The Pleasant Valley Calf Club Fairs |
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By Larry Kidder One of the great memories passed down to the current generation of families in Pleasant Valley is the tradition of the Calf Club Fairs put on by the people of the Valley each summer. While locally produced, these fairs were in fact widely known and highly regarded. The fairs were put on for about a decade and that decade represents perhaps the highest level of community feeling in the Valley. The community began to come together in 1889 when the people decided to replace an old, worn out, substandard, disgraceful schoolhouse with a new one that would be a significant symbol of the community as well as a place to educate its children. The schoolhouse became the location for a variety of community activities and in 1917 the people petitioned the township board of education to enlarge it to two rooms with a side room that could also serve as a kitchen. When the people decided to put on a community fair, open to the general public for miles around, the natural spot for it was the schoolhouse and yard. The fairs were also part of the nationwide movement to reinvigorate farm and rural life. By the end of the 19th century the country had become predominantly industrial and urban while the number of farmers and people living in rural areas was declining. People who valued the life experiences of rural living were questioning how to maintain this core experience of American life during its history. People in rural areas were questioning how to keep at least some of their children involved in the lifestyle they knew instead of abandoning it for opportunities in the cities and towns. Rural life needed to be energized, proven economically viable, shown respect, and showcased. The Calf Club and the Calf Club Fairs tied Pleasant Valley into this nationwide movement. By the second decade of the twentieth century there was growing interest at the State and County levels to help farmers improve practices. National, State, and County governments set up agricultural improvement programs aimed at educating and assisting farmers to be the best they could be. Improving crop and livestock production would increase farm incomes, it was hoped, and attract people to stay in farming. Some of these officials recognized that working with young members of farm families, in addition to their parents, was one way to achieve their goals. Clubs for young people were just one way that the State Agricultural Experiment Stations began working with local communities to improve agricultural production and profits. Clubs were envisioned for all varieties of farm enterprise and by 1920 in Pleasant Valley the primary enterprise was dairying. It would make sense, then that a club should be organized in the Valley to encourage children to learn more about the best practices in raising dairy cows. The Pleasant Valley Calf Club grew out of a more general agricultural club for boys and girls called the Achievement Club. A 1919 notice in the Hopewell Herald under Titusville news notes that the “boys and girls Achievement Clubs of Titusville and Pleasant Valley will hold an exhibition this Saturday afternoon, September 27, at the [Titusville] schoolhouse.” The exhibitions were to include vegetables, fruits, poultry, pigs, and “a calf raised by the boys and girls of our community.” The poultry and vegetables were to be judged and awards given. Mr. Joseph B. Turpin was instrumental in organizing the Pleasant Valley Achievement Club and transforming it into the calf club. On January 1, 1919 Mr. Turpin was appointed to head up the Mercer County agriculture clubs for young people. He was the first county club leader permanently employed by a county board of agriculture in New Jersey. By the end of the year, five counties had club leaders like Mr. Turpin who worked with children while other county agents worked with their parents to help make rural life more successful and rewarding. The Calf Club idea had started in 1918 and by 1920 just four clubs were successful in completing a year’s work, and Mercer County’s of was one of them. In addition, the Mercer County Club exhibited at the InterState Fair in Trenton that year and won the state championship. Pleasant Valley was poised to start a Calf Club because of the work of Mr. Turpin with the Achievement Club. In 1920 the work in organizing Calf Clubs became more structured and an integral part of the dairy extension program. It was also noted that almost all calf club members were raising pure-bred heifers with the help of the breeders’ associations which were helping boys and girls locate pure-bred calves. In January 1923 the New Jersey State College of Agriculture issued a statement about the purposes of the calf clubs. This statement read, in part, The boy or girl joins the club and buys a pure-bred tuberculin-tested calf, which is the foundation for a pure-bred herd which that boy or girl hopes to own some day. The boy or girl feeds and cares for the calf and comes to love this calf with an affection that develops within them a great liking and enthusiasm for the dairy business when it is associated with good pure-breds. They realize that with pure-breds there is something more to the dairy business than just making milk. Thru pure-breds they realize that it is possible for the farming business to give them money returns equal to what they can get in other lines of business in the city. They see something to the farming business that makes it worthwhile for them to engage in farming as a life occupation. Calf clubs have a regular organization, with officers elected by the members of the club. The meetings are conducted by the members themselves. Yearly programs are arranged so as to make each meeting have a real value, teaching the club members the fundamentals and the finer points of the dairy business, particularly the pure-bred business. In addition, the clubs were expected to help develop a sense of community, a spirit of co-operation and good will that would extend beyond the club members to all members of the community. This statement made it clear that the goals of the Calf Clubs were to develop a love of the dairy business and demonstrate that it could be a profitable alternative to leaving the rural life and that rural life did not have to be focused on individuals, but rather on self-regulated community activity. The Pleasant Valley Pure-Bred Calf Club was inaugurated at a Thursday evening meeting on April 16, 1921 at the Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse. Before that meeting, it is likely that Mr. Turpin spent quite a bit of time visiting with Valley farmers and encouraging them to enroll their children in the club. His primary ally at the meeting was local farmer Howard Hunter who had a general interest in education in addition to farming; he would serve on the township school board in the 1930s, and undoubtedly saw the Calf Club as an important part of a total education. Turpin was also assisted by several members of the Mercer County Hosltein-Friesian Breeders’ Association. The Association was working actively with the county agent to promote interest in Holsteins. The Association wanted to work with the local farmers to locate suitable calves for the children to raise and organized trips to Somerset and Burlington Counties so people could see the potential stock. As an outgrowth of the Achievement Club work, about the same time that the Calf Club was being organized the people of Pleasant Valley made the decision to show off their work with a Community Day in August held at the schoolhouse. Pleasant Valley really seemed to be coming together as a community centered on its recently expanded schoolhouse and this spirit expressed itself in the organization of the Community Day to celebrate the achievements of the Valley families with surrounding communities. In 1921 the first Pleasant Valley Community Day was held on Wednesday, August 10 and was attended by about 250 people, most from outside the Valley. In reality the Community Day was a full-fledged agricultural fair and “everybody, old and young” took part in preparing for it. The event was advertised widely under the slogan, “Come and spend a pleasant day with the pleasant people at Pleasant Valley.” County agent Joseph Turpin and state agricultural authorities helped the community organize the day. The event was held at the recently enlarged schoolhouse. The one-room school built in 1889 had been enlarged to a two-room school that was completed in 1918. A cloakroom kitchen was also added so there were cooking facilities to feed the attendees. For this was one-day event the Pleasant Valley schoolhouse interior was outfitted with booths for the display of work done by the Community Circle of Pleasant Valley. The two classrooms were separated by a folding wall so that one large room could be made available. Around the walls there were booths for sewing achievements such as dress forms, millinery, homemade rugs, and fancy work. Other booths displayed baked goods such as cakes, pies, and breads. Additional booths exhibited jars of canned goods put up by the Canning Club members, including children, and a display of farm products.
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