Well, folks, here she is!
We announce today the new Household Editor, not to take the place of Faith, but to take up her work.
It has been a long and arduous search, but we feel certain that we have found, right here in the corn belt, of course, a young woman who has the heart for the work, judgement seasoned by a brief but intense period of experience as head of an active farm household, and unusual facility and charm in expression.
And we call her "Hope"--just because it seemed the natural thing to do.
The Applications
But first let us got back. It was on July 17 that Faith Felgar passed away, peacefully, rich in the love of a great throng of devoted readers, in her heart the songs of praise and gratitude that for many years had poured in to her from the four corners of the bread-basket of America. She left a great unfinished work. Somebody must carry it on: somebody must take the vacant place of leadership in a household of willing workers devoted to the common cause of happier and healthier farm homes.
Who?
We didn't have the faintest idea. So we offered the suggestion that there was an opportunity open for some farm mother "endowed with a great love for humanity and a great talent for expression." Even before that announcement appeared many applications had reached us. Afterward they came in a veritable deluge.
And as they piled up before us from day to day, more and more they brought home to us what a wonderful interest there is in this department. No greater tribute to Faith has been paid than these applications. The finest bunch of letters any editor ever read! If there were a dozen misspelled words in the whole lot they escaped our notice. Letters from women widely known: letters from women who had never written a word for publication. Here, we said, is represented the very cream of corn belt womanhood.
But what a problem! How could a choice be made with any assurance that it was the right one? In that we soon found we were not to be without help. Testimonials from all sorts of sources, from members of congress up, poured in. But they could not count for much, except as to character. Few outside our own editorial staff, we felt, were competent to pass on the qualifications necessary to conducting this Household, which is different from any other, and must be kept so.
Our Only Reliance
Thus we carried the problem around with us, almost 24 hours a day, and more and more felt that our reliance must finally rest in our own judgement, faulty as it might be. There was no other way.
There the applications were, more than 400 of them, from twelve different states. Every one received a careful, thoughtful reading. They were read, even between the lines--perhaps too much so! Many sent in clippings of things they had published; many submitted unpublished samples of their writing, most of which will appear in this department during the next few weeks, unidentified as such, of course.
There were personal interviews with some who came to our office and with others who came in the interest of applicants; there were telegrams, registered letters, special delivery letters, photographs, and so on. One thing we want understood. There was no personal influence of any kind, or of the slightest character in connection with the considerations of any applicant. So far as they went we were perfectly cold-blooded, and remained so! The best interests of the department alone ruled.
Her Application
Among all these splendid letters there was one to which we found ourselves turning again and again, for further consideration and study. We can't explain what it was there, something intangible, but whatever it was it appealed to us. It might not have appealed to everybody in the same way. We recognize that. But we thought we found there something of Faith's spirit of service for which we were looking. This applicant asked herself a good many questions, and answered them. For instance:
"'Have I the right experience?' Well, I am a real farmer's wife. I have been married nine years and have three children. We have had the average joys and trials that come to such a life. We have had sickness, disappointments, financial burdens, a fire that destroyed our home. We have had, also much health, happiness and fun; so that we have ample courage to strive along. As a housekeeper and mother I did not start at the point of perfection, nor have I yet attained it. I have made mistakes enough. Heaven knows, to give me charity and sympathy for all the errors under the sun."
There is more than experience in that--something of humility, humor and sympathy. And again:
"'Are my interests broad enough and my sympathies great?' Well, I know I love the country--all its manifold occupations. Its busy-ness as well as its leisure, its limitations and its pathos as well as its virility and its beauty. I can see in it both romance and reality. And I love the people of the country--and of the town. I would use my talents, such as they are, in assembling, organizing and disseminating the facts that riper, wiser, more experienced folk among us might contribute, for the aid of the perplexed and the yearning younger ones seeking help."
And she appreciated Faith. "What we must do is continue her optimism, her tolerance, her humor, her fine response to all beauty, her practical common sense."
We Inquired Further
Well, any way, we inquired further. We found that the applicant and her husband were both college graduates, she in domestic science, he in agriculture. And we found that together they were putting into practice the cream of the things taught them, and evidently doing it successfully.
Just at the moment they are living with his father and mother, awaiting the completion of their new house, replacing the structure that burned to the ground a few months ago.
We aren't going to take space to tell about their farming, or the farm organization and community activities of this enterprising family. We just want to say that they are real farm folks who love the life they are leading and have faith in their business, who have the same problems to meet and the same recreational opportunities of farm folks everywhere. They are not rich and by the same token they are not poor. We would call them simply thrifty and prosperous--typical of the best to be found in American farm life.
Her Name
Our new Household Editor will follow the precedent set by Faith in adopting a pen name, and by it will always be known to most of our readers. Outside of following in Faith's footsteps in the matter, there are practical reasons for it which need not be gone into here. So far as that goes, one name is a good as another--it is the character of the work that counts, and the knowledge that there is back of it an honest and urgent desire to be helpful.
It had to be "Hope," of course, following "Faith." Before it ever occurred to us, that suggestion began to come in, and we add to it "Needham," an old family name of the new editor's tribe. So there it is : "Hope Needham."
An Appeal
Which leads to the suggestion that she is likely to need more than ham, right at the start, if that very crude pun may be permitted. She will need help, and we take this opportunity to ask it for her. Goodness knows, her task is going to be difficult enough. And it really isn't hers alone. All the readers of the department must share in it if the work is to be as successful as it should be. So send in your suggestions, your comments and your criticisms. Write to Hope about anything under the sun. Inquiries will be answered, by her or somebody else, and confidences will be held sacred by her just as they were by Faith.
Tomorrow Hope Needham will make her initial bow. Be kind to her, be helpful, be tolerant--that the usefulness of the department may continue as it was Faith's wish that it should.