The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1960-12-02

them.
From Farms to
Families OH the Farms
When he saw the hard life Of
Currituck farmers in the 192Os
grow harder as the coming depres-
sion of the 1905 cast its shadows
before, he looked for ways to help
these friends and neighbors to help
themselves:
While eating blueberries in
New York restaurant he wondered
if Currituck farmers could raise
and sell them, and financed a study
quickening the growth of the blue
berry industry in the state.
While eating hunting quail in
Georgia he wondered if Currituck
farmers could propagate and re-
lease quail to attract hunters who
would pay them hunting fees, and
helped them push through the Gen.
eral Assembly a bill permitting
neighboring farmers to organize
quail farms and join their lands
in game preserves.
While eating fruits canned and
preserved by choice recipes OF
Currituck housewives, he wondered
if they could put their handiwHrk
into prize packages for market.
and paid The salary of a demonstra
ton agent to help them do it.
While hunting and fishing on
Mackey's Island, he saw price and
crop failures bring Currituck far
mers to the disaster point Of mort
gaging their homes to get supplies
to plant another crop, and helped
them organize the Currituck
Mutual Exchange to finance them
in making and marketing crop.
When he saw that local
bankers were unable or unwilling
to take the credit risks involved
in financing this Exchange, he
furnished hundred thousand dol
lar credit with his bankers in New
York and added his endorsement
to it's notes.
When he saw the farmers in
come sources limited to ducks and
fish and potatoes, he helped them
expand their economic base to in
clude corn, soybeans, hogs, poultry,
and livestock. Everything that
Midas touched turned into gold and
nearly everything that Joseph
Palmer Knapp touched in these
depression days turned into Curri-
tuck.
From Parents to Children
AS he was coming home from
hunting he saw a little group OF
children going home from the
Knott's Island schoolhouse-bright
alert, and responsive, but without
the schooling opportunity of chill
dren in other places he had known
in this and other states, and start
ed out to see if he could help them
get it.
He called on the United States
Bureau of Education for advice, fl
nanced a study of schooling needs
in Currituck County, and in the
years that followed worked with
local leaders in the effort to meet
those needs.
He helped them unite one-teache,
schools into many-teacher schools;
provide transportation for children
to these schooling centers; build
new school buildings and ADJOINING
homes for teachers; add new
courses in home economics voca-
tional guidance, health education
and public school music to the cur
riculum, along with audio-visual
methods of instruction; bring in
more teachers and lengthen the
school term from six months to
nine; furnish free textbooks, free
lunches, free school nurses, and
free health clinics.
He put up money for the school
superintendent to use in helping
parents who could not pay part OF
all of the cost of school book rem
tails, or correct physical defects OF
their children discovered in clinics,
or provide proper clothing for Them
to wear to school.
When local revenues did not go
far enough to provide the needed
buildings and teachers and the nine
months term, the records show him
over and over again making up
the difference 49, sometimes half,
sometimes three-f ourths, some