A video was prepared for the 100th anniversary celebration of ECA Clubs in North Carolina, formerly known as Extension Homemaker and as Home Demonstration Clubs. It is full of wonderful images and information about these women at work in their homes and in their communities. You can watch the video on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT_YclDI06U
The Can-do Women of the
Extension and Community Association by Debbi Sykes Braswell
When the Extension Service planted a seedling 100 years ago
they had great dreams for it. They hoped
the tree would grow strong and tall. They hoped it would be fruitful.
So they tended it carefully and watched.
What happened to this tree has shocked everyone along the
way. You see, it didn’t just MEET those early expectations – it has blown them
away. Because when you take determined and caring women, add expertise and
advice, and let them follow their hearts, you end up with a towering tree, one
with astonishing fruit.
FOOD and HEALTH
Just as roots help nourish a tree, food was at the roots of
ECA. It started with girls growing tomato plants in clubs just for them. With
Extension’s guidance, the girls were wildly successful at turning their homegrown,
home-canned vegetables into cash. Within a year, their mothers were forming
their own clubs. They learned to grow better and better gardens so they could
feed their families well, can the extras, and sell the surplus.
At first many people didn’t trust home canning to keep food
safe to eat. But the trained women of ECA found that they could feed their
families healthy meals all year long – even in winter – thanks to safe canning
practices. Women canned hundreds of jars of food like tomatoes and green beans.
They also learned to preserve meat,
which was important in the days before refrigeration. This added food was
sometimes a matter of life and death, especially in the early days and on
through the Great Depression.
The women sold surplus food, which helped their families
stay afloat. But the women didn’t keep their knowledge and skills to
themselves. They taught their devastated neighbors how to plant gardens, can,
and survive.
They also brought surplus food to schools. It broke the
women’s hearts to think of anyone’s child going hungry, so they turned extra
canned tomatoes and milk into tomato soup and hot cocoa for their empty little
bellies. These women were a force to be reckoned with.
In the 1930s, ECA club members rallied against a sometimes
fatal disease of malnutrition called pellagra. Doctors discovered that the
cause was simple – a lack of vitamin B. So the women of ECA worked to pass
legislation that required the makers of flour and corn meal to enrich it with
vitamin B.
Club members branched out to grow different vegetables when
they found eager buyers at community curb markets.
Mrs. Carl Stevenson, a member of the Sharon Home
Demonstration Club in Iredell County, was so impressed with the curb market in
Statesville that she enlarged her garden. She added acorn squash, Brussels
sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower to the other vegetables she had been
growing.
One magazine reporter couldn’t believe her eyes at one of North
Carolina’s curb markets. “I could not check on everything that
was offered for sale that morning, but the following is what I observed:
Anything in the pork or beef line, live or dressed chickens, vegetables of all
kinds—some of them with the dew still on. Collard leaves were tied in little
bundles with a pod of red pepper, spinach, turnip greens and young turnips with
the tops, green beans, limas, cornfield beans, sugar peas, new potatoes, raw
sweet potatoes, and baked sweet potatoes! One woman had yeast dough weighed out
in pound batches, wrapped in oiled paper. Cakes—all kinds. Cookies and chess
pies. I have not mentioned half of what was there.”
These days we battle having too MUCH food, not a shortage,
and we sit too much instead of moving. Fortunately, the clubs help members learn
to choose the right calories in the right amounts. Diabetics in particular have
gotten knowledge and encouragement about how to eat well. The clubs have also emphasized
exercise for everyone and gladly help spread the word
throughout their communities.
Some trends have come full circle. Many families today are pinched for money and
concerned about healthy eating, so it only makes sense that canning is popular
once again. Home gardening and buying locally are big, too.
Also, newer generations are asking for help with cooking
simple, healthy meals instead of relying on fast food and processed food. It
can be convenient to grab quick food, but it’s not as healthy and it costs
more.
Being healthy and saving money – that’s at the heart of ECA.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Few things are as vital to a family as its pocketbook. ECA
has always helped women with this concern, whether it was during the Great
Depression or the high inflation days in the early 1980s.
The clubs approached the issue in two ways – they helped
families learn how to live on less. And they helped women discover ways to
bring in cash.
Many club members launched home businesses that brought in
badly needed money. Some started thriving poultry operations. Working through
their county agent, women in Anson County even supplied NC State University with
poultry.
Other club members
brought goods to curb markets, which began in the 1920s. Their customers didn’t
just buy their surplus produce – the townspeople flocked in to buy extra things
like flowers, cakes, and baskets, too. Who knew the club members could help
their families so much by doing what they were already doing?
“The curb market has been our greatest help in time of our
greatest need,” said a Nash County woman who was selling at the Rocky Mount
Home Demonstration Club Curb Market in 1933.
When that curb market opened in 1923 one lady gathered up
heads of lettuce in a clothes basket and sold out completely. The following
week she brought two cakes and sold them. Over the next 20 years she had raised
$18,666 and earned a reputation, along with her sisters, for making excellent
cakes and dressings.
“We
are positive if it had not been for the curb market we would have been in the
county home, or worse still, dependent upon relatives,” the lady said. “Our
home was mortgaged and now we have our home, a comfortable one. We own our car,
a small savings account, and we don’t owe a penny.”
The ECA women’s businesses helped diversify farms, stabilize
families, and lessen dependence on crippling credit. Most of us don’t realize that
a hundred years ago, some farmers paid 1,000 to 2,000 percent interest on loans.
The cash that women earned helped modernize the state
because it helped pay for improvements like indoor plumbing, electricity, and
appliances. The extra income even helped some tenant farmers buy their own
farms. It also helped children stay in school and go to college.
At a Rocky
Mount curb market in 1933, one woman said, “I have sold $956 worth of produce
since I have been attending the curb market. I used my flower money for my
clothes and a good time, until the Depression came on. Last year I bought
fertilizer and groceries, paid my cook and hired man on the farm. I bought a
ton of fertilizer and a half barrel of flour and had two dollars left in change
from one week’s sale of flowers. I paid the interest for four months on a note
at the bank, which was $28 each month. My little girls sold five little foxes
they found in the woods and wild flowers enough to buy a good second-hand
piano. They have a little flower garden and are selling flowers to get money
for school dresses and music lessons this winter; they are nine and eleven
years of age.”
Another woman found two kinds of dividends – money and
friends. Farm living could leave some women feeling lonely and isolated. But
women who joined ECA clubs gained confidence, poise, and friends.
“First of all I think it is financial needs that prompt us
to attend, and then once we get started we cannot stop,” the woman said. “It
isn’t a novelty that soon wears away. It gets next to us and we always want to
come back. We look forward to seeing our customers whom we soon learn to love.
For we have learned through the curb market that our town folks are just as
sweet and pleasant as they can be.”
In addition to bringing in more money, ECA members also
learned how to do more with less. These women learned to sew and sew well. And
they were ingenious.
At the Style Show held during Farm and Home Week at “State
College” in 1934, the son of Mrs. P.G. Sturges of Franklin County, modeled a
white suit that his mother had made from heavy cotton feed sacks. The slacks had
been bleached and looked like linen.
In 1935 one Richmond County woman turned some of her
brother’s clothes into a suit for herself. Just listen to how proud she is.
“I cleaned the suit, turned the pants upside down and with a
four-gore pattern cut a nice skirt for myself, using both pairs of pants. I
made a few changes in the coat and behold! I had a lovely suit.”
During a period of high inflation in the 1980s, the ECA
clubs helped members figure out ways to conserve energy. In the mid ‘80s, more
than 121,000 families reduced their energy and water use, saving about $132,832
by using auxiliary heating devices, water-saving gadgets, and energy-saving
window treatments. The clubs also helped women find sources of extra income
like furniture refinishing.
In the process, the members of ECA clubs learn how to run a
sound household. They come to know the importance of good record-keeping,
budgeting, and planning.
As Celestine Rhodarmer of Asheville said in the 1980s, “if
it had not been for Extension Homemakers being close during the illness and
death of my husband, I would not have known how to become the head of the
household. Through the Extension Homemakers, I have learned to manage a home
and be more aware of the responsibility of a head of the household.”
ECA women have always been can-do women. When their men were
away in wars, they pulled together and helped bring in the crops. These crops
were badly needed not only for the families, but also the nation.
LEADERSHIP
ECA has always responded to needs. In the process, the women
have been changed and so has the entire organization.
Club members often discover gifts that they could never have
imagined. They find passions and expand their horizons. Many club members have
become leaders, not only in their organization, but also in their communities.
Some become mayors, county commissioners, and school board members. Their experience
in the clubs allowed them to move easily into leadership roles.
In 1991, Nancy Hope Willis held up a dirty, green bottle during
leadership training. It was nothing to admire. But then she cleaned it,
polished it, and dropped in a lovely rose. Now the ordinary bottle was a
beautiful emerald vase. Her message? Effective leaders are neither born nor
made but can be developed.
The newly formed clubs were so successful that the federal
government expanded the program to more counties in North Carolina. It did this
to help increase the nation’s food production during World War I.
During the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed half a million
Americans, the club women stepped forward in valuable and visible ways. They
cooked meals, taught about health precautions, and helped with home nursing
when the woman of the house was desperately ill. Other times they served in the
emergency “hospitals” set up for the sick. The state had an amazing resource during
this time of terror – here was an already-in-place organization of capable
women who could quickly mobilize and respond.
Unfortunately that funding didn’t last. County commissioners
cut many agent positions after World War I, but the club members would not give
up. In 27 counties, black women volunteers taught home canning for free to keep
the club work going.
Over time, the women have taken on the fire of many pet
projects. In the 1980s, the Dardens Extension Homemakers Club of Martin County thought
it was ridiculous to have to call long distance to reach their fire department!
Even their children had to reverse the charges when they called from school!
So the women mounted a campaign. They petitioned the phone
company, they asked the county commissioners for help, and they talked to clubs
and businesses to drum up support. Eventually the N.C. Utilities Commission
agreed to replace the long distance telephone charges between Williamston and
Plymouth with extended area service.
“It was then that we felt we finally finished our project,”
a club member said. The phone calling change was such a big accomplishment that
Gov. Jim Martin gave the group an Outstanding Volunteer Award in 1990.
No doubt about it -- these are effective women. They speak
up at all levels. They have held voter registration drives, met with congressmen
and legislators, and gotten involved in the courts.
In the 1970s, Helen Bess of Gaston County organized a group
called Concerned Citizens for Justice. The movement served notice to all those
in the judicial system that ordinary people were interested in fair and equal
justice for all. The program won the National Volunteer Award, the National
Extension Homemakers’ Award for Outstanding County Project, and the National
Citizenship Award for the N.C. Extension Homemakers. But best of all, this
program led 35 other states to begin Court Watcher programs, too.
Counties have long held events like the Women’s
Leadership Conference in Union County, sponsored by Extension FCS and ECA. They
allowed women to gain skills in areas like networking, diplomacy, relationship
building, professional development, and mentoring.
In recent years, some women are taking advanced training to
become mentors. They are a formidable force of help through master programs
like food preservation and money management.
Pat Seal, a member of the Beulah EHA in Surry County, was named
Outstanding Leader of the Year in the 1980s. As she accepted her engraved
silver tray, Mrs. Seal said, “When I think how easily I could have missed being
an Extension Homemaker, it’s really frightening. Just think what I would have
missed!”
SERVICE
It’s true that ECA women have always been close to their
families and to one another. But their nurturing and caring has never stopped
there.
During the world wars, the club women were on the frontlines
of community support. They collected scrap metal and fat, grew Victory Gardens,
and knitted sweaters and socks for soldiers. During the Great Depression, when times were
desperate, the federal and state governments paid for emergency workers and
seed so that ECA clubs could help those on the dole feed themselves.
After World War II, the women did not forget the hardships
they had all suffered through. They embraced the United Nations movement
because they wanted so badly for war to end forever. In this role, the women
turned outward. They began traveling to Washington, D.C., New York City, and
eventually other countries like Norway and England.
Juanita Lagg of Rowan
County developed a passion for destitute people in other countries – and
helped the ECA do something about it.
One of the most dramatic projects was called Save the Sight
in India. Many children there were going blind before they even turned 5 years
old. Unbelievably, this suffering could easily be prevented if the children
could eat a diet with Vitamin A.
But the workers found that the fix was only as good as the
child’s home life. They learned that they needed to teach the entire family about
eating the right foods. Once they showed the parents how to gather and cook a native
plant rich in Vitamin A the lesson clicked.
The project succeeded so well that India agreed to build
clinics like theirs around the country. Eventually it even spread to other
countries. This all came about because homemakers from North Carolina and around
the world had raised money for this project.
“This is one of the best success stories I’ve ever heard
about,” Lagg said. “And the reason for it…it came about because someone cared
what was happening to children in developing countries. They researched the
problem, they found a workable solution, they were willing to work with
existing agencies … and most important, they were willing to fund the project
for a full year to see if a change could make a difference.”
The ECA difference spread to other countries, too. In Guatemala,
they funded projects like a well. In 1976, an earthquake had cut more than 700
people off from their water supply. So the women and children had to walk two
miles at great altitude to reach the nearest water.
“I simply could not shake this concern from my thoughts,”
Lagg said, “so when I returned to North Carolina, I showed a few pictures that
told the story of the need for clean drinking water. The North Carolina
Extension Homemakers responded the same way as I and together we decided that
we should fund some wells.”
But raising the money was just part of the project; the
women found that they also needed patience, cultural understanding, and
determination. It took a few years for everything to come about.
“One thing I learned,” Lagg said, “is that if you decide to
assist with a project, you simply must do it at their pace and use their
methods, not yours, if you want to be successful.”
To pay for their projects, the women have somehow raised
enormous sums of money, even in the hardest of times. This money has allowed
the clubs to be amazingly generous.
In the 1940s, the ladies of Red Oak Club House in Nash
County held an honest-to-goodness hen party to raise money. Each woman brought
a hen to be sold later. “Many interesting games were played, having been
directed by Misses Ellen McIntyre and Iberia Roach, assistant home agent,” one
member wrote. “A chicken contest was conducted and the prize went to Miss Mary
Hackney for her chicken intelligence.”
ECA continues to evolve to meet the needs around them. The
clubs have reached out to widowed people, to pregnant teens, to grandparents
raising their grandchildren, to foster children. There are programs like Aging
with Gusto, Hispanic health fairs, and
Black Churches United for Better Health.
Club members have cleaned school yards and church grounds
and they have helped in nursing homes and health centers. They have reached out
to women suffering from abuse. They have made “fidget aprons” that people with
Alzheimer’s disease can wear to occupy their restless hands. They have sewed mastectomy
pillows for cancer patients. They have held alcohol-free prom parties for teenagers.
The service projects are kind of like snowflakes – no two
are alike and they just keep coming. Club members in Alleghany County knitted
helmet liners for soldiers. Staff Sgt. Brandon Brown of Wellsville said the warm
helmet liners helped him greatly in Iraq. “I work the midnight shift, securing
the base perimeter, and I am outside in the elements all night,” he wrote them.
“I have already found them to be very useful. Thank you so much for all your
support and your prayers.”
The support has extended to military families, too. Many
clubs collected coupons and sent them to military families here and abroad.
The Jacksonville EHA members offered their support to Carobell,
a home for severely handicapped children. “As a club, we feel like this project
has helped not only the children but the club as well,” Lib Sheegog said. “We
have gotten to know each other better by sharing our ideas and talents and
working together.”
The needs are ever-changing but the hearts stay the same.
EDUCATION
It’s a fact that the women of ECA know how to grow fabulous
tomatoes, potatoes, and corn. But they know how to grow something else, too ---
minds.
It started with a love of reading. In the 1920s, the county
agents arrived at club meetings with an inviting collection of library books. And the club members decided that their rural
locations shouldn’t stand in the way of reading. In typical style, they found
an answer – bookmobiles. These traveling libraries delighted families with
fresh words to read. Thanks to these books, rural folks got to travel to
faraway places, learn new skills, and even laugh. Clubs also raised money to
help establish libraries in their communities.
In the 1960s, women in
one Currituck County club held reading contests with team names like the Jets
and the Rockets. “It’s still a secret which side has the greatest number of
points,” Daphne W. Yon wrote, “but
soon we will know! Then the losers can begin planning the party. We winners want plenty of delicious
food!”
The East Bend Extension Homemakers and the East Bend
Ruritans teamed up in 1984 to push for the library they had always longed for. They
were incredibly gratified when it finally became reality. On opening day, a
group of young boys in uniform, just in from playing Little League baseball,
came running through the door and headed for the children’s section, as
enthusiastic about books as baseball!
Over the years, the ECA clubs continued to make reading a priority
for all ages. They often supported local schools, and women spent countless
hours tutoring children and reading to them. They filled shelves across the
state with books they bought. Some of the women also helped adults discover the
joy of reading.
ECA clubs also donated books to many parents of newborns.
The club women knew that early reading could give the babies’ minds a
tremendous boost and help the children as they grew up and went to school. It
is clear that education is sacred to the women of ECA.
From the early days, ECA clubs found a way to send promising
women to college through loans and scholarships. Their drive to help the
students got reinforced over and over as the recipients wrote back.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you more times than I can count!”
Robin Matson wrote. “I’ve finally made it through mid-term with a B average.
I’m working very hard to be worthy of your support and trust.”
Another woman, Carol Millsaps, wrote, “Dear Ladies, Just a
note to let you know ‘we’ made it through nursing school at Western Carolina
University. Yes, with your help, I have graduated and will be working at C.J.
Harris Hospital in Sylva. Thank you for your support of the scholarship.”
Many words of praise have been said about ECA -- words that have
come from governors, neighbors, and even children.
Little Mary Jo Forehand attended Shawboro Club meetings with
her mother, Hilda Forehand, in 1965. “She is a happy 3-year-old when this time
comes,” Mrs. Forehand said. “Recently after going home from the meeting and saying
her prayers, Mary Jo added, ‘Thank you, Lord, for Home Demonstration club.’”
