The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring Addendum

By Club Members and Edited by Linda Balderson

Inspired by Looking Back 75 Years: The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, 1904-1979, a book self-published on the anniversary of the Club’s seventy-fifth year, the current members of the Club have written a continuing history of the wider Sandy Spring, Maryland, community and world events as experienced by the members. As with the original book, photos of members, their homes, and biographies of each are included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483461274

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Balderson

Copyright © 2016 Linda Balderson.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6126-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6127-4 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 01/17/2017

CONTENTS

Dedication and Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Part 1 – COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

The Sandy Spring Community

Sandy Spring

Ashton/Brinklow

Brookeville

Olney

Special Projects of the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring

The 75 Year Celebration

Part 2 – 35 MORE YEARS: 1980-2015

A Look at the Community in 1980

Looking Back At The Decades

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

2010-2015

The Wednesday Club: What We Do

The Wednesday Club: Who We Are

Member Biographies

Conclusion

Presidents of the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring 1904-2015

Bibliography

DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring would like to dedicate this book to Virginia A. Freeman, a past president and chairman of the Historical Committee of the Wednesday Club, who prepared Looking Back 75 Years: The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, 1904-1979 for publication. Their book not only was the impetus for writing this second volume but also provided the background information needed to move forward.

Every member of our Club provided encouragement, support, and input for The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring Addendum. However, two members contributed extensively to this endeavor, and the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring thanks them for their expertise and dedication.

Sunny Banvard gathered historical documents related to the Wednesday Club. She met with small groups of members to discuss local, national, and international concerns and asked each member to answer a series of questions that would be used to generate personal biographies. She also provided the photographs included in the book.

Linda Balderson took Sunny’s work to the next level, tying the disparate pieces of information into a narrative and expanding it to include additional historical information and topics of interest to the members of the Club. Linda has assured us that throughout her work on this book, she has enjoyed not only the process of editing but also learning about the area history, the individuals who comprise our Club, and the Sandy Spring community. Without her expertise, dedication, and persistence this book would not have come to fruition.

PREFACE

In January of 1904, eight young women living in Sandy Spring, Maryland, met to form a literary society in their community, and the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring was born. In addition to information about the formation of the new Club, the early members, and their homes, Looking Back 75 Years: The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, 1904-1979, encompasses much more, including the history of this unique area of Maryland from its Quaker settlement in the early 18th century to the end of the 1970s. It is also the history of the part that one Woman’s Club played in the past 75 years. It is a look at what women have contributed individually and collectively to Montgomery County and to the overall quality of their lives.¹

Our goal in writing this addendum was to update the information in the original book through 2015. However, while researching additions to the book, it became apparent that the Wednesday Club members and their families greatly impacted the community at large, and that these contributions should be included. To that end, The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring Addendum is written in two parts:

Part 1, Community Connections, includes more of the history of the greater Sandy Spring/Olney geographic area and shares the many ways that members of the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, their ancestors, and their descendants participated in that history and supported local businesses, organizations, and the residents living in the community.

Part 2, 35 More Years: 1980–2015, updates the earlier work and provides biographies of the current members of the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, including the ways we continue to reach out to our community, inspired to do so by those who came before us.

Looking Back 75 Years: The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, 1904-1979 has been reprinted; The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring Addendum is meant to be a companion book to the original.

INTRODUCTION

Before expanding the information provided in Looking Back 75 years: The Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring, 1904-1979, it is important to understand the beginnings of the Club and its affiliation with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs at the county, state, national, and international levels; excerpts from the original book follow:

Organization of the Wednesday Club

It is surprising to discover that when the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring was organized on January 11, 1904, it was a latecomer among community organizations in that tightly-knit, socially active community. Already in their midst were 10 functioning organizations. Only one of the … clubs was exclusively a woman’s club, the Mutual Improvement Association of Sandy Spring, which was organized in 1857. This is the oldest functioning woman’s club in Maryland and believed to be the oldest in the United States. Since vacancies in the Mututal [sic] Improvement Association were limited and occurred chiefly by death, those not fortunate enough to belong also wanted the social and mental stimulation of a woman’s group. So it was that eight Sandy Spring girls met at Helen L. Thomas’s home, TANGLEWOOD, on January 11, 1904, to form a literary society to be known as the Wednesday Club of Sandy Spring. They were:

The name was derived from the fact that meetings were to be held on Wednesdays, at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, at a home of a member to be decided by alphabetical listing of house names. It is interesting to note from the early minutes of the Club that the house names were more significant than the people’s names, since the name of the hostess is rarely, if ever, mentioned. [The practice of using house names was also true of many other clubs in this era.]

It was decided to limit membership to twenty, and they asked the neighborhood girls whom they thought would especially care to join them to apply for membership. Helen L. Thomas was officially elected President and Virginia McPherson Stabler, Secretary. Margaret C. Bancroft formed a committee to plan programs for the season’s meetings. It was not deemed necessary to have a constitution or by-laws. Proposals for membership were to be by secret ballot.

The minutes show that the second meeting of the Wednesday Club was held at NORWOOD, the home of Margaret Bancroft, on January 20, 1904. Those in attendance were:

Mrs. Dolly E. Vedder, Honorary Member

Mrs. Dolly Vedder was made an Honorary Member, although we have no indication why. One wonders if the Honorary Mrs. Vedder had perhaps functioned as an older advisor to the younger women, as her death was noted at the December 1905 meeting.²

Later in 1904 Helen L. Thomas resigned due to travel and Mary Janet Miller also resigned. It was decided in [November] 1904 to enlarge the Club to 25 so that one’s turn ‘to do a paper’ didn’t occur quite so often. Therefore, the following ladies were added to the membership:

The Montgomery County Federation of Women’s Clubs

When the young Club convened in November 1905 it was presented with an invitation from the Kensington Woman’s Club to join with five existing clubs in the new association called The Montgomery County Federation of Women’s Clubs. This is one of the first such county alliances in the United States. After much discussion, four delegates were sent to Kensington where the organizational meeting convened at the Presbyterian Church. Mary Brooke, Anna and Marion Farquhar and Virginia Stabler returned to advocate joining the County Federation. On November 22, 1905, at OAK HILL, the motion was made and carried to join with their sister clubs in becoming members of the Montgomery County Federation of Women’s Clubs.

There was some foot dragging when it came to joining the Maryland State Federation. This step was made February 1908, and Anna Farquhar was listed on the Executive Board.

These early club women, joining together, were satisfying the urge to come out of the confines of