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:

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.

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 s

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