On this date in 1987, Fargo laundress Netty Knopp flew to New York with 1,000 smiley-face balloons to cheer up weary Wall Street traders after the stock market crash.
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Fargo woman hopes balloons buoy traders
By Betsy Gerboth, Staff Writer
When the bedeviled traders of the New York Stock Exchange come to work on Monday, they’ll be greeted by a Fargo woman bearing balloons.
Netty Knopp, 29, who works as a laundress in a Fargo nursing home, plans to fly to New York Sunday night with 1,000 balloons imprinted with drawn-on happy faces.
Her mission: to cheer up Wall Street.
See more history at Newspapers.com
Knopp, who describes her job as “hugging old codgers for a living,” began making the balloons for the residents of the nursing home. Eventually, they wound up in the home’s gift shop.
“They’re so cute, they made people grin,” she said Thursday. “Then a friend of mine said, ‘You know who could really use a grin, is the New York Stock Exchange.’”
“I couldn’t think of any reason why not, so I’m going.”
Besides the happy faces, Knopp’s balloons will bear tags reading:
“Here’s a grin from Netty, Fargo, N.D., the heart of America.
To waste a grin is to ne’er win.
So be a grin reaper, not a grim weeper.”
She doesn’t know how jaded New Yorkers will respond to her offering, but she is optimistic.
“I hope they’ll smile,” she said. “I want to say to people on the stock exchange, ‘We from North Dakota really understand. Our farmers have been going through this for a long time.’”
Knopp said she visited New York once. “That’s why I’m back in North Dakota,” she explained cryptically.
A friend of Knopp’s provided money for her plane ticket. She estimates that the cost of the balloons will run about $50. Her main worry right now is how to get from the airport to the stock exchange after arriving in New York at 4:30 a.m.
Knopp has contacts in New York who are checking to see whether she can acquire a pass to get onto the floor of the exchange. But if she can’t, she’s not worried: “If I can’t get on the floor, I’ll hang out on the street,” she said.
Knopp plans to put the balloons together at 7 tonight in Ralph’s Corner in Moorhead, and she will welcome willing helpers.
The balloons last about a week, and Knopp hopes the traders’ improved attitudes will last a correspondingly long time.
She has a ready answer for the obvious question: Why would a woman from North Dakota bother to pass out balloons to people on Wall Street?
“Two weeks ago they had a black Monday,” she said. “This week they had a blue Monday.
Next week I think they ought to have a different color, like pink or yellow.”
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