The ladies of the Twentieth Century Club of Garrettsville met on October 5 at the home of member Jane Bell. The roll call response was members’ understanding of the meaning of the October experience and ranged from the beauty of fall colors through National Dessert Month, Halloween, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, birthdays & family events.
Business conducted included donation to the Friends of Melana and the NGCC Snack Pack program at James A. Garfield Elementary School as well as a discussion of the timetable for rotating past years’ minutes into the keeping of the club historian and, thence, to the James A. Garfield Historical Society.
The program which followed was presented by Jane Hill and, in a most interesting and entertaining fashion, launched the year’s theme of “Back to Our Roots” with an illumination of what life was like at the beginning of the twentieth century when the club was first organized. This included vignettes of what was going on in Garrettsville, as recorded in the local newspaper—advertising, personal visits, etc., funeral car, as well as statistics on life expectancies, popular names, popular music, movement from farms to cities( There were only 45 states in 1901), home entertainment.
Influential women, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sarah Bernhardt brought about changes in women’s suffrage and the wearing of corsets (Thank Heaven!). Styles , the many uses of hat pins and the introduction of deodorant were mentioned; so was the influence of the motor car. The engaging speaker also brought artifacts/”realia”— a period newspaper, period hats, archived club programs beginning with 1919.
There were good times and bad times but will be no turning back. The club motto is “Step by Step Onward.” And so it goes.
