Eminent Homemaker
County: Moody
Gladyce (Robert) Hammer, Flandreau, was honored in 1977 as Eminent Homemaker by the South Dakota Board of Regents and South Dakota State University.
At 68 years, she is noted as being good-hearted, people-oriented and a hard worker.
Although she’s been a 4-H leader for 20 years, Hammer’s interest didn’t begin as a leader. She was the first 4-H member in South Dakota to attend National Club Congress in Chicago, and she was a junior leader before the term was even familiar in 4-H work.
Hammer was a leader of the Jolly Farmerettes Club in Sioux Falls before moving to the Flandreau area. There she became leader of the Moody Go-Getters, a boys and girls club.
Honored in 1966 with the State 4-H Alumni Award for her work as a leader, Hammer says, “I had patience with the kids. They liked me and I liked them. We worked together in the program. Working with the 4-H kids has been my enjoyment in life.”
Hammer has also received the Moody County’s “Friend of 4-H” award, a 25-year 4-H leader’s pin and a trip to National Club Congress in Chicago. She’s been instrumental in establishing and then managing the Moody County 4-H Food Stand for several years, to raise money for the county’s 4-H awards and activities. She’s also helped work toward fundraising to build a new 4-H and Extension building for Moody County, and has participated in the 4-H Leaders Forum trip to Washington, D.C., twice.
In addition to her 4-H activities, she has been in the Friendly Homemaker Extension Club for 25 years. She has served as an officer on both the local and county level.
In recent years she has been an active member of the local senior citizens group, and has offered her time and energy to the residents of Riverview Manor in Flandreau. She is also a member of Our Saviors Lutheran Church and the American Lutheran Church Women’s organization.
For two years, Hammer helped in the Camp Lakodia kitchen, and she’s worked in the 4-H Dining Hall during State Fair for the past 15 years. She’s employed in the Egan School kitchen.
The Hammer family has promoted international concerns by being a host family for the International 4-H Youth Exchange (IFYE) program; one of their sons was also an IFYE delegate.
Although all of the eight children have moved away from home, Hammer and her husband Robert have taken a Laotian boy, befriended by one of their sons, as their own child. Linda Sorenson, Moody County’s Extension home economist says, “Mrs. Hammer accepts the challenges of life most graciously. She has a real sense of humor and knows how to take problems and situations in stride. Each job is accepted willingly and with enthusiasm, and she has given unselfishly of her talent, time and leadership in everything she has done.”