Meloche, Gladys (1892-1965)

Gladys Meloche

In 1956, when Gladys Meloche retired from the Home Economics Extension Service, she had spent nearly thirty-six years teaching Wisconsin people about clothing.

Meloche first started as a clothing specialist in 1920 under Nellie Kedzie Jones, state leader of home economics extension. She brought to this position a BS and MS from UW and four years of experience as state home economics leader in the Rhode Island extension service. At the beginning of her career, Meloche traveled to communities across Wisconsin and taught interested women about clothing and textiles. Later Homemakers Clubs developed, and Meloche taught representatives from the clubs who relayed the information back to members. By the end of her career, specialists taught county home agents, who in turn taught the leaders of the Homemakers Clubs.

The information that Meloche prepared for Wisconsin farm women reflected contemporary conditions. During the Depression and war years, for example, she taught women how to remake old clothing and how to improve their fabric buying. Every year she got a chance to see how much her teaching had meant to Wisconsin women at Homemaker Achievement Day, a day on which women would display projects they had worked on throughout the year and make plans for the following year.