Excerpt from The Cape Cod Chronicle February 19, 2015

 

 

Women’s Club Of Chatham Celebrates Centennial 
by Debra Lawless 

CHATHAM – One hundred years ago a group of women in Chatham organized a club. Last Thursday, State Representative Sarah Peake, former State Senator Joanne Sprague and Chatham Selectman Florence Seldin all recognized the non-profit Women’s Club of Chatham on its centennial anniversary during a gala celebration in the community center. In her proclamation from the Massachusetts House, Peake noted that the club has donated $75,000 in scholarships and community grants during the past decade alone. 

The gathering on Thursday began as it always does with delicate crustless tea sandwiches. To mark the special occasion, vintage silver tea service was brought out as well. After about 45 minutes of mingling, over 100 members and guests took seats to hear the program. Much has changed since 1915, a year when the population of Chatham was 1,667 and the town was not yet electrified. Joanna Schurmann, a past president of the club, gave a PowerPoint history of the club’s first 100 years. One of her historical tidbits drew gasps from the mostly female audience. “Most women only washed their hair once a month and used Borax or egg whites,” Schurmann said. Many other things have changed since 1915, of course. Women no longer wear hats to these meetings. Most women here today are wearing slacks, and a number wear red blazers in a nod to Valentine’s Day. Chatham Bars Inn had been open for a few months when 42 women signed on as charter members to the club. 

The list of early members reads like a who’s who of Chatham’s familiar family names; Nickerson, Eldredge, Atwood, Bearse, Smith and Harding are among them. Four of those women attended the club’s 50th celebration. “I wanted all the members to feel proud of their club and its long history, and I wanted our newer members to learn something new,” Schurmann said later in an email interview. 

Back in 1915, the women met on Feb. 23 to hammer out a constitution and bylaws for the club. “They were very serious about this club,” Schurmann said. The club’s first official meeting was held on March 4 in the home of Florence O’Neil. The 78 women who attended the meeting were “favored” with music provided by an orchestra. (An orchestra? Yes. As past president Regina McDowell noted, in 1915 “only the very wealthy had a Victrola and radio.”) The club’s stated purpose was “to broaden and strengthen the moral, social and intellectual life of Club members, and to be a power in the community.” Shurmann called this “a brave and feisty goal” five years before women could vote.

The group has met its goal over the past century. In 1919 the group helped establish the Visiting Nurse Association in Chatham. In 1925 it placed an article on the town warrant to create a town dump. Throughout the Depression, the group provided milk to needy schoolchildren. In the 1940s members knit afghans and packed shoes for veterans. The group sold so many war bonds that it financed a scout car that was shipped to Europe’s front lines. 

Past president Sharon Oudemool, also a president of the Friends of the Eldredge Public Library, said that the club backed an article on the town warrant to fix up the library. By 1949 the library “was in sad shape after years of financial mismanagement,” she noted. There had been no new books for years. Townspeople appropriated $7,000, and the library began a period of steady improvement. In 1965, when the club celebrated its 50th birthday, 250 guests crowded into Chatham High School on Crowell Road, then a new building. In 2010 the Chatham Woman’s Club de-federated from the national club, and changed its official name to the Women’s Club of Chatham. 

Today’s club has over 200 members, President Ann Hosmer said. The club is as civic-minded as ever. For Chatham’s 300th anniversary, the club funded a new bench in front of the Orpheum Theater. The club will also make grants this year in the amount of $5,000 and works with various non-profit groups. “Not only do we do that, we have fun,” Hosmer noted. As well as a jazz brunch, a Christmas box lunch and other events, the group hosts an annual friendship luncheon in May. “That talks about what the Women’s Club is all about, which is friendship,” Hosmer added. 

The groups meets monthly (except during the summer) and listens to a variety of speakers on topics from “Preventing Infectious Disease” to “Locals You Should Know.” While that first meeting in 1915 included “a dainty lunch,” today’s meeting ends with a festive bright red punch and cupcakes with white frosting. The table was decorated with pink carnations, the club’s official flower in the early days.