When history comes alive
A yearly program from Wednesday Club that Barb Diedrich had saved from her mother’s keepsakes
The same day that the Brookings Register article with my interview about the Wednesday Club was published, I received this email:
"I am Barb Diedrich. My Mother, Eva Olson (Arnold) was a member. She died in 1934. I was 2 1/2, my older brother Richard was 4 1/2, and my younger brother Roger was 13 months. My Aunt Olga Larkin was a member, as was my Aunt Nora Lokin. Somewhere in my keepsakes, I have a handwritten yearly booklet of what happened and who did what. I now live in Texas and am 94 years old."
Wow! Could it be that Barb was correct and had relatives who were members of my grandmother's Wednesday Club? The name of Olga Larkin was definitely familiar to me. I opened the first book of club minutes I had from 1927, and there was the very first attendance record for the club's members. In faded pencil was Barb's mother's name — Mrs. A. Olson. Her mother was a founding member before the club even had a name. (They named themselves the Wednesday Club the next month, as they planned to meet on the second Wednesday of each month.
A mother barely known
I asked Barb if she'd like to talk by phone so I could hear more about her mother's involvement with the Wednesday Club. And here's where the story really got interesting!
When we spoke the next week, Barb let me know that she knew very little about her mother and never really knew what caused her death. Apparently, Barb's father remarried a couple of years later, and she had a new person in her life to call "Mother". Barb says people just didn't talk about things like death back then or dwell on the past. But there were many unanswered questions for her, and not knowing much about her mom left a big hole. She suspected that her mother had been ill for a long time, perhaps dying of cancer.
Barb had a couple of photos of her mom, including this one of her as a baby in her mother's arms.
A photo of Barb’s mother with her husband and 3 children
And Barb had an old faded program from the Wednesday Club. Although the year wasn’t included, I was able to piece together that this was the program from the year 1928. According to the minutes, Barb’s mother Eva Olson attended several meetings that year. This is the keepsake that connected Barb to me and the article about my novel.
Looking for clues
While we were on the phone, I looked through the minutes and could see that her mother, Eva Olson, was a founding member at the Wednesday Club's first meeting in August 1927. Eva hosted the club at her house on April 11, 1928, and she was on the club's roll in 1928, 1929, 1930, and 1931.
In January 1930, the flower committee reported buying a plant for Mrs. Olson, and at the March meeting the secretary read a thank-you from Eva Olson. It was typical for the club to send flowers or a plant to members who were ill or hospitalized.
In 1931, Eva Olson was on the rolls for the Wednesday Club, but she appears to have been mostly absent. The minutes also show a gift of flowers for Eva Olson in December 1931. She was not on the rolls for 1932. Barb and I agreed that her suspicion — that her mother had been ill for quite some time — was probably right.
Barb's great-aunt Lora Larkin was also a founding member of the Wednesday Club and participated through 1940 and beyond. I'm missing the club’s minutes from 1940-1944, but Lora's daughter-in-law, Olga Larkin, appears on the roll call in 1949, as does my grandmother, Adele Davis. I can remember my grandmother mentioning Olga, and here is a photo of them from sometime in the 1950s, along with the rest of the Wednesday Club.
Olga Larkin is in the back row, 3rd from the left. My grandmother Adele Davis is in the front row, on the far right.
One of the humorous things Barb told me was her teenage memory of going to help her aunt Olga clean before hosting the Wednesday Club. She said it was a huge deal and everything had to be perfect before having the club ladies over. The big cleanup seems to be a universal theme, and I included it in my novel when the character Florence is getting ready for a club meeting. It seems everyone wanted a spotless home for hosting the Wednesday Club — it was a significant event in their lives!
Connecting the dots between generations
Barb and I found a lot of other things to talk about, too. She grew up in the Brookings, SD area and knew my grandparents on both sides, my parents, and many of my family members. Barb's brother still lives very close to my mom, and it turns out that Barb lives in a little town in Texas, just a few miles from where my mom and her husband spend their winters! The next time I visit, I'll plan to take the minutes for the Wednesday Club's early years so Barb can see her mother's name for herself.
What was most exciting for me was being able to help Barb find missing pieces about her mother by searching the minutes. The notes from the club's gatherings and the treasurer's reports brought to life the real history of these women's lives, not just the faded words and names of people I never knew. And Barb felt that even though they didn't provide all the answers about her mother's life, they gave her clues to what might have been and a real-life connection — proof that her mother was a part of a nurturing community of women.
I had so much fun talking with Barb — she tells me that, at 94, she lives alone and still cleans her own house. And I'm here to tell you she's a delight, with a fascinating story of her own life. Barb and I have been exchanging notes and photos ever since our call. She feels she has a few more links to her mother. And I think I have a new friend, thanks to the Wednesday Club.