing that will do more to arouse community pride and raise its cultural standards than the creation of beauty through shrubs, trees, and flowers; and the discussions of interesting subjects by the people living there.

Try it and you will find all participants calling for more. It is just getting together that counts. Just what there is to eat is a minor matter. Have plain things and have them good and everybody will like them. The joint responsibility of selecting and preparing will relieve everyone of anxiety for fear things will not turn out well, and all anyone will have to think about is the joy of coming together.