Club Doings

Yesterday, I received an email from a woman who was trying to research a photo of ladies around a dining table, marked "Just-a-Mere Club, Arkansas City, KS 3-31-1930-something". She had come across this post that was spurred by an article in the New Yorker Magazine.

The email got me thinking, again, about the ladies clubs in the last century, and these books:

I found these in the family flotsam and jetsam.

They are the Secretary's books from the D.M.C. Club of Greensburg, Kansas. Another one of the many 'ladies clubs' of that era.

They are the official minutes of the meetings, beginning with December 29, 1921 (not the beginning of the club, just the first entry in the oldest book) and ending with December 8, 1950. Not the end of the club, either. Just the last entry in these books.

My Great Aunt Ruth was a member of the club (beginning 12/19/1945, according to the minutes). No idea how they ended up in our family archives, because I don't see in the records where Aunt Ruth was ever the club secretary.

Mostly, the secretary was Myrtle Linegar...

...pictured here on a Christmas card with her twin sister. (Can't tell you which is Myrtle and which is her sister...)

The pages in one book are very fragile (1925 through 1929) and some of the entries are very brief. Often with just the day and date of the meeting, the Hostess name and roll call topic, (current events was a popular one, as well as gardening tips. One was Irish jokes...) and a mention of the activity of the day. Often it was, "An enjoyable afternoon was spent with fancy work and conversation". It seems that taking pictures was another popular activity during the 1920's, sometimes described as 'kodaking'.

During the war years of the '40's, making items for hospitalized soldiers was a focus, but mostly the activities were social. And always food. From 'delightful luncheons' to cook-outs of 'weenie sandwiches', there was always food!

Often, meetings would be cancelled during the 'busy times of harvest' in June and July, or due to 'bad roads' in the winter.

The club membership was about 8 or 10 in the '20's and rose to almost 30 in 1950. I think it kept growing, because I remember going to holiday meetings when I was a child in the early '60's that were held at the VFW hall due to the size of the group.

My original thought was to transcribe the minutes. I got through 1922, but some of the pencil writing is very tiring to decipher, so I stopped transcribing and just read. Many of the member names are familiar to me as friends of Aunt Ruth, although some of the secretaries referred to members by first name, and others used a more formal "Mrs. R.A. Linegar" which is harder for me to keep sorted out. Some even used 'Mesdames Linegar and Gregory'.

I am going to try again this weekend. My eyes just work better during the day with natural light. Some of the pages seem like they could crumble to dust at any minute, so I don't want to wait too long.

Maybe I will check into voice recognition software. Then I could read the minutes aloud and then just edit.

I am sure Myrtle would have appreciated that kind of technology!

Home again - 3500 miles later!

We are home and unpacked, but it will be another day or two before we return to routine!

Here are a few highlights from the trip -

First destination was Colorado and we had a beautiful sunset on Sister's birthday! I love a pink and blue sky!

This is me on a Jack-a-lope at Wall Drugs in South Dakota. Honestly, I was disappointed in Wall Drug. I was hoping for an oldtime-y general mercantile, but it was just a tourist stop. With many, many tourists... I couldn't resist the photo opportunity, though!

The next step was for Lovely C's graduation. It was a very different ceremony than what we were accustomed to. When we first saw her footwear (!) we were surprised, but it turned out that she was almost over dressed compared to some of her classmates!

Next stop was a visit to Dear Aunt. She was embarrassed that her bed was not made when Sister and I stopped to visit. We were thrilled though, because her quilt is a friendship quilt with an embroidered block by my grandmother and my great grandmother and many other relatives long departed. The fabrics were bright and vivid and the embroidery was intact. We had never seen it and Cousin told us later that it was a recent gift, a keepsake of a great aunt who passed away in the last 10 years or so. We also had a very fun visit!
We went to Greensburg for the Memorial Day Alumni Celebration. There was much re-building to celebrate and I fulfilled my goal of helping the effort by spending money on souvenirs!

Some of the esteemed members of the class of '59!

And from the class of '64

(A "Simpson's sky")

The weather was warm and for once the wind was fairly quiet!

We put the Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska stickers on our camper. We had to "camp" in front of Sister's house in Colorado to be able to add that one! Some would say that doesn't count, but we are counting it!

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Rhymeland #12 - The End of Chapter one!

I have finished the blocks for Bean's quilt!


This is the twelfth block and it is Mother Goose, again.

I started with Mother Goose at the beginning, but I decided to go with different colors. At the time, I didn't intend to re-do this block. But, since the quilt motif is her namesake, I decided that she should be included.

Looking at the photo in the post, I realized that the goose is blind! I forgot to do the eye. I am glad I noticed before the quilt was put together! In this quilt, I forgot the hand on the Hickory Dickory boy and had to add it after the quilting was done!

Chapter Two will be the piecing together.

And I will be helping!

The Mister and I are planning another road adventure. This time, we are going first, to Dearest Sister's house. I will get to share her birthday with her for the first time in a very long time!

We are going to South Dakota from there to see Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument in progress (and so The Mister can add the South Dakota sticker to the back of the camper!)

After that, we go to Kansas for Lovely C's graduation from high school and a visit with Wisest Sister.

On the way home, we will have a visit with Dear Aunt and have a bit of a meet up with family and friends in Greensburg.

A new season of Greensburg on Planet Green channel began this past week, the second anniversary of the F5 tornado that destroyed all but a tiny bit of the town. It will be exciting to see the progress of rebuilding.

One week from tomorrow, the adventure begins!

All Tish Tuesday, or History Sisters

When Dearest Sister was in Kindergarten, she met a "new girl" named Tish who became her bff. You can read her account here.

First day of Kindergarten for DS - I was home alone! Well without DS...

I believe that I have mentioned that throughout history (mine, anyway) I have been a hanger-on to most things that DS discovers first.

Using the Distributive Property, you can see that if

(DS+BFF) = (fun and high jinks)

and

(DS+me)= (fun and high jinks),

then

(DS + BFF + me) = (Great fun and Very high jinks!!)

Me on the left, DS on the right. Tish next to DS.

Most all my memories of fun with Tish are associated with summer.

We moved away from our hometown of Greensburg, but came back to visit and stay at Aunt Ruth and Uncle Don's house every summer and holiday. I remember visiting her at school for a day when one of our spring breaks didn't coincide with her spring break.

Mostly though, we hung out in the summer time. At the pool, at the drive in and at the dances at the VFW hall.

In front of the parlor at Aunt Ruth's house.

Tish is wearing my dress, DS is wearing a dress that would become mine and I am wearing some sort of toga, it seems! Must have been a Sunday morning, or we wouldn't be in dresses! Sometimes we performed as a vocal trio in church. When we were younger. ("Winds, through the olive trees, softly did blow....")

We shared clothes, adventures, secrets and 5 cent cokes. We admired shooting stars and tan farm boys and never wore shoes, (except to church).

Tish has a sister. DS and I have our sisters (each other, too), but Tish and DS and I are history sisters. And sometimes history is thicker than water!

Taking the Train to Pratt - Greensburg 1961

One of the traditions at Greensburg Elementary School in the 60's was for the Kindergarten classes to take a train ride. My memory is that we rode the train to Pratt and visited the fish hatchery, but I may be confused. (Some times Dearest sister accuses me of blending memories of more than one occasion together.)

Mrs. Rader was the Kindergarten teacher - 30 kinds in the morning class (mine) and 30 in the afternoon. (I was born smack dab in the middle of the baby boom and there were a lot of us!) We all went together on the train ride.

We lined up as Kindergartners are trained to do. That's me in the center (it was my mother taking the photo, after all!) in the dark print dress with white cuffs on the sleeve. Robbie Belcher is in front of me and Marc Graves is two in front of her. Deana Banta is in the sleeveless top in the foreground. She and I were "best friends" in those years, and I think Jay Koehn is behind her in the plaid shirt. I am not sure of any others, although they all look familiar and their names are on the tip of my tongue.

My line apparently boarded last. As I said, I am not sure what the rest of the day held, but the evidence shows that I sure was looking forward to whatever was planned!

Rangerettes - 1961

The winters in Greensburg, Kansas can be very cold. They are always windy. All seasons there are windy, as a rule.

In 1961, when Deeply Missed Sister was homecoming queen, she was also a cheerleader. They wore sensible, yet flattering uniforms. Red wool. With earmuffs.

My mother made one of the uniforms at least (for sister), maybe for others, as she was often called upon to do. I remember her hand sewing spangles on the basketball cheerleader uniforms - for indoor cheering, more attention to detail, rather than comfort, could be paid. For the longest time, there were left over spangles in the sewing box.

I don't recall gymnastic feats from cheerleaders back in the day, just pumping up the crowd, so they didn't freeze to the benches in the stands, I imagine.

But I digress...



There was also a bell... I don't really remember the bell, but here it is. The word Ranger is painted on it and as you see, it was mounted on its own little cart. Perhaps it was rung in celebration of victory. Perhaps it was an obscure reference to the "rang" in Ranger...

Besides parades and photos of "how high the snow has drifted", I was reminded of another classification of Mother's "Kodak moments" (although she used an Argus C3).

The "look how high the wheat crop is this year" category! This wheat crop photo is particularly significant, because I am part of the unit of measure!

That is my mother, holding me and next to her is my Aunt Arlene, my father's older sister. I believe my cousin Margie is on the right.

And behind us all are the famous plains for sweeping winds!

Homecoming Parade 1961 - Greensburg, KS

This weekend I have been busy finishing up the Christmas preparations. Today's challenge was to create space in my "sewing" room for an inflatable guest bed and room for said guests to make themselves comfortable.

While I was tidying (and I use the term, well... tidying seems rather mild for what I had to accomplish!) I came across some more slides (or framed color transparencies as they were labeled). When I finished my room project, I decided to fire up the projector and see what I could see.

This is the homecoming parade in Greensburg, Kansas in 1961. I can date it exactly, because Deeply Missed Sister was the homecoming queen!

First entry, pulled by Byrd Hardy was the Y-Teens with their theme of "World of ..." (dang that western Kansas wind!)

This entry was sponsored by Dillon's. (The sign says something about value, or prices....)

Not sure what this entry is about, other than "look at my cool old car!" (The Mister is more interested in the cars parked on the street!)

This is the queen and her court on the lovely float decorated with facial-tissue-in-chicken wire- flowers. Sister is the one with the black sash.

Here she is a little closer...

Parades are one of the things my mother always had the camera out for. (Parades and significant snow accumulation). I used to think that it was kind of a wasted effort, after all, you can't hear the bands and you get mostly pavement in the photos (before the luxury of cropping and editing was available). I am glad to have these photos, though, and glad that I have a way to share them!

Greensburg, Kansas - circa 1963

Greensburg, Kansas is my hometown. I was not born there, but most in my family were, back three generations. Greensburg is in the process of rebuilding from a tornado that destroyed most of the town on May 4, 2007. My sister and I were very affected by the thought of all that was familiar in our hometown has disappeared.

These photos were in a box that we sorted through at Thanksgiving:

This is the original First Christian Church. I was baptized there a year or two after this photo was taken. (1963 according to the date on the back of the photo)This building became an antique store and a new church was built a little South of town in the early 70's. It was also called the First Christian Church, although I always thought of it as the Second First Christian Church.

This is the Second First Christian Church being rebuilt (October, 08 progress)

It is the Third First Christian Church.

It has a piece of the original, though.

This is the water tower: pre 5/4/07.

The water tower was an ever present icon. We lived across the street and one house away from it. Sometimes it would over-flow. In the summer, that meant playing in the "rain" on a sunny day. In the winter, it meant a winter wonderland full of icicles on the way to Sunday school.

I don't recognize where the camera was when this photo was taken, but it gives me the feeling of a window to the past.