|
“In the beginning ... ”
Amelia Watts hears what she’s saying, and she laughs.
“In the beginning” has such a Biblical sound, and she’s not talking religion.
Or is she?
She never planned to become a home demonstration agent like her mother.
“I guess it was the one job I swore I’d never do, because my mother was a home demonstration agent, and she was never at home.”
But 30 years ago she was converted. By that time, the name had changed from home demonstration to home economics agent. And today, on the eve of her retirement as the first woman director of the Rowan County Cooperative Extension Service, she’s a true believer if ever there was one.
The laughter — as much a part of Amelia Watts as her enthusiastic embrace of the garden she grows, the birds she feeds, the dog she nurtures and the job she does, no matter what that job is — subsides for the moment, and she continues her story.
“In the beginning,” she says, “wives of farmers were in tomato clubs.”
The Extension Service — so called, she explains, “because we are an extension, we are the field faculty of North Carolina State University” — taught farmers how to grow tomatoes and everything else. “The women had to learn how to can tomatoes” — and do everything else at home.
But what they needed to learn changed with the years,
Canning and freezing, curtains and slipcovers became osteoporosis, folic acid education, indoor air quality, affordable home ownership, financial management, budgeting, child-care education. The audience changed from people who lived in rural areas to people who lived in both rural and urban areas.
And the names changed. Tomato club became home demonstration club became extension club.
“And yet,” she says, “its role has never changed.” The role of the home demonstration agent, who worked with those clubs, just as the farm agent and the 4-H agent worked with other organizations, never changed.
“Our role always was to put knowledge to work, to share information, research-based information, that can help a person learn and grow and become a better person or a better producer as a result of that knowledge.”
Examples gush out.
“Someone may call me up and say, ‘I have a lot of mold and mildew problems, and it’s hard for me to breathe. Can you tell me what to do?’ And I usually ask them where it is and ... ”
And they talk about gutters, drainage, roofs, crawl spaces.
“Or they may need to trim the shrubbery,” she says, “and let some air circulate around their houses.”
A doctor calls the Cooperative Extension office on the Old Concord Road thinking he may have radon problems. Someone else wants to know what a living will is. Why do you need an attorney? Why can’t I grow grass? The doctor has put me on a diet. What kind of foods should I eat or avoid? What are these weeds? My freezer’s gone out. What do I do with the food? Does insurance cover it? They’re calling for snow this weekend. What if the power goes out? What can I do?
For starters, they’re always told, don’t open the door to check the food in the refrigerator.
“Years ago,” Amelia says, “someone said the extension program is one of the best-kept secrets in the world, but we don’t want it to be the best-kept secret. I don’t think the general public knows the wealth of information that’s available.”
They can find out what they need to know on the telephone, at a meeting, a workshop, a seminar, a lecture.
And that, she says, “is the wonderful part of the Extension Service. The voice on the telephone or sitting across the desk from someone or in the group, no matter how they learn, all prove the system can work, and it works to improve the quality of life. That’s what we want to be about.”
Amelia grew up in Taylorsville knowing that quality of life is important, because her parents, Agnes and Clyde Watts, were that kind of people, and her mother was one of those links in the Extension Service’s chain of knowledge.
But her mother worked 612 days a week, “and fortunately mother’s mother, Granny, raised the children, did all the cooking, and the washing and ironing. Granny was the strongest light of my life, the mother figure.”
“Daddy farmed, came in at 7 or 8 at night, and Granny would see that each of the four children were taking care of their homework. She believed homework always comes before entertainment.”
Her family’s means were modest.
“My daddy’s favorite saying was, ‘Those trees out there are not growing money. Until they do, everybody in this family works.’ He was a very dear, wise man. ... And our lives were never poor.
“Our lives were so rich in so many respects — love, sharing, caring, our faith. All those things are what’s important, are the things that were instilled in us in the early years, much richer than the lives of many friends who were much richer financially than we.
“Dad taught us a strong work ethic,” she adds. “We got up early and milked the cows.”
By her junior year at Appalachian State University, she was married, majoring in home economics, and the Extension Service was recruiting agents.
She went home and told her husband.
He was uninterested.
“We’re not going there,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I’ve already talked to your daddy,” he said, “and he’s told me how your mother was never, never, never at home, so we’re not going to start this. End of conversation.”
It was the end of the conversation — then.
But a few years later, she says, after she graduated and had taught school for a year and spent three years on highways and airplanes, perfecting recipes and writing manuals and training supervisors for Holly Enterprises, she got tired of living out of a suitcase and being gone for six and eight weeks at a time.
“And I decided it was time to come off the road.”
The Extension Service was still there, interested in her, and this time she said yes.
It was 1970. She went to work in Alamance County and stayed 10 years. Then she came to Rowan in 1980 in order to be closer to Taylorsville, so she could see her family more easily. She worked, through those years, in all aspects of home economics — food and nutrition, housing, textile care, financial management and child-care advocacy. And in 1996 she became the first woman in Rowan to be named director.
It’s been a wonderful run.
She has worked hard all her life and enjoyed it, but she doesn’t like to call herself “the boss.”
“I see my role as facilitator to the needs of our staff,” she says. It’s a large staff of 13. Five are agents who deal with 4-H and youth development, family consumer education, horticulture and agriculture, includinglivestock, dairy and crops.
“It’s a program that reaches out to all facets of our public,” she says. “What makes us unique is that the information that we bring and share has a research base that can truly help the family learn, grow, develop.”
And ultimately the hope is they’ll share what they’ve learned with a family member, a friend, a neighbor, and keep the knowledge growing.
But after 30 years, she’s ready for the next venture.
She’ll retire Thursday, and on Monday she’ll be honored with a goodbye reception at the Holiday Inn. Speaking briefly will be County Manager Tim Russell, representatives of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, the Rowan County Extension Advisory Council, the 4-H Pals, Dr. George Hill, who is a special friend and serves on the advisory council, and Dr. Ron Jarrett, district extension director.
Guests will include staff members of the Rowan and North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service offices and personal friends.
But she doesn’t expect to stop working.
“The first six months,” she says, “are mine. I’m going on a couple of cruises in January” to the Bahamas and another she hasn’t chosen yet.
Then she’s going to “do home repair — paint, wallpaper, fix things that need to be fixed, all the things you push back and think, ‘I’ll get to that one day when I have time.’ ”
And she’s considering a couple of job opportunities.
One will let her do interior design, which is a true passion. Her minor in college was architectural design, and her home now is evidence of a brief stint decorating showroom spaces twice a year for the furniture industry.
That let her travel to other countries, particularly Italy, to see what they were making and how they were using it.
“I’m very excited about the new opportunities,” she says. She plans to stay on several boards she now serves on, because she wants to remain active in this community.
“It’s been good to me and I enjoy being here,” she says. Her early marriage ended years ago, “and when you’re single, people assume you’re going to move. But this is home.”
And she wants to stay close to Taylorsville to be near her mother, who’s now in a nursing home.
Besides, who could leave her home?
That’s where Miracle is. Miracle is her elderly Sheltie, whose mother tried to kill him at birth.
Amelia saved his life, and since then he’s expected all her attention. He no longer sees and has selective hearing. It’s often not there, she says, “but if Icall him for a biscuit, he comes real fast.”
And there’s her unusual Korean red maple that she nurtured from a sapling and her magnificent one-of-a-kind tree.
“Nobody can tell me what it is, but I’ve pruned it judiciously,” she says, “and created a living sculpture. I wanted it to have a certain look. It’s large enough that it offers beauty and shade. The limb structure spoke to me.”
It supports her big, beautiful, showy bird feeders and those for her beloved hummingbirds.
“A car hit a hummingbird, and the children in the neighborhood brought it to me to fix it. I put it in a tiny shoebox and then took it to a friend who was able to fix its broken wing.
“I love being in my yard and garden,” she says, looking around. “They’re stress relievers. I designed the rock wall, and you never know how things are going to be next year.”
She doesn’t know how things are going to be next year in a lot of other ways, but she can’t wait to find out.
“My granny always said, ‘Don’t become stagnant.’ ”
Amelia doesn’t intend to. Who knows what lies ahead? And before tomorrow shows up, she’s got so much to do.
|
Today's News