Originally published in the June 6, 2012 edition of the Cherokeean-Herald
Seeing the annual Lions Club Rummage Sale on El Camino Real last week-end made me wonder how long the Lions had been doing good works in Alto. I soon learned that it was 77 years this month.
The May 2, 1935 issue of the Alto Herald reports that Alto businessmen are organizing a Lions Club. There were 29 charter members, with Dudley Lawson as the first president, J C Hill as vice-president and Lewis Terrell as Treasurer. The first luncheon meeting was held the next week at the Watters Cafe, and the week after that a Charter Night Banquet drew Lions from all over the district.
Three years later, the May 12 1938 Herald was designated THE LIONS CLUB SPECIAL with almost the entire front page devoted to stories and pictures of the District 2 meeting hosted by the Alto Club. The back page was covered with ads from local businesses welcoming the Lions Club visitors to Alto. After that there was rarely an issue of the local paper without a Lions Club mention.
Would it have been coincidence, or a little bit of gender envy that resulted in the formation of another long-lasting still active Club in Alto? The Thursday Study Club began that same year, but the women did not make the front page.
The August 29, 1935 issue of the Herald reports that “Alto ladies have for some time felt the need of a Literary Club”. The group started as it intended to go on, with 18 members. Their first project was studying historical events in Cherokee County. Officers included Mrs. Jack Luker, Mrs. Wallace Clark (the Methodist minister’s wife), Mrs. Clyde Poore, Mrs. E P Palmer and Mrs. A E Danheim.
In following years, the programs included in-depth studies of important books and authors before coming full circle back to local history, culminating in the wildly successful Forest Hill Living History demonstrations in the 1970’s.
The Thursday Study club was so popular that by 1937 an auxiliary club was formed entitled the Junior Study Club, made up of women somewhat younger than the original group.
Clubs offered a respite from the rigors of depression life during the 30’s. Besides the church-based groups like the Junior Bible Study Club and the Nursery Mothers’ Club, or the extension-sponsored 4-H, Corn and Home Demonstration Clubs, we read about the Wednesday Bridge Club, the East Side Sewing Club, the West Side Sewing Club and the Get-Together Club.
Let’s start this week’s bonus photos with a couple of the many from the Lions Club
These are the officers from sometime in the 1940s, in the Lions Club building on FM752 at the edge of town. Back: Clyde Poore; Moore Decker; Ben Bailey; ??; George Williams; Frank Knight; S P Fox Front: O L Smith, Earl Cummings, Gus Whiteman, Lewis Thomas
And this is perhaps the whole club outside the building in the same time frame, February 3, 1942. This was just a couple of months after Pearl Harbor, so I expect many of these men would be off to war soon.
Back: Chris Nelson; Robert McClure; Gus Whiteman; Mr. McKee; Harvey Treadwell.Middle: Marshall Bynum; Mr. Smith; George Williams; J F Cosper; Bro. McKee; Fisher Harrison; Ben BaileyFront: Arthur Brooks; Lewis Thomas; Alex Jeter; Gus Rounsaville; W E Bynum; Clyde Poore; G S Hart; Earl Cummings; Carlos Murphy, Dudley Lawson
Last weeks star, Thelma Shattuck, shows up in this iconic Thursday Study Club photo from the dedication of the “new” home of the Stella Hill Library in 1967.
Seated: Emma B Yowell; Verline Danheim; Sarah McClendon; Thelma Shattuck. Standing: Ruthie Mae Williams; Guynell Kennedy; Edith Stribling; Orell Grammer; Edith Rose; Beulah Poore; Marjorie Warner; Adele Richardson; Currye Singletary; Edith Holloway
The Thursday Study Club is still going strong in the new century. I probably don’t need to label these members from a few years ago on a field trip to the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogdoches.
Of course there were clubs for the kids as well. These girls are displaying the garments made during the summer sewing class at the AHS Homemaking Room in the early 1970s
And these fine young boy scouts went all the way to Gettysburg, PA for a Jamboree in 1951 – John Ellis Allen and Jimmy Houston