pioneer, honored in Bladen County
Nearly half a century ago, Docia Bryan reflected on her experience as a 4-H leader, elementary school teacher and Extension homemaker: “Helping instruct youth is a wonderful privilege,” she wrote, like patiently making a candle that brings joy and light to the world.
The light that Miss Docia has brought to hundreds of Bladen County young people was clearly evident on the faces and in the words of those who gathered Oct. 25 to honor her 100th birthday at the county’s North Carolina Cooperative Extension Center.
Bryan came in a white limousine, and well-wishers greeted her with a bouquet of roses, then escorted her into an auditorium decorated with her scrapbooks, awards and family photos. The room was filled to near overflowing with family, friends, former students and community leaders.
4-H’er Wesley Hollis read a letter from N.C. Gov. Mike Easley calling Bryan an inspiration to all who know her. County 4-H President Alex Lucas read a similar letter from longtime N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham, saying that she had made North Carolina a better place to live.
One of her first school students brought Bryan an apple.
Her son spoke of her allegiance to 4-H’s pledge and its motto to make the best better.
And County Extension Director Dr. Martha Warner told of how personally supportive Bryan was to her as a young 4-H agent – and of how Bryan has lived a life of love and service.
Bryan, in turn, credited 4-H with sparking her lifelong commitment to service. In 1917, she joined a girls’ tomato club, which is considered, with boys’ corn clubs, to be 4-H’s forerunner. To some extent, Bryan’s 100th birthday served as a prelude to 4-H’s own upcoming centennial celebration, reminding well wishers of 4-H’s early roots and ambitions, and of the ways that people like Bryan cause its positive influence to ripple through a community.
As a tomato club member, Bryan was required to raise at least one-eighth of an acre of tomatoes and keep accurate records of fertilizer use, plant growth, yield and number of tomatoes canned.
But the clubs’ purpose was much broader.
The organizer of the state’s tomato clubs, Jane McKimmon, once said that the ultimate goal was to uplift rural life. And that is what Bryan has continually striven for.
“Our home agent, Miss Mills, met with the girls each month and showed us how to do many things to make farm life more enjoyable. These meetings made me conscious of wanting to help country people,” Bryan wrote in a 1955 essay she called her “4-H Alumni Story.”
And help, she did.
She was an elementary school teacher for 32 years, had four children and was named a North Carolina Merit Mother of the Year in 1965. She donated land to her church, taught Sunday School and sang in the choir. She was active in numerous community clubs and was an Extension homemaker for 60 years. Her home and farm became meeting places for her community’s children, including the Four Point 4-H Club she helped charter in the late 1930s.
Through it all, she was an effective advocate for Extension and other rural education programs. State Rep. Edd Nye, a former Bladen County commissioner, remarked, “When she came to the commissioner’s meeting, she wouldn’t leave until she got what she wanted.”
At the end of the day, when the speeches were done and the party over, it was clear that Bryan’s legacy will not be one shining act but instead many simple acts that, when taken together, have meant a great deal to her community.
“I wanted,” she once wrote, “a life of action and constructive achievement. I wanted to serve people in some worthwhile way and help rural boys and girls get the best out of life. My dreams have come true, but life has been richer than my dream.”
—Dee Shore
