By F. H. Jeter,
Editor, Agricultural Extension Service, N.C. State College, as published in the
Charlotte Observer, June 20, 1949
In the Hollis community of Rutherford County, the neighbors
all agree that Mrs. Van Stroud is a real community leader. They are having the
road paved out there largely because of Mrs. Stroud’s efforts, and they are
building a new Baptist church at Hollis, largely because she is on the building
committee. At the same time, Mrs. Stroud has not neglected her own home while
trying to help build this little rural community. The Strouds have just
finished building a new seven-room home, and they are known as an enterprising
and successful farm family. They have two sons, Evans, 19, and Billy, six.
For years, the Strouds have been living in a small four-room
house, badly in need of repair and modernization. The house was located on a
bank along a narrow dirt road that connected the two main highways. On a part
of this newly-purchased land, they built their new farm home. It is just about
complete now and is of the ranch type, with seven rooms, a bath, shower, sewing
room, a small den or office, and an everyday dressing room in which the men can
change from their overalls as they come in from the fields. Mr. and Mrs.
Stroud, with help of the older boy, Evans, have done about all of the work
themselves, including the felling of the trees and the sawing and finishing of
the lumber.
Mrs. Stroud has one of those step-saving, U-shaped kitchens
and the floors are finished in the natural color of the wood. She handed the
planks to her husband as he floored each of the rooms, and she did most of the
interior painting. Then she made the curtains and draperies, and painted the
screens as Mr. Stroud hung them.
Mrs. Stroud makes practically all of her own clothing as
well as the work shirts, sport shirts, and pajamas used by her family. The
Strouds produce and cure their own pork and beef for the table, and they have
just set a small orchard around the new home. The family attends the Baptist Church
in Hollis, where Mrs. Stroud teaches in the Sunday school. She is a member of
the WMU, and she is now on the church building committee with one other woman
and three men. She was president of the PTA in the local school last session and
is active as a home demonstration club member.
When the community decided that something had to be done
about the local road, Mrs. Stroud had about 35 leading persons in the community
to meet in her home with the district highway commissioner. She served dinner
and when the meal was over, they got down to business about paving that road.
That was last October. Today, paving the road has just about been completed.
When the country women of the neighborhood when on a tour of farm homes last
fall to study new and modern improvements, 89 of them visited her home to see
what she and her family had accomplished.
Miss Sedberry says that Mrs. Stroud has missed few meetings
of the Hollis home demonstration club in the last five years. The farm woman
believes that this club is one of the most helpful women’s organizations in
Rutherford County.
“I learn something valuable every time I go,” she said. “The
club has helped the community because we were almost a bunch of strangers
around here. Now we are more like a bunch of sisters. We used to wave ‘Hello’
to one another and go on. Now we stop and chat when we meet, and we find out
new things. Our work in the club has almost eliminated gossiping because we
have so many more important things to discuss. We have replaced this gossip
with something worthwhile, and we find pleasure in studying how to have better
homes.”
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