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Saturday, April 13, 2019

Home Demonstration Agent Brags About Lettie Leonard of White Level, Franklin County, April, 1919

From The Franklin Times, Louisburg, N.C., Friday, April 11, 1919. The Franklin County Home Demonstration Agent Sent a Letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., praising one of her young students--Lettie Leonard of White Level.

Lettie Leonard of White Level, Franklin County

The old adage, “If you do not succeed at first, keep on trying until you do succeed” has been proven by Lettie Leonard, one of the most persevering club members in the county.

She joined in the spring of 1915. Her first planting of seed refused to come up; the second planting was growing beautifully when an old hen and her chicks discovered that the tender little plants were delicacies for them. She planted the third time and succeeded in getting enough from this to set her plat. One by one the large, vigorous looking plants drooped and died. Not a hill was left in the one-tenth acre.

She secured enough plants from her neighbors to set two rows in a different part of the plantation. When these were right size to prune, she set the remainder of her plat with prunings. Fate seemed against her. Again more than half the plants died of wilt. The brave girl was not to be discouraged. She planted string beans, built her canning shed near the spring and prepared for work.

Many bushels of small peaches had always been thrown to the hogs. Lettie determined to save them. She canned enough of them to pay her expenses and succeeded in getting enough surplus from her mother’s garden to fill several hundred cans.

The following summer a sub-agent was needed for Lettie’s home community. Naturally she was chosen. Besides looking after the other club girls in the neighborhood, she again canned several hundred cans, filled her mother’s pantry shelves and did much of the housework.

She partly paid her expenses at East Carolina Teachers’ Training School with the money realized from the sale of canned products and work as a sub-agent.

Each summer, she has worked against wilt and has always succeeded in filling a large pantry for home use and have some cans for sale. As a successful teacher in her home school, she always lends encouragement to new members and is still a canning club and poultry club member herself.

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