Women - Hunterdon County, New Jersey

MELDA CHAMBRE SNYDER
Born in Rochester, NY in 1907, Melda Chambre
Snyder's family later moved to Morris County. After
graduating from Newark State College she went on to
receive a master's degree and completed all work, except
for writing her dissertation, towards her doctorate.
Melda worked in the Hunterdon County schools as a
supervisor employed by the state for service in rural
schools to teachers, who often had little more than a high
school education. These supervisors were called "helping
teachers," and did much towards fostering 4-H and
extension activities. When the Hunterdon Board of
Agriculture hired its first Home Demonstration Agent in
1938, they appointed Miss Melda Chambre, of Flemington,
to the Women's Advisory Committee to oversee the agent's
work. It was through this work that she met Board of
Agriculture member Clifford E. Snyder, whom she later married.
Clifford taught her farm management, and Melda worked with him running Cliffields,
their 500-acre grain and dairy farm in Franklin Township. When her husband died in
1967, she was faced with tremendous debt due to the estate tax. Enlisting the aid of the
County Board of Agriculture and the State Farm Bureau, she started a movement that
eventually led to farmers' widows and families no longer forced to sell their land to pay
estate taxes.
She ran the farm and became active in farm organizations. With her election as
president of the Hunterdon County Board of Agriculture, she became the first woman to
serve in that office, and Hunterdon County became the first county to elect a woman to
that position.
Mrs. Snyder also served as a director of the New Jersey Farm Bureau, president of
the Board of Managers of Cook College of Rutgers University, vice-president of the
State Board of Agriculture, and president of the American Association of University
Women. She served on the Hunterdon County Planning Board, helped organize the
Hunterdon County Visiting Homemaker Service, and was on its state board. Melda
received distinguished service awards from local and state agricultural and educational
organizations, and in 1978 received the Golden Award from the Hunterdon County
Chamber of Commerce.
She and her husband had no children, so when she died in 1987 the bulk of the
farm was left to Rutgers University as a research farm, as it is today. Proceeds from the
sale of the house and assets were used to set up the Clifford E. and Melda C. Snyder
Scholarship Fund, to go to a graduating high school senior who will major in agriculture
or a related field. Thus Melda remembered her two fields of interest, agriculture and
education.
When interviewed by Working Woman Magazine, she was asked why, with the
career opportunities available from her college degrees and background as a
coordinator of school systems, she was seen driving a farm
wagon, going to Pennsylvania for a machine part, and
spending her evenings with the county or state Board of
Agriculture. Her answer was that of a woman satisfied with
her life. "I couldn't be happier living any other way."
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