The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1912-05-17
Marie Gomer, Mother Of First Tomato Club For
Girls, Tells Her Story.
By Isma Dooly in Atlanta Constitution.

Ladies and gentlemen, before IH4o
very inspiring conference concludes l
want to introduce to you the organizer
of the first tomato club for girls in
the world" was the dramatic state
ment by Miss Virginia Moore, OF South
Carolina, whose clear womanly voice
has rung through the four walls OF
nearly every little one-room school
house of rural Carolina as we'll as in
the bigger normal schools, and she
led from her chair the rather shrinking
figure Of girl, and presented the little
mother of tomato clubs.
The occasion was one of the many
sab-conferences held under the confer
ence for education in the South in
Nashville, for this particular confer
ence hinged On the human interest
theme of the girls tomato clubs Of
the country, as led by women who for
the past year have organized them in
every agricultural State in the Union.
Miss Moore is director of school i'm
provement work in South Carolina.
DR.. Bradford Knapp of the farm
demonstration department Of the de-
partment of agriculture, had made the
leading address and drawn brilliant
reports from the women of many
States; ne had gone to another meet
ing. 1t was growing late; the group
were beginning to consult their
watches with the knowledge of other
calls, when ''the mother Of tomato
clubs" took the floor She is not near
the height women claim as medium" :"
She does not weigh hundred pounds.
She looks scarcely 18, and when her
voice first broke upon the silence her
introduction commanded it had the
note of weary womanhood blended
with the long Naccentuation children
of the country give the last word of
their sentences.
"Well, if Miss Moore thinks it will
do any good I'll tell my story she
said. Before she had spoken five min
utes pencils slipped from nervous fin
gers, note books were laid aside and
white tissue wells were drawn from
women's faces that they might see as
well as hear. Doctors Of theology, uni
versity presidents, editors of national
note lost themselves in emotional fol-
lowing of the drama of rural life in
terpreted by that heroine of the re-
motest scene in which these dramas
centre the teacher of the rural school.
No Studied Effects.
There was no need for studied ef-
fects; no epigrammatic efforts; no
play to the emotions, but just the in
tensely held thoughts and sentiments
of the speaker as she conscientiously
related facts of the homeliest prob
lens which can be converted into the
most beautiful truths of life.
Her voice grew higher when lost in
her interest in the subject, two red
spots came on her cheeks under black
deep-set eyes and she appealed in her
tones when she brought her audience
with her over muddy roads and rocky
roads to the little barren schoolhouse
or the court house in the rural centre
where she fairly forced the girls of
that community to unite to form a to-
mato club. They did not want tot
did not sound stylish, and she had to
reach out and verify drag their in
terest in, as the circuit rider preacher
does when he faces an Indifferent
flock
81 am Marie samuella Cromer," Miss
Cromer began.
And she thus told her story to me-:
81 had had much experience as a
country school teacher, my first teach
ing done in a little school about four
miles from Abbeville, S. C. 1 was born
in the country. I live in the country !;
I know it's lonesomeness and sleepy
spiritedness. l love the country and
the country people, and 1 made up my
mind was going to do something for
the little girls of the country. I felt
sorry for them; for school was all they
had to go to, and one could not al
ways be telling them of school and
keeping them in school to talk to them
They needed something to keep the
thinking up when school was over and
they went home. It was not bright al
home; it wasn't bright at school, and