Macon Home Demonstration Club Had Unusual Start, 1936

"Notes From North Carolina" by F.H. Jeter, December 1936, The Southern Planter

It took a shot gun to persuade farm women of one Macon County community that they needed a home demonstration club.

But don’t get the wrong idea, cautions Miss Ruth Current, district home agent. The gun wasn’t used as a threat.

Home demonstration work has been conducted in that county only a short time and one day the home agent, Mrs. Katherine O’Neil, was in a community where club work had not been started. She came across a boy who had accidentally shot himself while hunting.

Mrs. O’Neil helped to make a litter on which the boy was carried to his home. She also looked after him until the doctor arrived. The interest she took in this boy and the competence with which she helped in looking after him convinced the women of that community that perhaps home demonstration club workers had some good points after all.

Within a few days after the accident, the women sent for the home agent and asked her to organize a club as soon as possible.

EXTENSION CONFERENCE AT STATE COLLEGE

The annual conference of the State College Extension Service will be held December 15 to 18. All white and Negro farm and home demonstration agents, together with district agents and extension specialists will meet to study the results of the past year’s work and to develop a program for 1937.

A number of speakers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and other services having to do with rural people will participate.

ANSON HD CLUB WOMEN HAVE 8,000 TURKEYS

There are 8,000 turkeys in Anson County waiting to be sold by the home demonstration club women this fall. The turkeys are in fine condition for the market since the farmwomen of the county have not only standardized the breed used but have also standardized the methods of dressing and shipping the turkeys for market.

YOUNG WOMEN WIN HONORS

Miss Ellen McMillan of Cumberland County, winner of the state clothing contest; Miss Eunice Griggs of Anson County, winner of the state 4-H food preparation contest; Miss Elizabeth Randle of Cleveland County, winner of the state recordkeeping contest; and Miss Margaret Greene of Durham County, winner of the state food conservation contest, will be North Carolina’s four state champions entering the national contests held in Chicago November 29 to December 5.

These four young prize-winners will be accompanied to Chicago by Miss Ruth Current, extension specialist in girls’ club work. Miss Current will also act as one of the national judges in the clothing contest.