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How We Furnished The New Club House
By Mrs. P. H. Brown, Portia Club, Payette
Building the new club house was fun. The planning - the important questions constantly arising, demanding decisions, the satisfaction of meeting the payments as the work progressed were thrills for the Building Committee, and for the whole club the thrill of seeing a long cherished dream come true, of laying the cornerstone, dedicating the building and of holding the first meeting (with the comfortable feeling that it was only the first of many).
When, in October, 1927, the house was finished we took stock of our assets they were, one story stucco club house (Spanish style) 32 x 56 feet, one very much the worse for wear piano, two pictures and $10.00 in cash which was all we had left from our building fund.
Now it is obvious that 150 women cannot possibly all sit on one piano, and that a picture does not make a really satisfactory President's table. However, this matter of furniture he did not catch the Portia napping. Our club, like her noble prototype, had taken thought for the future. During the summer, long before the house was finished, the Civics Committee gave a lawn party at the home of one of its members. Beautiful lawns, deep shade, artistic decorations, helped to make the affair an outstanding social event. The net profits amounted to $55.91, which was used to provide drapes for the club windows and a curtain for the stage. The material - tan colored Monks Cloth, was purchased and the curtains were made by a group of the club's clever needlewomen, thus saving about 50% on the total cost. The window drapes were edged with narrow bands of black and with black and self-colored fringe. The stage curtain was further embellished with two black felt monograms set just above the black banding at the bottom and by a fringed valance at the top. Although inexpensive, these drapes are very effective and much admired.
During the fall, in the height of our beautiful Indian summer, there was a lawn tea and card party, sponsored by the Building Committee, and held at the country home of one of its members. Each committee member brought three other women. The party netted the sum of $12.00, which was set aside for what our President called a "Charity Fund." But it was the "Womanless Wedding" in October, which made our chairs an actual fact. The entertainment was put on by seventy of our most prominent male citizens under the direction of an expert stage manager sent out by the Lyceum Company, which provided the play and saw to it that it was properly costumed and presented. The men still maintain that they are our debtors for the fun they got out of the performance and the club netted a profit of $263.05, which added to the original "Charity Fund" was expended in the purchase of 100 folding chairs, the collapsible kind being chosen as they can be easily folded and slid into an opening under the stage which, being in the back, does not show from the auditorium.
The matter of chairs being off our minds the rest was comparatively easy. During the winter months other moneymaking events followed. A club dance, $57.45, a Shrine Club dance, $40, a Kiwanis Dinner, $45, the Welfare Committee's annual rummage sale, $206, half of which - $103 - was turned over to the committee to be applied on furnishings for the club house. These sums, making a nice total, went to pay for four light fixtures (made by a member), an electric range purchased at a very low price from a club member, twelve long folding tables, our dishes, ten dozen of each, with their soft, blurry pattern of smoky blue and gray - we are justly proud of them - and some glass and flat silver ware; then we had gifts. Scarcely a meeting passes that we do not have some remembrance to acknowledge on behalf of a grateful club. Some of these gifts are candlesticks, bud vases with cleverly constructed flowers, handsome floor lamps, a safety screen for the fireplace, from two of our charter members came the President's chair and the solid oak door which graces the front of our club house, the President's table, the handiwork and gift of the dealer who supplied the lumber used in the building, a beautiful potted plant from a visiting club. From various standing committees, the club received eighteen Roger's Plate teaspoons, ten salt and pepper shakers, ten cream and sugar sets, six wall vases and nine table cloths, each three yards long. All the committees have not yet been heard from, but there are whispers in the air - one never knows. Shortly after the holidays the whole club united to give itself a kitchen shower and so generous were the gifts that we now have everything the heart of any kitchen housewife could desire.
Quite a formidable list of things to be bought and paid for but the work was made pleasant in that each separate undertaking procured for the club some concrete and much desired object.
Our most recent venture is the purchase of a beautiful Emmerson Baby Grand Piano, to replace the old piano which we sold for $150, the sum being applied on the purchase of our "Baby." The other payments do not trouble Portia, she has a trump card up her sleeve and that is the Apple Blossom Day, which falls on May 1, and has for the past five years been Portia's big day.
In the past it has helped swell our Building Fund and this year it will help pay for our piano. A big day this, when Portia is hostess and the Governor of Idaho is her guest. The affair is put on entirely by the women of Portia, assisted by the school children of Payette, and draws thousands of strangers to our town each year.
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Portia Club Dedication
December 1927 |
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