Eminent Homemaker
County: Brown
Allan Wilson, Mansfield, farmwife and homemaker, started a 4-H club 15 years ago which bears a record of excellence that must be unsurpassed in South Dakota 4-H circles. Her club, the Mansfield Junior Bees, has produced two state cherry pie baking champions, two state bread baking champions, a state canning award winner, a state home economics award winner and six state dairy food demonstration winners. Two of her 4-H girls have become home agents, and it was in this 4-H club that Charlene Fuhrman developed some of the confidence and poise that eventually earned her the title of Miss South Dakota 1963.
Wilson was born, raised and educated in Aberdeen. After Attending Northern State Teachers’ College she taught school for 13 years. Although she had no children of her own, Wilson helped raise a stepdaughter, Reuben Tom, Britton; and a stepson, Leslie Wilson, Riverside, California.
Wilson was leader of the Mansfield Busy Bees Extension Club for 28 years.
She served as a 4-H representative on the Brown County Extension Board and on the Brown County Fair Board. Active in church work, Wilson has taught Sunday School in Aberdeen and at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Warner. For 20 years she has been active in Ladies’ Aid and circle work.
As a homemaker, Wilson has found time to become an avid flower and vegetable gardener, as evidenced by the meticulously neat Wilson farmstead. Framed in flowers, the yard creates a park-like scene. Her bright and cherry home leaves little doubt that she also has a talent for interior decorating.
When she first married, Wilson’s friends chided her by saying that she would never make a farm wife. Last winter, after her husband’s death, Wilson, without experience, wintered a 45-ewe flock of top-quality cross-bred half of which were due to lamb in February. Perhaps it is this willingness to try something new and different that has helped Wilson gain success in the many ventures in her life.