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A. B. Jolley, 1890-1979
- Early Years
- Teaching in North Central Texas
- Demonstrations and Depression
- World War II, Recovery, and a New Opportunity
- Sources
Early Years
A. B. Jolley's experiences early in life served him well in preparing for his eventual lifelong profession. Jolley was born in 1890 and spent his very early years in the city of Fort Worth. In 1899, however, his father moved to a farm near Birdville in Tarrant County, and it was while living on this farm, from the ages of nine to sixteen, that he learned the work involved in growing grain and raising cattle, chickens, turkeys, and hogs. Jolley's father was an experienced breeder of horses, and this knowledge helped in providing good horses for the appropriate pulling power needed on farms in the early 1900s.
"We did general farming, such as corn and small grain and dairy cattle and beef cattle. We started out milking the old Durham cows, and then we went from that to Jerseys, and then we began to build a Jersey herd. We not only had a good dairy herd, but we had registered Poland China hogs and turkeys and geese and Plymouth Rock Chickens. I was about nine or ten years old when we moved to the farm from the city, and stayed on the farm with my father until I was sixteen, and that is when I went to the old Normal School in Denton." A. B. Jolley, Interview with E. Dale Odom, April 15, 1977
Jolley attended the regular Fall/Spring session at North Texas State Normal College only in 1906/07. He earned his teaching credential by attending the summer sessions intermittently until 1912. In this photograph Jolley, on the far right, sits in front of Brown's Boarding House, one of approximately eighty boarding houses surrounding the campus in the early 1900s.
In 1906 Jolley began another experience, that of teacher training, that would also be invaluable for his future profession. He once told his mother that he wanted to learn, because he wanted to tell. Entering North Texas State Normal College in Denton, Jolley became active in student life through athletics and a literary society.
"The Debating Society on Monday was a way of getting everybody together, because all Freshmen, Juniors and Seniors were in those Societies" A. B. Jolley, Interview with E. Dale Odom, April 15, 1977.
As a member of the Kendall-Bruce Society at North Texas State Normal College in 1906/07, A. B. Jolley (back row, middle) was able to meet students who participated in debate.
He played on the football and baseball teams, and participated in debate through the Robert E. Lee Literary Society.
Jolley participated in both football and baseball. The opposition was limited to just a few local teams due to the difficulties of travel in the early 1900s. Among the teams Jolley remembers playing were Carollton, the Christian College at Denton, and Denton High School.
He also attended classes on agriculture taught by C. L. Davis, who later became Supervisor of the Vocational Agriculture Teachers in Texas. Jolley's focus, however, was to earn a teaching certificate, which he accomplished in both 1911 and 1912, attending school only part-time. His certificates provided him with state authorization to teach.
Teaching in North Central Texas
Jolley began his teaching career in 1911 at a one-teacher school in Salem, Texas, for sixty dollars a month. After six months of teaching kindergarten through ninth grade, he next taught English, Algebra and Physics at a high school in Princeton, Collin County. After a short stint at another one-teacher school in Hood County at Rock Church, Jolley married Estelle Finney in 1912 and prepared for a teaching job in the city.
During the next six years Jolley taught at the Ward schools in Fort Worth. By 1918 his teaching job was bringing in $140 a month to support a wife and two children.
Jolley recalled during an interview in 1977 that teaching in a one-room school was the "finest experience" he ever had. Learning to express himself in front of an audience was important for his future endeavors.
Beginning a Career in Agriculture
A. B. Jolley
In 1919 Jolley used his farming and teaching backgrounds to successfully apply for the position of Assistant County Agent in Dallas.
"Well to be perfectly frank, I was looking for a job that I could get more money out of, and the teaching profession's salary was very low then. It was just what it had been for years. There was no annual raise or anything. You might get there and stay there and try to build a salary yourself, but even that didn't pay as much as some other jobs. I had heard of this extension work through a friend of mine, and that is how it came to me to meet the District Agent, and apply for a job . . . I was acquainted with farm life, I loved livestock, and animals, and I loved to look and see crops grow, and I always admired looking down the row and seeing corn come up in the spring." A. B. Jolley, Interview with E. Dale Odom, April 15, 1977.
His teaching experience was immediately put to the test when he was assigned responsibility for the Four-H activities in the county.
Four-H group leaders and members at the Dallas County Boys Club Camp in 1923 frolicking on the lake.
During the first year Jolley enrolled over 2,200 boys in Four-H Club work and provided many demonstrations for them of the latest farming procedures. By teaching the young the proper methods of pruning fruit trees and terracing land, the agents were able to influence the adult farmers who, although resistant to what they called "book farming, " were very willing to assist their children in Four-H activities, and thereby learn some of the new procedures.
Four-H group leaders and members meeting at the Dallas County Boys Club Camp in 1923.
When Dallas County Agent Phil Bowser resigned in 1921 to organize the Farm Bureau in Texas, Jolley took his place as county agent and began working with adult farmers.
Pictured here is one of ten dairy programs offered in Dallas County during the summer of 1932.
One of Jolley's first decisions was to take the demonstrations and community meetings to the farmers, and not expect them to travel to the county courthouse. He would discover beforehand what some of the major farming problems were for each community and tailor his presentations to address those specific problems. Word soon spread throughout the Dallas County farming communities that attending sessions with A. B. Jolley were well worth the time.
Farm programs were outings for the entire family. Farmers, their wives, and children all attended, as can be seen in this photograph from the early 1930s.
Demonstrations and Depression
Whether attending demonstrations concerning the building of farm flocks, converting from cotton to cattle, or improving the quality of corn, the farmers of Dallas County learned the latest procedures and information from Jolley and representatives of the industries specific to the subject. The information that Jolley presented came from the United States Department of Agriculture, the Extension Service, and Texas A&M. However, in Jolley's words, "it was the county agent that had to bell the cat. It wasn't any good unless it would work, and we had to write the answer out in the field." This meant trying the application out in the local Experiment Stations.
Demonstrations nearly always brought a crowd of interested farmers to a site, usually a farm in the Dallas community. In this photograph A. B. Jolley shows the procedures for terracing to a group on George Wright's farm in the Lawson community.
Among the many important subjects addressed by Jolley and other county agents throughout the state were terracing the land, planting cover crops, using fertilizer, and controlling insects.
DeSoto, Texas was one of the locations in Dallas county that held fairs on the town square in the 1920s and 1930s.
Another important activity was the community fair. Jolley used the community fairs in Dallas County to showcase agriculture, including livestock judging and exhibiting crops such as ears of corn. His idea was to make agriculture exhibits at the local fairs as important as the county exhibits at the State Fair. Garland, Mesquite, Lancaster, DeSoto, Carrollton, Richardson, and other Dallas County communities benefited from Jolley's efforts. The eighth annual Mesquite Fair in 1932 was declared by the Dallas Times Herald to have "some of the finest agricultural exhibits seen."
County Agent A. B. Jolley examines an improved section of a nest-laying house for hens The advantage of this model, which was placed on a scaffold platform, was the ease of its removal for cleaning and its allowance for air circulation around the hen.
The Depression of the late Twenties and Thirties was, in Jolley's words, "worse than anything that had ever happened before. The farmer had hit rock bottom, and he was looking for something that offered relief, but he didn't know how the Agricultural Adjustment Act was going to work. When he had to curtail his main cash crop, which was cotton, well then he began to question. We had to stay right with them." Jolley explained that the Depression brought home to the farmer even more the need to diversify, to reduce acreage and grow a variety of crops. One-cropping destroyed the fertility of the soil and allowed for easier insect infestation. "Diversifying was your dream. If you could get (the farmer) to get a few good cows and hogs and chickens, that helped him live, but it didn't pay much. However, he grew out of that into a larger herd, and then into World War II; and after world War II it was specialization and nothing else." A. B. Jolley, Interview with E. Dale Odom, April 15, 1977.
A. B. Jolley maintained that Dallas County produced fruit as fine as any section of the country. In addition to fruit-growing shows and contests held at the State Fair, the Dallas County Fruit Grower's Association sponsored a series of pruning demonstrations supervised by County Agent Jolley. The photograph depicts the first pruning of peach trees in the Kleberg community.
World War II, Recovery, and a New Opportunity
When the Second World War began, farm prices were lower then they had ever been. Farmers were doubtful of the federal programs promulgated to assist them. As the war years proceeded, however, production became the goal. Jolley's responsibility was to explain the federal programs to the farmers, and let them know what to expect from the government given their activities on the farms. The effects of the war included a rapid development of the Soil Building Program and other plans beneficial to farmers. With the end of the war and farm production continuing to rise, Jolley believed he could best make a difference in the farming industry by concentrating on media development. In 1953, after 34 years of service as Dallas County Agent, Jolley retired only to take on another challenge.
A. B. Jolley converses with a working farmer, an activity he enjoyed for over forty years.
During his years as county agent, Jolley had often written articles for the local newspapers. He even participated as a regular guest on a radio program and assisted the fledgling local television stations with their farm programs while still a county agent. In 1953, Jolley was hired as agricultural director for the Times Herald (Dallas), KRLD, and KRLD-TV. He wrote four articles a week for the newspaper, had a daily radio program, and appeared on television once a week. His television program was soon extended to five days a week. This schedule of radio and television appearances continued into the early 1960s.
Jolley understood his responsibility given the recognition he had achieved over many years as county agent, and he prepared his written material and broadcasting appearances carefully. "When I sat down to talk, I knew what I was talking about. And if I didn't, I didn't say it. I didn't dare quote myself on anything." Jolley believed his effectiveness in assisting farmers was even greater during his media employment, since he had accumulated a wealth of knowledge over the years and received the confidence of leaders in the agricultural branches.
Retirement
A. B. Jolley photographed where he loved to be, on a farm appreciating the wonders of nature.
"Well, I have said that the way to measure a county Agent was his ability to get people to do what they ought to do. And it doesn't make any difference what you say or write about it, you have got to get people to do it. And you have to know people, and you have to love people, and I have never found a man yet that I couldn't work with." A. B. Jolley, Interview with E. Dale Odom, May 12, 1977.
By 1967, A. B. Jolley was ready to retire for the second time. There had been many honors and awards to remember. Special memories included a 1950 Department of Agriculture award and a 1962 honorary dinner sponsored by the twenty-five assistant county agricultural agents who worked with him from 1921 to 1953. He had served the agricultural community for almost fifty years, but now it was time to enjoy it on his own terms. He experimented on his own land with peach trees, pecan trees, and blackberries. He traveled to Europe and noted the farming practices in a journal. He enjoyed his farming life into his eighties. On Wednesday November 28, 1979, A. B. Jolley died after a long illness, at the age of 89.
On May 25, 1950, A. B. Jolley received a Superior Service Award from Agriculture Secretary Charles Brannan at Sylvan Theater, Washington, D. C. The ceremony marked the fourth time honor awards wre given by the Department of Agriculture. Photo by G. W. Ackerman, U.S.D.A. Extension Service.
The award statement that accompanied the plaque A. B. Jolley received in Washington from the United States Department of Agriculture in 1950 expresses the accomplishments well:
For his contributions to the enrichment of rural life through his successful advocacy of scientific farming; his foresight in developing farming demonstrations and group activities to provide increased farm incomes; and for his ability to train young extension workers.
Sources
Bulletin Giving Data Concerning the Work of the North Texas State Normal College for the First Twenty Years of Its History, Beginning September, 1901 and Ending August, 1921. University of North Texas Archives, Denton, Texas.
Dallas Times Herald, 1933-1967
Jolley, A. B. Oral history interview, 1977. Oral History Collection, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas.
Jolley, A. B. Papers, 1906-1976. University of North Texas Archives, Denton, Texas.
Yucca, North Texas State Normal College, 1907