Dear All: Odd how we all have our likes and dislikes. There's a vegetable I just can't eat -- parsnips. But I don't say not to eat them because I don't like them. We are supposed to drink milk but I can hardly bear to taste it to see if it is sour. That shouldn't keep others from drinking it. I can use it on cereal and in cooking.

Hope, did the quilt get finished or not? I've often wondered. We have had a different sort of winter here in Ohio, cold early, then the rest of the time (so far) warm. I enjoy the letters of the readers' families, also the men's letters.

There is much flu around, some really bad cases. I enjoy the diet letters. I find it hard to reduce but one has to make up her mind, Fat or Food, -- and don't we all like Food. I was on a three-day diet once and really felt wonderful. Should go on again, as you get rid of poison in your system. Don't eat or drink a thing for three days. You can just feel poison going from your system. Then first thing, drink half a glass of warm water and eat very lightly for a few days, then keep on eating the things that are good for you. You will feel wonderful and wonder why you did not try it before. It helps those who have aches and pains to get rid of poison. -- Plank Road, Pennsylvania.

The quilts are well on the way to completion. Guess how many? FIVE! Three are all done, finished in peach, pink and yellow. The last two are being set together with blue and green, I think. Wish we could have a Household party and show them off. My deepest thanks to you all. -- Hope.

Dear Hope and Household: Truth is very vital to every one of us, as has recently been emphasized by the investigation of quiz shows.

We deny Jesus on our calendars by naming the seventh day "Saturday," instead of "Sabbath."

When we call the seventh day "Saturday." With "In God We Trust" on all our coins, we are "speaking lies in hypocrisy," which the Spirit told Paul would occur in the latter times.

It began with Charlemagne; called "The First Christian Emperor." In order to have one religion, he took the name Christian and the sacred day of the Sun-Worshippers, is what histories tell us. Now modern "One Worlders" are trying to get a new world calendar with an 8-day week every year and two in leap years, which would cause the Sabbath and Sunday to wander through the week as the years go by.

According to "The Authentic Jones Report," more than 100 ancient and modern languages have always had the seventh day named "Sabbath." Russia is one of them. So let us all use our influence to get the Sabbath on our calendars with no change in the sequence of days. -- Mary Esther Armstrong, Kewanee, Illinois.

Hope's Suggestion

There have been so many blunders and changes through the ages that who can tell which day is actually the Sabbath? It seems more important for each one to observe a Sabbath according to his beliefs. Prior to Christ's time calendars of a sort were used, and altered from time to time. Julius Caesar, about Christ's time, added a February 29 every four years. Other Caesars named months after themselves and changed the order of the months. Pope Gregory in the 1500's decided the February 29 was getting us too far ahead of the sun, so he decreed that we would drop Leap Year Day in any turn of the century not divisible by four (that is, there was Leap Year in 1600, not in 1700 nor 1800 nor 1900, but there will be one in 2000). Then along about George Washington's time we dropped 11 days and called what had been February 11 February 22. So you see many changes have altered the calendar and the Sabbath may not have kept in the regular pattern all the time. And the way March acted in 1960, it began to look like the old Earth had slipped a cog again and we'd better call March a winter month.

Sunrise and sunset and the cycle of the seasons are natural phenomena, but most of the arrangements concerning time are man-planned for convenience -- our clocks and watches, time zones, time tables and such. Those who talk of changing the calendar are trying only to bring time measurements into enough conformity that the whole world can abide by one system. Maybe there should be no change; maybe the change you mention is not the best one. But there is nothing in any of the plans that would prevent anyone from keeping his Sabbath, that I can see. -- Hope.

Dear Hope and Readers: The letter from "Proverb" of Kansas started me thinking, which had a drastic result, as you will see. Hope, I got all these sayings out of my head! Please use the best, and thanks for printing what you can. I never knew I had such things in my head till I got to thinking. I am an old-timer and remember back to the Gay Nineties, although I am not one of them (younger by 16 to 20 years). I have intended to write for years but needed an incentive to start me, which "Proverb" of Kansas furnished.

I think of you often and hope you are OK and adjusted to your loss. I am a widow of 10 years. I had to realize; I was completely played out running a large farm business, mostly on my own, and health gone. I am living in a nice home in town now but have as my long-time friend this paper every day. I live alone, and make out. The health is the big problem. I often think of your quilts and wonder how you came out with them. I will always love your Household, and this whole paper. -- Sand Cherry of Nebraska Sand Hills.

Before we start on your list of sayings and proverbs, we'll take a little space to report about the quilts. They are all done -- and there were five of them, each one prettier than the other. Each is finished in a different color; they are pink, peach, yellow, blue and green.

Every block that arrived was used, even though some were different sizes and types than were stipulated in the original instructions. There were enough blocks with white background to make one whole quilt; the other four are on unbleached muslin backgrounds. With every block different, it is amazing how beautifully the quilters fitted them all together in harmony.

On the back of one quilt are the names and addresses of all those who contributed toward the expense of finishing instead of making blocks. Whether satisfactory pictures can be made of the quilts we don't know yet. To show up well, they would need to be in color and that would be expensive and impossible to print in the paper. But possibly if we can get good color pictures, we might be able to have them enlarged and display a set at the International or at some of the big fairs. To display the quilts themselves would be more satisfactory, but what a lot of room that would take!

These quilts are more deeply appreciated than words can express. They will be a comfort and a treasure always. They would be that just as objects of art, but think how much more is involved when every block is a distinctive personality, reminding me of our mutual interests through the years, our discussions (disagreements as well as agreements), our exchanges of helps and ideas, our families with all the problems of child training and sewing and mending and cooking and making ends meet, our community activities and keeping up with changing times. So few of us have actually met one another, or even seen one another's photographs, yet how intimately our lives have intertwined.

I thank you all, from my heart, and hope that many of you will get to see the quilts. But if you never do, you can still see them in your mind's eye, the only way in which most of us know each other. Maybe the quilts and we ourselves show up better that way. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

Old gardeners never die, they just spade away.

The finest Christmas message we can bring you is news of the arrival of a new grandchild, the thirteenth. We suggested to the young mother that she might avoid the adverse number by having twins, but she claimed she wasn't THAT superstitious. So now we have Victoria Hope in the family, young sister to Cynthia Jo of whom we told you last year.

Joe, you remember, was our tagalong postscript baby, seven years younger than the preceding one (Ruth, Wilbert and Ernest Vail having come close together). Joe finished his Army service, then his interrupted college career, before he married Carolyn. It logically follows that we have a tagalong postscript family of grandchildren, and what a joy it is to break out the baby bed and high chair from storage in the attic for another round of happy infants.

All but Ruth's family, who live in Connecticut, were together for Thanksgiving, and Cynthia, such a good little girl, fairly beamed with contentment as she trotted about in a big house all day, surrounded by what must have seemed to her a multitude of loving relatives, while the new baby demonstrated her charming disposition by sleeping so well that we almost forget she was there except at feeding time.

Among the grandchildren there is one name-sake for Jim. Wilbert and Betty called a son James Michael. And there are two for me. Ruth gave her daughter my real given name, and now Carolyn has given hers my pen-name. That is appropriate, because Carolyn was a journalist herself and is probably more impressed by me as a columnist than as a mere mother.

Both the names she chose are especially touching to me. Hope because of the rich associations through the years with all of you, as well as because of the look to the future which it implies. Victoria because it symbolizes victory of youth over age, light over darkness, life over death, and stillness over grief.

The best of Christmases to you all. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more. -- James Stephens.

Memory Gem

And so I hold it is not treason
To advance a simple reason
For the sorry lack of progress we decry.
It is this: instead of working
On himself, each man is shirking
And trying to reform some other guy.

After 17 days' hospitalization for pneumonia, your editor is convalescing at her son's home for a few days. To the members of my family, the editor of the paper and all the people who rose to the emergency and compiled the installments which have appeared here since the day after Christmas, I am most grateful. It is not easy to take hold of an unfamiliar job and carry it through without any help or advice from the one who usually does it. So I will especially appreciate forbearance on the part of all you readers if any mistakes or delays have occurred during this interim. With cooperation all around, soon we will be back in the same old comfortable jogtrot together. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.

The response to the Flowers for the Living project, as announced in the Jan. 16 issue of The Drovers Journal, has been heart-warming. Readers who have sent in contributions for the fund to build a church in Africa in Hope Needham's name have been high in their praise of Hope for her many years of fine service. Many have read the paper continuously during the 37 years she has edited the Household column. All seemed to voice the same opinion: "Building a church in Africa is a wonderful way to honor our Hope and still influence others to God instead of communism."

In the first week after the project was announced, a total of 216 letters containing $464.75 toward the project were received. We are well on the way to our $1,400 goal. Thank you for your notes, your contributions and your encouragement. The project will be continued until the full sum is raised. -- Lucy Bonnett, chairman of the Flowers for the Living committee, Prairie City, Illinois.

At the end of the third week, the total of contributions from Household department readers had reached $1,020.50, reports Lucy Bonnett, Prairie City, Ill., who is serving as chairman of the committee. This sum had been received in 378 letters from readers. This left a balance of $379.50 yet to be raised for completion of the project.

The money is being given voluntarily by readers who wish to have a part in building a church in Africa in Hope Needham's name. Hope has been editor of the Household column for 37 years and readers felt a project of this kind would honor her and serve to influence under-privileged people to seek God instead of Communism. The goal is $1,400, to be raised entirely by voluntary contributions of any amount from readers of the Household column.

A progress report from Lucy Bonnett, Prairie City, Ill., who is serving as secretary-treasurer of the Flowers for the Living project (to construct a church in Africa as a memorial to Household Editor Hope Needham), indicates the fund collection is nearing its goal. At latest count, a total of $1,258.76 had been contributed voluntarily by Household department readers of this paper, which leaves only $141.25 to go to make the $1,400 goal. A total of 465 letters brought the contributions.

Mrs. Bonnett probably will not make another report soon, as she has taken up temporary residence in Rochester, Minn., to be near her husband, who underwent brain surgery in Saint Marys hospital on Feb. 27. She is temporarily living at 1307 SW 2nd St. in Rochester. Upon returning to her home, she'll make another report on the chapel fund project.

Dear Hope: Following the appearance of the letter by "Iowa Rose," in which she asked when the first Household column was printed, one of the staff members in the Chicago office, C. J. Weyker, dug into the dusty files to find the answer. He did not learn the date of the first Household column because in the earlier days these publications were not united under one corporate ownership and therefore there was considerable variance in the women's column. But he did set down some dates which I believe will interest many readers.

The files reveal that Faith Felgar became editor of this column (which was then called Hearth and Home) on October 11, 1901. Her predecessor was Dorothy Dee in the Chicago paper, but other women edited the women's columns in our other papers. The column appeared only one day each week in 1901.

Faith Felgar died July 17, 1925, from heart failure. She had gone into a hospital in Burlington, Iowa, for a few days' rest on the advice of her physician. Her real name was Mrs. George H. Kepper. She was the wife of a successful and extensive livestock farmer near Winfield, in Louisa county, southeast Iowa, the community which had been her home from childhood on. She edited the column for 24 years and the numbered installments which appeared under her name totaled nearly 5,500.

The first installment of Household under the present editor, Hope Needham, appeared August 18, 1925. Today's installment is the 11,237th which Hope has edited since that day. Quite a record! -- Allan W. McGhee, editorial director, The Corn Belt Farm Dailies.

This is written on the day of President Kennedy's funeral, though it will be much later when you read it. By then other developments may have occurred, but these are the thoughts that flood in now.

The hurly-burly of daily politics may have blurred temporarily a comprehension of what a truly great man we had in the White House. He was a man of many gifts; he had looks, charm, strength, intelligence, education and experience. He was sensitive to all the arts and sciences, especially literature, and was a magnificent writer (having won the Pulitzer prize for his "Profiles in Courage"), and an eloquent speaker, and a decisive politician. The whole course of his life had prepared him for the highest office in our land, and for international leadership.

But what comes to mind most keenly is how much this man endured. He had suffered to a degree that most of us never have to face. He lost his gallant older brother in the war, and a sister in a plane crash; so he knew what sudden death could mean. His father suffered a crippling stroke; so he had faced having an exceptionally competent parent become an invalid. A sister was mentally retarded; so he knew what that cross can be to a family. He went through the war in some of its ugliest phases. He didn't lose his life but almost did, and came out of the experience with a back injury that plagued him the rest of his life; so he knew what it is to endure continuous pain, and keep going.

Soon after his marriage he had such a recurrence of this trouble that his life was despaired of. Twice his wife has gone through the emotional crisis of losing him, -- once when he lingered so long at the painful brink but came back, and now when the end came without an instant's warning. He, in turn, went through the possibility of losing her, when her life hung by a thread at the birth of her son John, right after the nomination. And just last summer, they lost their baby; so he knew what it was to lose a child.

Is it any wonder that we, who have suffered only one or two or three of his afflictions, all feel kin to such a man? Or that he was so richly compassionate?

On a sunny day in Dallas, with hundreds of affectionate citizens around him, he was struck down. One minute he was smiling in the exhilaration of his welcome, the next he was unconscious, never to be aware of his surroundings again. Killed, not for some glorious principle, but to appease the petulance of a self-centered aberrant, who, it is believed, with a cheap gun used his only talent, sharp-shooting, in an evil way. Like most fanatics, he demanded rights for himself but utterly disregarded everyone else's. After flaunting his infidelity to our country, here and in Russia, he demanded that authorities change his discharge he had earned in the Marines from an undesirable to an honorable one. When they refused, he warned them that nothing would deter him from getting even. He got even, the evidence seems to say, by killing a President, and a policeman, and trying to kill a Governor and another officer.

Governor Connally had been Secretary of the Navy when the assassin made his appeal for the change, and the President would have been the last resort. Here he had both men in the same car, in a town with which he was ____, with time to lay his plans. What matter that the undesirable discharge was exactly what he had earned? If he wanted it changed and trampled on, and that he would not endure. He had guns, he had the parade route, he had a job in the very building most suitable for his purpose, and he had the skill. Not a thought for what his act would mean to his own family, nor the policeman's, nor the Governor's, nor the President's, not a thought for the complications his act would bring to the country and to the world. He got even!

Illustrating how oblivious to all but himself such an egoist can be, he called out to reporters (he who had killed two men within an hour!) that he hadn't been allowed a shower. As though the shattering of lives for which he was responsible was nothing in comparison with his personal comfort. When a reporter asked how he got a black eye, he answered with malice, "A policeman hit me." Not a word about his holding a gun on the officer at the time and only being prevented from killing him by an accidental misfire. He actually asked for some one to come forth and defend him. His smattering of communism had so puffed up his personality that he seemed to think people should rush in and hold the arms of officers while he shot them, rather than let HIM be hurt.

He got even! But before he had time to savor his triumph, before he could even tell his story, before he could realize the enormity of his deed, or repent, he was himself shot down and killed by a mercurial individual just as unreasonable as himself, though with a more unselfish motive. Apparently crazed by grief and rage at the assassination, this man fired once, and one more man lay dead without a chance to defend himself.

Haven't we all at some time, in childhood or later, experienced such a revulsion at a cruelty or injustice, such a surge toward revenge, that only circumstances saved us from rash and violent action? Many a one has only been restrained by lack of opportunity, so that he had time to calm down and let law and order take over. In this case, right at the apex of powerful emotion, circumstances were set up as though to order. The inflamed man had a pistol, he and the assassin were only a leap apart, and so the deed was done. Some say, "He got just what he deserved," -- but he deserved a trial and we deserved a chance to find out why and how he did what he did.

The Golden Rule does not say, do unto others as they have done unto you. Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.

So the world halted for four days, because of this bizarre sequence of events, this unnecessary, unreasonable and inexplicable tragedy. A little learning is a dangerous thing, and this assassin had learned just enough of communism to bolster his naturally warped selfishness. He might just as easily been corrupted by some of the venomous distortions from the extreme right, and the result could have been the same. There has been too much poison spread by both kinds of extremists. It is to be hoped that all kinds of them will be shocked into reality by what has happened. Some intellectuals play around with venomous words just to vent their spite, but when such words impinge on certain unstable characters, words aren't enough; the reaction is irrational physical violence. Those who are intelligent enough to draw up the perverted slanders against persons and even against our government, all in the name of patriotism, are smart enough to know how dangerous their game is. But it seems the longer they steep themselves in hate, the less they are able to see the truth. Every citizen must try to break down his prejudices, so the country can follow a steady and reasonable path, -- with malice toward none.

If Mr. Kennedy had been permitted to finish out his term, very likely some real progress might have been made toward a stable world. As it is, these three years will shine like a jewel in our country's history. We will remember a loving family, beautiful, vibrant, young, imaginative and gay, acquainted with trouble but valiant in meeting it, devoted to their country, intensely aware of the great sweep of history, aglow with visions of humanity going forward, in our time, toward a new heaven and a new earth.

Hard and cruel as it is, this tragedy will possibly bring about some good. Perhaps its dramatic intensity will stab us all awake, -- the extremists, the selfish, the indifferent, the thoughtless and all, -- so that we will pull together for a while with more loving-kindness. The new President is a fine and good man, well trained in government, intimate with current affairs, skilled as a conciliator, and above all, greatly enriched in his philosophy of life by his close association with his predecessor.

Maybe some good will come. But for the moment we can only grieve. A rabbi in Chicago used as a text for a eulogy a part of David's lament for his friend Jonathan:

"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan lies slain upon the high places.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan.

Very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was wonderful."

In spite of the mourning, our Government will go on. "Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken." -- Hope.

Two subjects are taboo in this column, politics and religion because they are emotional, controversial and unresolvable. Sometimes it is hard to draw the exact line between these subjects and other phases of life. We do the best we can. This prelude is to explain that nothing in today's installment is intended to be political. It is basic personal philosophy.

What we wrote here recently about our national tragedy came truly from the heart. The death of the president was so intensely personal that it was like going through the family griefs all over again. Many Americans apparently felt the same way, as was clear from letters which came to this desk. But one letter was contrary to the general opinion and challenged us to answer, -- as though we had been insincere, or misinformed.

First, here is a sampling of responses which felt the shock the same way I did.

*   *   *

Dear Hope: I want to congratulate you on that wonderful article about our late President. I read it over and over. The world is so sad.

We have three children and seven grandchildren. We still live on the farm. I read the Household and pass it on to my mother. Keep up the good work. -- Mary E. Jones, Illinois.

Dear Hope: Your Household column is always splendid but we have just read your tribute to our late President Kennedy and feel it should be read by every one. It is wonderful. Thank you for giving us such an inspiration, even out of a terrible tragedy. -- Mr. and Mrs. Claude Canaday, Nebraska.

Dear Mrs. Needham: I have read a great many learned editorials on the death of our President but none of them equaled yours in depth and insight. I wish it could be published in some leading American magazine. It should be given wider publicity than just here in your column in the Midwest.

Since I do not have nor want TV, and the radio makes me nervous if I leave it on more than a few minutes, you gave a few facts regarding the tragedy and the life of Mr. Kennedy that I had never heard before. I just had to take time to tell you how sincerely I appreciate your talent and your gift of words.

My one gift seems to be health. In my 83d year now, I do a great deal of hard manual labor, then a little brain work at night. Sold a short story in November. I am well and happy. My children are all doing well. They had to make their own way. I'm always glad when you mention your family in the column. -- Pearl Chenoweth, Kansas.

*   *   *

And now for the letter which was so shockingly different.

Dear Hope: I just read what I would call your "Sob Special" on the late President JFK. As a 78-year-old farmer I was really surprised at your stand on this man. He is no different from the last four presidents. All you have to do to find out what people in public office or other positions stand for is read what they write and what they say in public, and you have it right before you with their names signed to it.

Maybe JFK was a sincere man, but he and "Yes-Man Ike" ordered troops with bayonets into a sovereign state just to get one or two Negroes into a school where they were not welcome and Gen. Edwin Walker said it was the worst unconstitutional, cowardly, disgraceful duty he was ever assigned to in his military life. What kind of men have we had as presidents that will do a thing of this kind but take no action against a small island just 90 miles from our shore?

Also, JFK supported the UN, and any good, honest American will say the UN is the worst enemy our country ever had, because its charter is 100 per cent communist. We hear of Ike as a great war hero, though he never heard a shot fired on a battle field in his life, but you never hear any praise for such men as McArthur, Van Fleet and Patton, because they are all against this socialist government we have had for 30 years.

When you condemn anyone who will take an honest stand against our socialist government as a a "right wing extremist", just remember it is still one great privilege in this great God-given nation of ours to say what you think, but if the socialist state department which JFK supported could have their own way, you would write what you are told to write or you would not do any writing.

Please do not take time to read the printed article enclosed. As to answering this letter, that is strictly up to you, Hope, for I think I have your answer right here before me. -- Chas. Howell, Illinois.

The pounds and pounds of printed matter which reach this desk daily do not indicate any suppression of free speech. Your letters and the printed article interested me greatly but amazed me by their bitterness and cynicism. Any man who is elected president of my country becomes my president, and he gets all my loyalty and trust. I honor all our presidents, but JFK seemed to me one of the greatest, the American ideal, a modern "universal man", with his native ability, his training, his wide sweep of interests and talents, his compassion. He brought fresh vigor and vitality to a world that was tangled in difficulties. Maybe his impact was greater on me because he came to office when death and loneliness had thrust me into a slough of despond. His inauguration address brought the first flicker of interest in taking up life again. If any person thinks that presidents, congressmen, judges and military are as evil as your letter and the article imply, why would he care to go on living?

In the printed article this mis-statement was especially startling: "The death of President Kennedy was plotted and accomplished by a confessed communist who was under the orders and subject to the discipline of Fidel Castro's conspiratorial murder-bund." Yet the FBI concluded after their investigation that Oswald, the accused assassin, was a loner, an erratic, unstable individual who never submitted to anyone's discipline and who was not even accepted by either Khruschev's or Castro's communists as a person they could trust.

The printed article continued with a congressman's astonishingly critical statements about almost everything and everybody in the U. S. A. But J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI says: "Our best offensive against crime, subversion, intolerance and all enemies of America's heritage of freedom is brotherhood, . . . built upon a solid foundation of mutual trust, understanding and faith in God."

The military moved into Little Rock and into Alabama and Mississippi, on order of the President, not to push unwelcome students into schools but to uphold the integrity of our courts. A governor has no more right than any other citizen to defy a Supreme Court order. We are all under the same law.

As to the UN, it seems to me a great and good idea, one which is doing as well as could be expected, being a new experiment after centuries of war. It may prove to be the salvation of humanity.

At the end of the printed article there is a sort of a questionnaire, which implies that anyone who is "for" certain phrases is wrong and that anyone who is "against" them is right. The phrases are short and explicit, convenient to use, but each includes a great deal, and all refer to problems which are debatable -- not attitudes where all the "bad guys" are for and all "good guys" against.

One of the phrases is "foreign aid." That covers a good deal, but most of us have a general idea of what is meant. No one would say it has been handled perfectly; but neither is it all bad. It can be, has been, should be and will be modified and improved. In due time it may be reduced and even done away with. But for its time, in the aftermath of war, it provided safety and healing for the civilized world. The "test-ban treaty" is another phrase surely it cannot be all bad if our nation and about 110 other agree that it is a good step forward -- not a big step but in the right direction.

The "sale of wheat" is another of the phrases. This, too, is debatable, but neither the one who is for nor the one who is against is a villain. Maybe it is better not to sell, but maybe it is better to sell, with proper safeguards as to payment, than to continue to pay storage on it until it spoils.

And as to "medical care" through "social security"; If the 535 elected representatives of our citizens in the halls of Congress decide that is a good way to look after our aged indigent, that is all right with me. I don't need help myself but many do, and a national plan seems logical. But if Congress decides against it, surely other methods will be developed.

As to the tenure of the President we got along for about 150 years without spelling out a definite limit. Whenever the people want a man to run for more than two terms, why should they not be free to vote that way, just as they are free to vote a man out at the end of one term if they prefer? Government of necessity moves slowly because of its very size and complexity. One term is hardly enough for an administration to complete its task. That is why the people have almost always given a second term to a president.

In regard to the president's treaty-making powers, the constitutional arrangement has worked so far. Why complicate procedures now? Is the idea to forbid treaties altogether, to limit them some way by statue, to put treaty-making into the hands of Congress or of the governors of separate states, or what? The present method seems efficient and practical, with the president negotiating treaties and sealing them with the consent of the Senate.

Speaking of Congress, many people picture that body as two armed camps facing each other, bristling and threatening. That is because the occasional dramatic clashes are what get into the news. For the most part they are a quiet group of gentlemen reasoning together, compromising, adjusting, accomodating, negotiating and finally deciding by majority vote the rules by which this vast and complicated country will run.

We can not maintain our nation on distrust, bitterness and cynicism. We can't just be against propositions. We need to take positive steps to meet challenging new situations, as science changes our world and population expands. Universal literacy will help, as will the eradication of disease and hunger. Maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but it seems to me that most of our citizens, including officials, are honest, well-meaning and reasonable; that the executive, legislative and judicial branches, on balance, are doing the best they can with complex problems, and that their best is probably better than many of their critics could do.

It is well for all of us to learn about all sides of any proposal, but the learning should be in the form of analysis and debate rather than name-calling and castigation. It should be the aim of each individual to help

[typist note: ended without a period or Hope's signature. not sure the whole text was included.]

Memory Gem

Only man, among living things, says prayers. Or needs to. -- Peter Bownan. (Sent by Heidi of Wisconsin)

A progress report has arrived from the pastor of the Messama church in Rio Muni, West Africa, where the Chapel of Hope is to be erected. This is the chapel for which you readers contributed some $1,500 in the spring of 1963, under the leadership of Lucy Bonnett and "Busy Gopher" of Minnesota.

The pastor says:

"Things do not move fast in Africa... So far there are 2,000 building blocks made, plus several truckloads of sand and rocks hauled to the site. The church members have also gotten together $500 of their own, which is a very large sum in an economy where the average yearly cash income is under $60. They are very sturdy and self-reliant people. Your gift was most generous and our people are deeply grateful.

"We hope things will move along more swiftly now. We are currently in need of a mason to start pouring the foundation. So far the available ones are not willing to come and spend a long period of time in a small village so out of the way.

"We will try to send you some snapshots of the site and the accumulated materials. -- Roy P. Strange, Pastor of Messama Church, Rio Muni, West Africa."

To us, in the midst of machinery and facilities, it sounds odd to speak of "a long period of time" to pour a foundation. We need to go back in imagination to the days when our farms and villages were being established, and think how much slower it was then to collect materials and perform the work. In Rio Muni a lot of time and patience takes the place of a lot of money. The Chapel will mean more to them than if some philanthropist had come in and built it for them overnight. They can savor the joy of watching it grow under their own efforts. -- Hope.

Reading newspapers nowadays inclines one to feel gloomy. Everywhere you go, in any meeting or convention, there is likely to be someone who adds to the depression by pointing out how evil times are here in America. It didn't help when I picked up a magazine and, thumbing through it, came on this:

"It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years, not in the lifetime of most men who read this paper, has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In France the political caldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty; Russia hangs as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent upon the horizons of Europe; while all the energies, and resources and influences of the British Empire are sorely tried.

"It is a solemn moment and no man can feel an indifference, which happily no man pretends to feel, in the issue of events. Of our troubles no man sees the end."

I almost felt that the best solution was for the countries which have the nuclear bombs to fire them off all at once and get it over with. I thought this was a reprint of a newspaper editorial, or of a political speech by some candidate in the 1964 election. Then I noticed it was a quotation -- from Harper's Weekly for October 10, 1857!

What in the world did they have to worry about THEN?

Right afterward, it was time to prepare the Sunday School lesson, a study of the book Deuteronomy. This lesson covered the Reformation under King Josiah, a Hebrew king in the seventh century B. C., at the time when the old book of law which we call Deuteronomy was found beneath the alter, after having been lost so long it had been nearly forgotten. The first sentence of the lesson went this way:

"The second half of the seventh century B. C. was a period of international crisis in the ancient Near East. It was a time when the very foundations of civilization were being shaken. . . There was incipient chaos in every direction. The Assyrian Empire was coming apart at the seams and with it what little order the world had known. The barbarian Cimmerians and Scythians were threatening to destroy civilization with their attacks from the north and east. As the Assyrians lay dying, other nations were jockeying for power. The Babylonians were attempting to assert their control over the Near East, while the Pharaoh was leading his soldiers forth into the world arena in an effort to re-establish the glory that Egypt had known in former times. Everywhere there were wars and rumors of wars as nation rose up against nation . . . Chaos threatening to engulf the world."

That was seven centuries before Christ, and now, nearly 2,700 years later, there is trouble again, or yet, in the Middle East: Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and all those countries. To say nothing of Asia -- Viet Nam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Still, the world has not yet been engulfed by chaos! It's in a mess, to be sure, and in a mess which holds its own with any mess through the ages. But still, there has been progress in many ways and there are good aspects to our civilization.

Nothing did so much to dispel despair as the re-broadcast of the inaugural address of our young martyred President. Those confident, vigorous tones re-lit the flame of hope and determination, when he outlined all the problems ahead of us. "We do not shrink from them, we welcome them," he said. "It will not be done in the first 100 days, nor in the first 1,000 days, nor perhaps in our lifetime on this planet -- but let us begin!"

There was the stab of pain, realizing that his lifetime ended so needlessly with the thousand days, but at the same time there was resurgence of dedication to what he aimed to do. It may be that, in his memory, the impact of his tragic, youthful death will spur us on to heights we had not dreamed of. -- Hope.

Apartado 195, Bata
Rio Muni, West Africa

Mrs. Lucy Bonnett
Prairie City, Illinois

Dear Mrs. Bonnett:

I have just returned (Dec. 9) from the final large gathering of Christians at Messama for this year. There are three centers at which these people worship regularly; three times a year they come together at the church at Messama for Bible Study, business meetings, and communion following the Sunday morning worship service. I was encouraged at the progress made on the church building. There have been over 2,000 cement blocks for the walls made by hand with a wooden mold in the last six months. This is very good. The elders asked me to haul some sand in the back of my little pickup while there, so that the block making could continue. Unfortunately, the pictures that I mentioned to you in June were lost en route to the processor for three months. I am expecting them to arrive any day now so that I can send you prints, trusting they turn out, of course.

This area near Messama is a fruitful field for our church's labors. The government suppressed the Protestant faith for quite a while. Until then there had been numerous little chapels. When most of them were burned or closed, many church members drifted away from their faith in fear of reprisal from the government. These days, things are opening up again and former church members are surprised to find that the church has continued in other areas and is calling them back into fellowship. This area is one of our two areas for concentrated evangelistic effort in the next few years.

With best wishes to you and the readers who are interested in news of the Messama chapel, I am Very sincerely yours, Roy P. Strange, Pastor.

Just as a race usually winds up with a little canter after the finish line is crossed, let us wind up this last week of 1964 with a gentle interlude as an old era ends and a new one begins. Yes, the time has come for Hope to step aside and leave the Household in the hands of the younger generation.

Not that there is any emergency or commotion. For once let us enjoy a transition that is natural and pleasant. The years that I have been at the helm have been long and arduous, and rewarding. But the years have taken their toll of strength and enthusiasm, and it is well for some one else to take the responsibility.

I started in the summer of 1926, with scant warning and preparation, after the previous editor, Faith Felgar, died unexpectedly. At that time I was a young mother with a lapful of babies, just like many of the readers. How few who were with us then are probably among us now! There were three little ones at our house then, seven, five and four years. Three years later there was another, whom we referred to in the column as the "Postscript," or "Tag-along." Now those four children are all in homes of their own and there are 15 grandchildren, ranging in age from 24 years down to 3 months.

That's quite a range. The war was partly responsible. It happened like this: Only Daughter, our oldest, married straight out of college, and had her three children before the sons ever married. First Son started college the year after Daughter finished, and went into the Army immediately thereafter. Second Son finished college the next year and went into the Navy. When the war was over, both came back and got their Master's degrees before they married. By that time Third Son started college, broke off in the middle of his Army service during the Korean conflict (though he happened to be sent to Germany), and then he came back and finished school before he married. So Daughter's oldest child is now out of school and embarked on her career in New York City, Daughter's other two, and the eight children of Sons One and Two are scattered through college, high school and grades; while Third Son has four little pre-school girls.

If children and grandchildren keep one young, we would be young for a long time. But the death, without warning, of Husband in 1959 and of Daughter in 1962 took much of the zest out of life.

Of course many quiet pleasures remain, and many blessings. And bereavement, with all its weight of sorrow, does enlighten life, so that sympathies are tenderer and judgments gentler.

But for the leader of the Household you need some one to carry on with more relish and ebullience and cheer than Hope can bring to the job any more. You need the stimulation of keeping up with the times, examining new developments in our way of life. So, with appreciation of what the column has meant to me these many years, and with gratitude to all of you for helping make it what it is, I am bowing out. But for the next few days, till the Old Year becomes the New, let us reminisce together a bit. -- Sincerely, Hope Needham.

The Household, one of the most popular features of this paper, marks the end of an era this week. Hope Needham, who has edited the column for the past 38 1/2 years and brought it to its present popularity, will say her final good-bye to her thousands of readers as the old year ends.

Undoubtedly her goodbye is said with mixed emotions. "Hope Needham," who is actually Mrs. James V. (Lucile) Stevenson, of rural Streator, Ill., has lived with the problems, the joys, the sorrows of her thousands of readers for so many years that it is impossible she will not miss the daily flow of letters over her desk.

While, in her own words, editing of a column "is a lot more fun than digging ditches," it can become a task too. A newspaper is a hungry demon that devours copy day after day. If the editor of a column feels down in the dumps, gets the flu, or loses a loved one, the column must still go on.

For some time Mrs. Stevenson has felt she would like to unburden herself of the Household column chores, much as it, and its many friendships, have meant to her. Recently she urgently requested that a successor be chosen so that she could wind up her editorship of the column by the end of the year. Quite reluctantly, the editor agreed to her request.

"Hope," as she will undoubtedly continue to be known by the great bulk of her admirers, is reflecting on her years as the Household editor in her own column this week. A really complete resume, of course, would fill volumes. It is a bit startling to realize all the history that has been written since Lindbergh flew to Paris in his Spirit of St. Louis, and then to realize that Hope's editorship outdated that flight nearly a year.

Mrs. Stevenson took over the Household editorship after the death of Faith Felgar, the original editor of the column. In her more than 38 years at the Household helm, the column has attracted thousands of contributors, who poured in letters with their ideas, their doubts, their criticisms, their praise. Only a newspaper editor can really appreciate how well she handled her assignment, which is something like baking a cake. A little too much of this ingredient, not quite enough of that, and you could have a poor-eating cake, an uninteresting column.

Hope has seen the passing of many faithful and well-known contributors, too. Just this year marked the passing of "Old Sincerity," one of the column's "regulars" for many years.

One of the notable expressions of appreciation of Hope's work came in 1963 when considerable secret communications among Household readers were inaugurated by Lucy Bonnett, Prairie City, Ill., to give Hope her biggest surprise party. The culmination was the presentation of a check to Hope for a charity close to her heart, the establishment of a mission in Rio Muni in Equatorial Africa. The project among the Householders was given the title "Flowers for the Living." Building of the mission is in the preliminary stages.

Hope's tribute to the late President Kennedy shortly after his untimely assassination a little over a year ago, not only was a prime example of her ability to put words together, but was a tribute that could only come from one with her compassion for her fellow men and her understanding of what is in their hearts.

Her few short lines in Friday's column is her official goodbye, but her Household editorship will be remembered long after that issue is gone and forgotten.

A successor to Hope has been named and already is at work on the columns for the new year. Her first column will appear in the January 5 issue.

Memory Gem

Life is sweet because of friends we have made,
And the things which in common we share.
We want to live on, not because of ourselves,
But because of the people who care.
It's in giving and doing for somebody else --
On that all life's splendor depends,
And the joys of this life, when you've summed it all up,
Are found in the making of friends.

-- Grace Walter Clarke.

What a lot of changes in rural life since I took the helm!

Of course back in 1926, when I began editing this column, we were far from pioneer days, we thought we were extremely modern, but there was still much hard work connected with farming, and each farm was in general self sufficient. For better or worse, times have changed a lot, with the trend toward specialization.

We didn't have electricity on the farm in those days except for a few private farm plants and a few wind-chargers in states where the wind blew hard enough to turn the mill. Each farm had its cows, pigs, chickens, garden and orchard. A few horses were still used, "powered" by oats raised on the farm, but tractors were coming in and we were beginning to mesh with the rest of the business world, paying cash for gasoline and other things we needed.

I remember my grandfather telling that his family and all the neighbors lived well, as far as food and comfort were concerned, but the hardest thing of all was to raise $84 cash during the year to pay on the mortgage! There was a man in the community I married into, a man who owned half the township practically, who invested money about 1914 in, of all things, a farm tractor factory. The way the use of farm machinery skyrocketed from then on should have made him a millionaire -- but he happened to invest in the wrong make, and he lost all his property except homestead rights to five acres which were salvaged for his only son. For most farmers machinery really came in, more and larger and more efficient. Tractors, plows, hoes and disks, cornpickers and combines, always getting bigger and better, with rubber tires and extra comforts, by this year many harvested corn with gleaners that husked and shelled right in the field.

Electricity came in the early thirties and revolutionized farm life, indoors and out, with lights, heat, power wherever it was wanted. We relinquished many farm facets to specialists. We began to buy, instead of to produce, milk and bread and butter, vegetables and fruit. Gardening fell off. Vegetable production, year round, was left to the sunny Southwest; orchards, chickens and dairies were given up to other specialists. Home economics came into its own, with extension and 4-H helping spread new ways of living and doing. We gave up making soap and bought detergents. We canned with the boiler, then with pressure canner, and finally took to freezing food. We used to have threshing rings, but now each farm combines its own oats and harvests its own corn, with machinery that gets bigger and better.

The one-room schools, which had so many advantages and so many discomforts, have been replaced by consolidated schools, with their different advantages and discomforts. There is still room for improvement, but in one way or another, the children get their education.

All in all, it has been an era of marvelous changes. I wonder if every era has seemed like that to the people who lived at that time?

I remember my grandmother telling about the first matches and what a wonder they were. Up to then, a family had to take good care their fire never went out, and sometimes, if it did, they had to go to a  neighbor's and carry home a shovel full of live coals. Matches to be lighted when and where you wanted light or heat must have seemed a miracle. And think of what luxury piped-in gas lights must have seemed, after kerosene lamps; and electric lights after that -- all you wanted of them wherever you wanted! And running water, one of the greatest boons of all, was made possible by electricity.

Years of growth and change i farm life, those years from 1926 to 1964. -- Hope Needham.

It was not only in farm life but in the whole world that we saw change during this "Hope Needham era" we're talking about this week. Electricity revolutionized our whole way of life, and now the electronics industry is performing still more wonders. It seems that no age could possibly have seen so much progress in so short a time. With our color TV and transistor radios, does anyone remember the wonder of the old crystal set? Then the progress to the battery radio? We still have marks on the floors where the acid leaked. And the first all-electric radio -- followed so soon by the incredible TV?

I started with Household in August, 1926. Within a year (April, 1927) Lindbergh made the first flight over the Atlantic. We were as excited about that as we were recently when everyone breathlessly watches the launchings of men into space, to orbit the earth.

At this moment we have a vehicle on its way to Mars, and are calm enough about it. We have come to expect wonders as a way of life.

What a pity that we can't be as successful in improving human beings so there will be less crime and murder and war. We seem to be much slower in correcting human emotions than in building machinery. But even in that line we have made more progress than we sometimes think.

Take the Negro question: Results seem slow in coming, but it is something to have the whole nation aware at last of the smoldering resentment of a century or more among that under-privileged part of the poulation. So many of us lived almost a lifetime unaware of the strength and power of that resentment. Progress is slow, to be sure, but truly I believe that it is real and will last. -- Hope Needham.

Friends

When you get on and you've lived a long time
And the walk up stairs is a mighty high climb,
Though your eyes are dimmer than what they were
And the page of a book has a misty blur,
Strange as the case may seem to be,
Then is the time you will clearly see.

Often the blindest are youthful eyes,
For age must come ere a man grows wise,
And youth makes much of the mountain peaks,
And the strife for fame and the goal it seeks,
But age sits down with the setting sun
And smiles at the boastful deed it's done.

You'll see, as always an old man sees,
That the waves die down with the fading breeze,
That the pomps of life never last for long,
And the great sink back to the common throng,
And you'll understand when the struggle ends,
That the finest gifts of this life are friends.

-- Author unknown

Hard to Leave

It's kind of tough to have to leave
So many folks you've learned to know,
And have them grip your hand and tell
How much they hate to see you go!
It's kind of tough to say goodbye
To friends you've seen day after day --
It's hard to break the happy bonds
Of comradeship and move away.

But say! It's great to find new friends
Just waiting for a chance to show
Yow glad they are to have you come
And live with them! It's great to know
That folks are just about the same
No matter where you chance to roam,
And if you let them have their way
You'll soon be feeling right at home.

So it's a long farewell, old friends.
May God be mighty good to you!
Across the miles and down the years
You'll find my friendship always true.
And now I turn with eager heart
To meet whatever life extends --
To greet the folks that welcome me,
And try to make them all my friends.

-- by Lawrence Hawthorne

So we come to the New Year, 1965! May it be a happy and satisfying one for all of you. One thing in rural life hasn't changed -- neighborliness and friendship. We may not show it in the same ways. We may not go spend the day with one another as farm folks did years ago. Maybe we don't help back and forth in a routine way as we used to, because we now have machinery of our own to do the work. But let any emergency arise, and you will find farm people as wholeheartedly kind and helpful as they ever were. That is one thing that I hope will never change.

So we come to the end of an era, with all good wishes to one another. There is no emergency, no upheaval, just a quiet shifting of the Household editorship from one hand to another. Hope withdraws to the sidelines and the younger generation takes over.

May your roots be deep,
Your branches high,
And love, like candles on a tree,
Light up your sky.

-- Hope Needham.

After more than 38 years of faithful service, Hope Needham is retiring as Household Editor of our papers. Those 38 years have been marked by every conceivable facet of life and living of the distaff side of farm life. More than 10,000 times, by her own faithful count, HOPE has prepared the copy for her column, but in that preparation she has read and pondered many ties that number of letters from readers. She has made their problems hers.

HOPE made the Household column something of an institution, unique among agricultural journalistic circles. She made of it a place where the farm women of several generations could freely unload their burdens, contribute helps, entertainment, counsel and wisdom out of experience, and even on occasion administer a scolding. It had its own set of general rules, administered by HOPE, with no fixed boundaries, no discrimination and was open to all so long as all played fair. HOPE would have it just that way--fair, just, and above all, helpful.

Outside her editorial duties, HOPE continued over the years to be homemaker and mother on a fine Illinois farm. Three boys and one girl have enriched her life with a total of 15 grandchildren, in whom she takes all the pride to which every grandmother is entitled. Her late husband, JAMES V STEVENSON, was one of the top farmers of his area and state.

So, we say, "So long, HOPE!" It had to come. You have earned the love and gratitude of a great many farm women in many states, for all of whom we extend greetings, HOPE, and best wishes for the years to come. May you find rest and contentment in your retirement.

We welcome to the editorship of the Household a new hand, SUSAN SAYERS, whose work will speak for itself. We hope all readers will continue to lend the same loyalty and co-operation to the new editor which have so long been enjoyed by HOPE.

Mrs. James V. Stevenson of Route 4, Streator, retired this week as editor of the household column of the Corn Belt Livestock Journals.

"Hope Needham", as Mrs. Stevenson is known to her thousands of readers, became editor of the column in the summer of 1926, upon the sudden death of its original editor.

In her more than 38 years as the column editor, the local woman's column has attracted thousands of contributors with problems, criticisms, and praise.

In 1963, her readers presented her with a surprise check, for a project called "Flowers For The Living" among the "householders". This resulted in the church in Rio Muni in Equatorial Africa. Building of the mission is now in the preliminary stages.

The Corn Belt Livestock Journals are four publications of the Livestock industry, one of which is the daily Drovers Journal of Chicago.

A successor to Mrs. Stevenson has been named by the paper.

Mrs. Lucile N. Stevenson passed away at the home of her son, Wilbert, Route 4, Streator, Wednesday evening.

Services will be Saturday at 1:30 p.m. from the Park church with burial in Allen cemetery, Ransom.

Visitation will be after 4 p.m. Friday at the Elias funeral home, and until 11 a.m. Saturday when the body will be taken to the church.

Memorials may be directed to the Park church Memorial fund.

Mrs. Stevenson was born Sept. 26, 1893 in Nebraska, daughter of William A. and Alice (Brown) Needham. She married James V. Stevenson Oct. 12, 1916 in Urbana. He preceded her in death Oct. 17, 1959.

Mrs. Stevenson had resided in Streator since 1916 and was a ruling elder of Park church and taught an adult class there for many years.

She was a member of the Callere club, past president of the Illinois Home Bureau and a member of the state rural electrification committee, whose recommendations hastened the development of electric power in rural areas.

Mrs. Stevenson was the editor of a household column of the Corn Belt Farm Dailies for almost 40 years under the pen name of Hope Needham.

Upon her retirement in 1965 readers of the column donated a fund to build the "Chapel of Hope" in Rio Muni, West Africa, as a tribute to her inspiration.

She served for several years as secretary of the Allen-Otter Creek Mutual Fire Insurance Co.

Survivors include three sons, Wilbert, Streator; Ernest, Bloomington; Joseph, Fairbury; 15 grandchildren; four sisters, Mrs. Carrie Brown, Mrs. Revilo (Grace) Oliver, and Mrs. Marguerite Rarick, all of Urbana.

She was preceded in death by her husband, one daughter, Mrs. Philip (Ruth) Sidell, and one brother, Wilbert Needham.

Hope Needham, editor of the Household column in the Drovers Journal and its sister publications for over 38 years until her retirement Jan. 1, 1965, died suddenly Dec. 27.

Her son, W. N. Stevenson, reported that the long-time worman's column editor and writer died "peacefully", although she had been in failing health. She had sent a Christmas greeting to the readers of the Household for the Dec. 21 issue of Drovers Journal.

Hope Needham, who was Mrs. James V. (Lucile) Stevenson, lived on a farm near Streator, Ill., where she led a busy life as wife of a farmer, mother and editor of the Household column. She retired from active direction of the column at the end of 1964, ending 38 1/2 years at the task with a series of reflective articles which her readers prized highly.

Mrs. Stevenson became editor of the column in the mid-1920's after the death of Faith Felgar, an Iowa farm woman who had conducted the column successfully for many years. During her regime, hundreds of thousands of letters from farm readers were received and handled, many of them going into the column to provide the daily reading fare for a faithful "flock".

High-principled and firm in her beliefs, Mrs. Stevenson conducted the column on a high plane, although she let all readers "have their say" to the extent that space permitted. She was the recipient of much praise and numerous honors, although of a retiring nature in her latter years.

One of the notable expressions of appreciation for her work occurred in 1963 when secret communications among Household readers resulted in a surprise party in her honor. Culmination was the presentation of a check to Hope for a charity close to her heart, the establishment of a mission in Rio Muni in Africa. The project, named "Flowers for the Living," by Householders, drew modest contributions from thousands of Houshold readers. A recent article and picture in the Household column reported that the chapel project is now nearing completion.

Mrs. Stevenson was a gifted writer who often contributed her own thoughts and ideas as lead articles for the column. Her comments on national events were clipped and saved by readers as prime examples of good writing. The death of President John F. Kennedy stirred Mrs. Stevenson to write a tribute which showed the deep compassion for her fellow men and a clear understanding of what is in their hearts.

Mrs. Stevenson was preceded in death by her husband, in 1959, and by her only daughter, in 1962. These personal losses, she wrote in her column upon announcing her retirement, "took much of the zest out of life," although her sons and their families became her great interest in life after she gave up the column.