Wash
Cloths
from
Gourds
They “re another promis¬
ing' venture for this
bright Tar Heel.
By ASHTON CHAPMAN
Sonya Hagna, daughter of Dr. and
Mrs. L. William Hagna of Marion, first
made a success with her Dilly Bean
business, a food delicacy which some
years ago received nation-wide atten¬
tion through a news article in Time
Magazine.
More recently, she has built, in New
York, another business on another
product which is raised in many Tar
Heel gardens. This time her product is
a "natural wash cloth." made from a
certain type of gourd.
And this time her activities have
been publicized through an article in
the May, 1972, issue of Pageant Maga¬
zine. in which Sonya tells other women
"How to Start Your Own Business."
Sonya attended Marion High School,
Intcrmont prep school and. after
graduating from Mary Washington
College, she began teaching in Ham-
monton, N. J.
She had her first taste of business
success when she and her roommate,
another teacher, found a ready market
for a food delicacy, "Dilly Beans."
which the two girls at first prepared in
their apartment, using a recipe Sonya
had obtained in Marion from her
mother.
The business began quickly to ex¬
pand and Sonya ultimately became its
sole owner. She made a connection
with a commercial packaging firm in
Baltimore, which now produces the
Park & Hagna Dilly Beans for grocers’
shelves all over the country.
Back Scrubbers
It was while she was an advertising
executive in New York that Sonya con¬
ceived the idea of creating a market for
a wash cloth made from a gourd.
The Pageant article quotes her as
saying, “I was walking through a drug
store when I came across one of the
whole pieces of the plant — about
Sonyo Hogno, of Morion, N. C. ond New York
City, ii Preiident of Towoihi, Inc.
two-and-a-half feet in length and five
inches in diameter. It immediately in¬
trigued me, and a little research turned
up the information that these whole
pieces were popular as back scrubbers
in European spas."
She recalled that she had heard of
wash cloths — or. rather, "dish rags"
— which some people made from
gourds they raised in her home county
of McDowell; but she had never ac¬
tually seen one of these cloths.
She says that, after considerable
pondering, she consulted a leading New
York dermatologist. "He was enthusi¬
astic about the cleansing quality of the
fibrous material itself, but he felt that
the whole pieces were entirely too large
to handle. He suggested, instead, that
small hand-sized pieces would make
the material useful as a wash cloth for
the entire body."
Similar to N. C. Ciourd
The fibre for the wash cloth Sonya
proposed to market was from a type of
tropical gourd, known in Japan as the
Hechima plant. Sonya describes it as
"similar in appearance to a very large
cucumber about a foot and a half long.
The skin of the gourd is peeled to ex¬
pose a thin network of soft spongy
fibres and this, after being dried, is cut
into hand-sized sections approximately
УЛ
x 5V: inches."
This type of gourd is somewhat simi¬
lar to the Lnffa cylindrica, or "dish
rag." gourd which is still raised in some
THE STATE, JULY 15. 1972
15
