Senior News September, 2003 Vol. 24. No. 7

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Two chances to attend open houses this fall

Wine, cheese and older workers get better with age

New directory lists senior and caregiver resources

Mary Dennison works on many levels for seniors

Del Norte writers honor heroes

New nonprofit forming to focus on Fortuna senior needs

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Celebrating 80 years of the Eureka Woman's Club are bridge players, from left, Alice Abrahamsen, Vivian Snyder and club president Diana Chaney. Now both 95, Abrahamsen has been a member since the mid-1950s, and Snyder joined the club when she retired seven years ago. Chaney has been a member for 35 years. Photo by Barbara Clark

    Eighty years ago - September 21, 1923 - the Eureka Woman's Club consolidated three ladies' organizations. The Eureka Monday Club, the Wednesday Club and a Departmental Club had worked together to host the 1923 annual convention of the California Federation of Women's Clubs and realized that they could undertake even larger projects by integrating the three groups. The Monday Club, begun in 1901, had purchased land for a clubhouse, and construction was begun on the classic Craftsman style heart redwood building in 1916.
    It still graces the 1500 block of J Street in Eureka and will be open to the public twice this fall. The first time will celebrate the 80th birthday, Sunday, Sept. 21, from 11 a.m. till 2 p.m. The second open house will be in conjunction with the Heritage Society's fundraising home tour, Sunday Oct. 5 from 12 to 6 p.m.
The Eureka Woman's Club dates back to an eventful period-the first vivid years of the 20th century. Eureka was a growing city, a bustling lumber port far from other cities. It had wooden sidewalks, muddy streets, and many intelligent ladies who wanted to improve the city educationally, culturally and socially. As was happening throughout the nation, women were forming such local clubs for civic improvement with self-education in the classics and social issues as their nucleus.
    The Monday Club was the first in Northern California, and their delegates to the newly-organized California State Federation of Women's Clubs convention in San Francisco received special notice that year for having come the farthest and by sea (steamship).
When the three - the Monday, the Wednesday and the Departmental clubs - worked together to host the 1923 California Federation convention, it "put Eureka on the map," according to the Humboldt Times.
The convention received extensive press coverage because of a growing state interest-to conserve notable redwood groves into a park system. A special visit was arranged to the Dyerville Grove on Hwy. 101 for a picnic. It resulted in a convention vote the following day to buy the land for a park. By 1928 the state legislature matched the California Federation funds and the Womn's Federation Grove was created on the banks of the Eel River two miles north of Weott.
    Following their successful convention, the three women's clubs agreed to combine under the new name with 105 charter members.
    Today club members enjoy a monthly Book and Travel Club and a Cards group that meets twice monthly. Throughout the years, members have supplied neighborhood park equipment, buildings, roads, paths, and animals for the zoo. Some structures were built so many years ago that they have already been removed. Remnants of a popular picnic center are still visible near the duck pond in Sequoia Park. The club helped get the donation of land and funds for Carson Park and the Carson Memorial Building. Members continue to donate scholarships for local high school and college students.
Story by Claudia Cranford and club history compiled by Patricia R. Newel, Historian. Info: 707-442-6396.