Hillsboro Women's Club celebrates 90th year

Many well-dressed local women walked through the doors of the Snow Hill Country Club in May 1999 for a special reason: the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Hillsboro Women's Club.

That scene was repeated on Oct. 8, when the club members celebrated their 90th year. Many were elaborately dressed in hats and gloves, as a throwback to earlier times.

The tables were dressed equally well, with white linen tablecloths, gold linen napkins, towers of white frosted cupcakes interspersed with centerpieces of white roses, carefully placed on metallic gold fabric table runners. The club's programs and favors repeated the club's colors of gold
and white.

Members gathered to the strains of popular music of bygone years, as provided by Eleanor Williams.

Following a delightful luncheon, members answered roll call by recalling club memories of the past, which brought many smiles and an occasional outburst of laughter.

Gretchen Huffman, program chair, read a poem she had written in 1994, highlighting the club members and their activities since 1923, when the club was founded by Mrs. Paul (Inez) Harsha and 16 others. That was followed by a continuation of the poem, covering the years since 1993 up until the Oct. 8 meeting. A copy was presented to each member in attendance.

Members had occasion to browse a display of many photos, old programs and other memorabilia which, because of their popularity, will be on display at the next meeting, Nov. 12, at the Senior Center.

The program closed with a photography session on the country club grounds on this sunny, delightful day. Members left with remnants of Huffman's poem lingering in their minds:

When history is written about Hillsboro town
One group in that ledger that will go down
Is Woman's Club … we made our name
For self-improvement was our aim.
And by improving ourselves, the town prospered, too
For we altered the destinies of those we knew.
Who would have guessed in '23
That 90 years later we all would be
Gathered here to celebrate the day
The Woman's Club began? God bless the day!

The meeting closed with a brief business session, conducted by President Opal Armstrong, who thanked the day's committee members: Huffman, Helen Ford, Martha Saylor and Eleanor Williams.