“Miss Current’s Column” by Ruth Current, published in The Southern Planter, December 1939
LAUNDRY DUTIES IN HAYWOOD COUNTY
When D.R. Noland brought his bride to live with his father and mother in their home 25 miles from Waynesville, she found her mother-in-law washing the clothes under a cherry tree on a hillside and carrying water more than 100 feet up hill. After washing on the hill for a few months, the younger Mrs. Noland suggested building a wash house, and her husband did build one closer to the house. However, she still had to carry water.
Mr. Noland was persuaded, however, to pipe water to the wash house, but soon the spring supplying the water dried up. Then Mrs. Noland converted a room in their house just off the back porch into a laundry. The new laundry is convenient and up-to-date with two built-in porcelain tubs placed so that one can work in back of them or walk around them. The laundry is equipped with a heater, used not only to boil the clothes but also to heat the room and the water for washing. A washing machine and portable tub can be placed next to the porcelain tubs for convenience, and the ironer and ironing board both can be moved to any place in the room. The floor is covered with linoleum that is easily cleaned. The windows give sufficient light for work, and there are built-in cabinets for storage.
“I was almost afraid to ask the price of the porcelain tubs but found them to be only $15,” the home agent said. “The remainder of the equipment cost less than $200. A farm woman could buy the various pieces of equipment from time to time, just as Mrs. Noland did and eventually have as convenient a home laundry.”
“I couldn’t get along without my laundry room and equipment now,” says Mrs. Noland. “It saves so many steps and I can wash quickly without getting tired, nor do I have to worry about the bad weather.”
HOME ACCOUNT KEEPING, HAYWOOD COUNTY
Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Ketner of Route 2, Waynesville, operate their home and farm on a budget plan and find that it pays. Mrs. Ketner says of her budgeting and account keeping, “The first day of January we make out a budget based on last year’s accounts. It often takes hours to work it out. Sometimes we miscalculate and have to cut down from month to month. Again we have to go into our savings account for unexpected expenses or emergencies, but you see in this way we do have a savings account to which to go. We know that our record books have saved us family arguments because we have learned more about what it takes to operate a farm and home. Men and women could appreciate each other and their respective jobs more if they knew more about each other’s work. Our record books have helped us find financial security and a better planned and organized farm and home.”
The Ketners have two farms. Mrs. Ketner gets the income from the other. Both keep separate accounts, but at the end of the month the profits are placed into one bank account from which both have the privilege of checking.
Their three sons, Dale 14, Kent 12, and Harold 8, have been taught to keep accounts like most children are taught their ABC’s. The boys are paid for small jobs and also given a small allowance. The reaction of the boys to the same influence makes an interesting study. One takes to the business of figuring. While the others cooperate, they do not display the same talent for thrift.
In 1938, Mrs. Ketner decided that she needed a place in her kitchen to keep her record and recipe book. She removed the top from an old cabinet and covered it with metal so that it can be used as a working surface when needed. The cost of converting the cabinet into a business unit was $2—cost of the time for a hired man to do the carpentering work.
Mrs. Ketner says that it is much easier to put down each night just what she spends during the day and to check her budget, since she has such a convenient place to keep her records.
HOME INCOME FROM BULBS, AVERY COUNTY
For the second year, Mrs. F.W. Von Cannon of Banner Elk in Avery County has grown gladioli bulbs for sale. Mrs. Von Cannon states that to date she has paid all of her expenses for 1938-39 from this project and has for sale bulbs that she has grown on her two and a half acres of land. This fall she has at least six times as many bulbs as last year.
She is careful in growing the bulbs, seeing to it that all varieties are kept separate, that the bulbs are regularly inspected by the state inspector, and that no blooms are cut unless doing so does not injure the bulbs for sale. This year the two and a half acres of blooms were a beautiful sight, indeed.
FROM CABBAGES TO COLLEGE, AVERY COUNTY
“One of the happiest of our marketers,” says Mrs. Georgia Piland Cohoon, home demonstration agent in Avery County, “is Mrs. J.W. Johnson of Hughes. Last year the daughter, Bernice, finished high school. There seemed to be no money available for Bernice’s college education. This year Mrs. Johnson and her daughter grew a field of cabbages of their own and from the sale of them cleared around $250. With this money and what can be earned from other work she can do at college, Bernice is now happily attending Teachers College in Johnson City, Tennessee.”
CHICKENS PAY IN UNION COUNTY
Since last Thanksgiving, Mrs. Solon Braswell of Union County has sold $1,700 worth of broilers, and this fall she has 1,500 more baby chicks growing fat and plump for the market. “I will round out my $2,000 worth by Thanksgiving,” calmly stated Mrs. Braswell, as she gave the home agent a roly-poly baby chick to hold in her hand to see how heavy the little fellow was at one week old.
“One has a cold,” remarked Mrs. Braswell, who knew the habits of those chicks as well as a good mother would know the symptoms of her child.
Paying all of the expenses with “chicken” money, Mrs. Braswell has sent one daughter to college for four years and another is now a junior in college.
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