Carla Emery: Author of the Old Fashioned Recipe Book
(Page 15 of 17)
May/June 1975
By the Mother Earth News editors
Yet, somehow, the story has gotten around that we're building permanent housing or condomimiums for 200 people . . . or something. And it's not true. It's just not true.
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And you know we've always used a lot of volunteer labor in getting the book out. We couldn't have done it without that kind of help. So, naturally—since we don't have anyways near the money we need to build the School—we've said that we'll use volunteers to help put it together. "We're looking for people who'll work hard," we've said, "for room, board, $10.00 a week, and the right to be part of a dream."
Well, that's gotten all twisted around too . . . and now some people in Kendrick are saying that we're going to fill the town park with hippies and wine bottles. Most of this has started since I've been out on the road, so I'm not quite sure just how bad the situation really is . . . but when I call back I'm told it's bad. Some of the local people that have been working with us tell me they may have to quit because their children are being picked on so much in school.
PLOWBOY: Have any of your past or current volunteers done anything to create this "hippies and wine bottles in the park" image?
EMERY: No! Our volunteers are marvelous. Most of them are right from around Kendrick, you know. Or they're people like Herb, who sold his house in L.A. and brought his daughter and came up to work for room, board, and $10.00 a week. He's certainly no hippie. And neither is Bill, a dear and sweet old man who lives on our farm and is afraid to go into town but who won't leave. We even asked him to because we didn't want to drag him into this trouble . . . . but he wouldn't go—he wouldn't even pack his bags—so we're going to let him stay.
PLOWBOY: Well have you done anything that would lead people to believe that you might be setting up a school for some sort of undesirable elements in society?
EMERY: I don't see how anyone could get that idea. One of my dearest desires, you know, is to run this School for children. Children who never have the opportunity to gather eggs and wade in the creek and play in haylofts and give milk out of a bottle to a baby goat. Our children take all this for granted and yet there are so many youngsters in this country who never know these joys. So we're setting up a special children's program and I don't know how anyone could object to that.
Nor can I imagine that our program will appeal to anybody who's lazy or just looking for a good time. Our students will have fun. . . but they'll be working every minute. Morning till night. First milking is scheduled for 5:30 a.m., the first class is at 8:00, and it goes on like that all day until 10:30 at night.
And finally, it's important to realize that our School is being set up as much for people in our own area as for outsiders. We've already had farmers from right around Kendrick come into the Living Room Mimeographer, look over the School's schedule and say, "Hey, I'd like to take blacksmithing," or "This methane power looks interesting."
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