Club Minutes: Mutual Improvement Association, 1900-1905

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"Build a little fence of trust around to-day Fill the space with loving work and therein stay. Look not through the sheltering bars upon tomrrow God will help thee bear what comes of joy or sorrow."

Sarah J. Miller gave by request, a graphic account of the recent Temperance Camp Mtg at Washington Grove

Anna G. Lea had a poetical rendering of one of the Epistles of St. Paul, and Sarah E. Stabler a clipping"The two sides of it," showing how differently two sisters regarded the same things one chosing to hope and the other despair. Laughing was said to conduce to health. Charles Lamb said a laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market and Sterne declared that every time a man laughed or even smiled he added to his length of life. The next piece by Mary G. Colt was along the same line as it urged us to try to make some one else happy each day and every day. Louisa T. Brooke gave an eassay on "Politeness" as an attribute - or accomplishment which had a financial value to both men and women. She also told us something of her pleasant experiences at the Pan American and Niagara her expenses being about $26.00 for 8 days absence, a very moderate expenditure for so much novelty and grandeur beheld. Martha Holland read a highly commendatory letter from some one who had enjoyed the Pan American as much as did Louisa Brooke apparently - Albina O. Stabler kindly gave us the benefit of parts of letters from her son Llewellyn who with his father has been on the Pacific Coast this summer. We were greatly entertained by a spirited acc. of the ascent of Pikes' Peak; of the Cripple Creek mines and of a bath in Great Salt Lake where they had a choice of 1800 bath houses. There were great banks of salt, and 3 barrels of the lake water, it was said, would when evaporated leave one barrel of salt. Elizabeth G. Thomas had brought Charles Kingsley's receipt for being miserable"Think about yourself, about what you want and what respect people ought to pay you. In other words center all your thoughts on yourself and you will have abundance of misery! ' Sarah W. Stone's

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clipping told of a wonderful African Spider which makes a kind of paper and which watches its eggs for three weeks until they are hatched.

The Sec. read and related something of her recent delightful trip to Minneapolis as a delegate to the Womans Suffrage Association. This city - but 50 years old stands head and shoulders above many in the east of three times that age. The flour mills and the Parks as well as the State Agricultural College between the two cities were of especial interest to the narrator.

Before tea most of the company adjourned to the porch and the flower gardens, it was evident those flourishing plants had been "loved up" by somebody to use an expression from Denmark to describe such good care. Our minute books show that we have rather made it a point not to accent our evelations, believing "the body is more than meat" and that we should still be influenced by the original recommendation that simple repasts should be served on these occasions. Still while not forgetting that plain living and high thinking are supposed to be twin brothers, we desire to mention the delicious water ice made for our refreshments by our younger hostess. We may not like the English King of old draw our sword and knight the dish before us, to be known in, that instance, henceforth as sir-loin steak, but we will copy here the formula of the frozen dainty - so grateful to us in that torrid day. The juice of one dozen lemons, one gallon of water, 4 lbs. of sugar and a very little of the grated rinds. Adjourned to Rosedale.

Mary Bentley Thomas

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9/1 - 1901 The Association assembled at Rosedale with Sarah H Stone. Guests were Ann M. Shoemaker and Mrs. Lucas of Philadelphia, Annie L. McDowell and daughters and Dorothy Dressler of New York and Emilie T. Massey. The sentiment of the day was a paragragh from an unknown work; "There is a gracious Providence over us: never doubt that. The spirit of truth and of God is flowing around us, like the wind, invisible. We cannot tell whence it comes nor whither it goes, but it is coming and going ever more in all parts of the earth and in every human bosom."

Mary G. Colt's selection was so good and so brief it must claim three lines for its very own. "You find yourself refreshed by the company of cheerful people: why not try this upon others and begin at once by never saying anything gloomy."

Mary S. Osborne read "Bureau Drawers" a bright article which essayed to prove that the character of the owner may be determined by the contents and the order or chaos of her bureau. A second selection was upon the art of "good living" that is living to do good to others.

"Good living one can ill define, it wears a changeful face. The poorest living is for self: the best, what helps the race."

Eliza N. Moore brought us, from "Success" a graphic account of "the George Junior Republic," sometimes called "The Child Republic" of New York State, which she said had long interested her from having heard a lecture upon it in New York City. Some of its citizens, drawn largely from the slums of the great metropolis, are now making good records in the commercical world and others doing remarkably well as students at Cornell, Harvard and Yale. The boys are thrown upon their own resources, and all must labor for a support and they are paid in the money of the Republic which is accepted for board and articles of clothing. The first step is the dignity of possession, a boy or girl has a check book is at once of greater importance to themselves and their associates.

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Woman suffrage has been tried with succes and is now a fixed law. The training of citizens goes hand in hand with lessons in the arts of thrift and industry. Several present expressed a desire to visit a similar juvenile republic in operation near Annapolis junction in our own state - said to be an equally flourishing institution with the original.

Anna G. Lea told how Neal Dow came to start The Temperance movement known as the Maine law. He went to a saloon one night to persuade a friend, who was in danger of losing an office if seen intoxicated to return to his home at once. The saloon-keeper defied Mr Dow to stand between him and his business and this aroused a train of thought which resulted in a prohibitory state throughout the whole of Maine. Mary Stone McDowell read to us most beautifully an account of a Womans Club in Berlin established in the University of that city. It was to American ears a curious kind of club for women as all sorts of topics are discussed over the beer mugs instead of tea cups, but it is evident the German women are waking up to national question and beginning to observe the things without their homes which may make or mar the insdie thereof, and these primitive clubs will prepare the way for a greater emancipation of our somewhat phlegmatic foreign sisterhood. What she needs in the Faderland was said to be "not so much larger liberty as the making better use of what she has."

Lilian McDowell recited effectively "The North Wind" by Eugene Field. Ellen Farquhar read a severely critical estimate of Kiplings writings and also Count Tolstoi's creed, one line of which was, "He, who begins by loving his Church more than Christianity - will end by loving himself more than his Church." The reformer is evidently not an Atheist by his own showing. Mrs. Lucas contributed a poem "Little Foxes" which warned mothers that their own little faults unheeded often reappeared in the characters of their children.

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Virginia Steer read of the uselessness and even sin of indulging in vain forebodings of evil. A remedy was said to be the cultivation of the power of concentrating thought upon a single thing and energy upon a single duty; the latter has been the habit of most successful people.

Mary E. Moore read from Friends Intelligencer a bit of sound sense entitled "Choosing". There is no excuse for us in the fact that others do wrong, we always have the choice, to resist and conquer or to yield and be conquered. We are serving either God or Mammon in small things as in great. Her second scrap was a short poem breathing a spirit of faith, commencing:

"Build a little fence of trust around today, Fill the space with loving work and therein stay. Look not through the sheltering bars upon tomorrow God will help thee bear what comes, of joy or sorrow."

Sarah E. Stabler's recital of some pranks of Queen Victoria's children proved they were quite as mischievous as youngsters not born to the purple. On one occasion the Queen is said to have told the future Empress of Germany who was tending her flower garden in new gloves that she herself always worked in old ones. The princess replied "but Mama, you were not born Princess Royal of England." Mary E. Gilpin gave from Success an admirable essay upon the danger of allowing ourselves to become inaccurate in speech or action & Louisa T. Brooke had a funny story of the difficulties which beset an absent minded man who was acquainted with a little Miss Large and a large Miss Little. Annie S. McDowell read "The footpath to Peace" certainly the best short sermon published in several years. The Secretary had brought pleasant letters from her nephew John B. Lea who had recently crossed the Atlantic on the Mass. Training Ship and visited Edinburgh, Denmark and Russia. Our hostess is apt to succeed in the activation of any thing she attempts and shapely trees, thrifty plants and masses of blooms were silent witnesses to her skill in the gentle art of horticulture. Adjourned to The Cottage.

Mary Bentley Thomas sec.