Home Demonstration Club News from Dare, Gaston and Mecklenburg Counties, 1938

“Timely News Items” by Jane S. McKimmon, state Home Demonstration Agent and Assistant Director of Extension, as published in the September 1938 issue of the Carolina Co-operator

The Dare County Home Agent has given much of her time during the spring and summer to visiting families with low incomes in an attempt to help them with nutrition and clothing problems. She instructed the farm housewives in making spoon bread, scalloped potatoes, and bread pudding, but it was the preparation of home-grown vegetables and sea food with which she tried to get in good work also.

Clothing was secured for children where it was very much needed and the mothers, working together with the agent, worked at turning them into attractive garments.

Visiting the Post Office

Four-H boys and girls of Gaston County were taken on a visit to the post office at Gastonia where they were allowed to trace a letter from the moment it was dropped in the mail until it was delivered to their rural mail box.

“It certainly freshened up their geography and arithmetic,” said the home agent, “and they were most grateful to the courteous post office officials for their interesting visit.

Keeping Up With Farm Women

Cotton Style Shows were recently held in Mecklenburg Count at which many beautiful homemade cotton dresses were modeled by farm women who learned not only to make their dresses, but much about what was suitable to their figure, coloring, and personality . . . . Four Vance County sisters, Lou Ella, Magdalene, Annie Mae, and Elsie Dickerson, have crocheted suits for themselves at a cost of 40 cents each . . . . Mrs. J.M. Sikes of Polkton, Anson County, served fresh vegetables on the table every day during the cold months of last year as a result of an excellent winter garden. Have you begun to think about yours yet? . . . . Mrs. Mary Lee McAllister, Home Agent of Cabarrus County, will move into a new office soon . . . . Dr. Clarence Poe says that the farm women of the South are probably progressing faster today than the farm women of any other section in America . . . . A home agent and specialist drove 204 miles in the rain to judge 40 kitchens in a contest. All the contestants were expecting them and even in such weather had their kitchens as neat as pin.