Woman’s Club of Huntington Beach

A LOOK BACK

Take a stroll along 10th Street and you’ll notice a wooden

structure nestled between nondescript two-story homes like a dowager

queen of another era.

This golden bit of Huntington Beach history houses the Woman’s

Club of Huntington Beach and this week we’ll briefly look at some of

its rich history of dedication to the culture of our city.

The history of the club goes back nearly a hundred years to when

the beach town of Henry Huntington was in its infancy. Seven

prominent ladies of our city met in the home of Florence L. Blodget

on Jan. 23, 1908. They had gathered there to form a woman’s club that

would bring culture and civic improvements to the town. These ladies

included Florence Blodget, Adelaide Howard, Ruth Hall Lindgren,

Minnie Nutt, Hattie Sholly, Dena Sundbye and Ruth Waite.

One of their first civic objectives was to sponsor a Municipal

Cleaning Day on April 3, 1908. On June 25, 1912, the club held a

picnic on the grounds of Tent City at Orange Avenue and 12th Street,

that also included some of their husbands. After enjoying a hearty

luncheon under the shade of local eucalyptus trees, the ladies

adjourned to the headquarters of the Woman’s Christian Temperance

Union on the Tent City grounds, where they held a business meeting.

During this meeting, 14 ladies turned over to the club’s treasurer

$1 each that they had earned during the year. They also reported how

they had earned that money. This money would be the nucleus of a

building fund for a clubhouse for their organization.

George A. Shank offered the ladies the use of his property at 5th

Street and Walnut Avenue. Today on this site sits the original home

of Shank, who moved to the site in the 1920s.

The ladies would continue to meet in the homes of its members. On

one such meeting held on June 8, 1915 in the home of Mrs. Shank. The

meeting included a talk by Mrs. J.J. Pyle, who spoke about her trip

to the Federated Woman’s Clubs held in San Francisco that year.

Later in the meeting Mae Weed read to the club about the “Life of

Goethe and his Influence on German Literature,” after which Mrs. Mac

Gregor talked about the “Life and Works of Schiller.”

The musical part of the meeting included a duet from “Faust” sung

by Helen Weed and Mrs. Ned Brown. Amy Helm played a piano solo and

Miss Brazee of Denver sang “My Little Gray Home in the West.”

By the end of June of 1915, the club had secured a parcel of land

in the 400 block of 10th Street and had bought an old board and

batten school house and had it moved to this new location.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the club was a powerhouse of

activities with programs that included talks on art, music, travel,

women through the ages and more. The club held many luncheons and

teas during those oil boom years. A list of presidents of the club

reads like a who’s who of Huntington Beach society: Florence Blodget,

Ruth Hall Lundgren, Maggie Moore, Margaret Talbert, Amy Johnson, May

Jackson, Ethel Dunning, Sylvia Conrad, Eva Young, Margaret Colvin ...

and list goes on and on.

As the war in Europe was starting in the 1930s, the club

celebrated its 31st birthday in 1939 with a large cake with candles

on a table decorated in a Scandinavian motif.

The Fullerton Ebell Club sent down Mrs. J.J. Alexander in a

Norwegian costume to render three Scandinavian songs for the meeting.

Huntington High School’s drama teacher, Edna Condon brought over

several of her class to perform a comedy skit, “Buddy Buys an

Orchid.”

The 1930s through the 1950s were the golden era of clubs and

organizations. When the club celebrated its 26th birthday in January

1934, two charter members, Hattie Sholly and Dena Sundbye, were

present.

Club President Sara Whitfield conducted the business session with

“dignity and a spice of gaiety.”

In the May 1946 meeting the club honored its founder and first

president by unveiling a painting of Florence L. Blodget. In 1958 the

club celebrated its 50th birthday. In 2008 -- six short years from

now -- their membership will gather in that renovated

board-and-batten school building for their centennial birthday.

In recent years, when other clubs have folded, the Huntington

Beach Woman’s Club continues on at its same location, a bastion of

culture and light in a sea of earthly darkness.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington

Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at

P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.