Reporter's note: Several months ago Blaine County Museum Executive Director Jude Sheppard showed me a copy of a small book created by the members of the Mountain Community Club as part of the club's 50th anniversary celebrated in 1983. The vest-sized book has a picture of each club member in 1983 with a brief commentary written by another club member. Many of the commentaries are written in poetic verse, which I later found was a popular way of writing and used by many of the club members.

I asked around about the Mountain Community Club and very few locals outside the Lloyd and Cleveland area had ever heard of it. Further inquiring led me to Paulette Keller, a native and still a resident of that part of the county. She was an active club member until the club's last meeting in 2004.

I thought local readers might enjoy learning about the club. When I contacted Paulette asking about the club, she said, "Give me a few weeks to find my information." Then winter intervened and it was spring before we finally sat down to look at the collection of club minutes, special booklets and scrapbooks (many of which Paulette created) and news clippings that covered the 70+ years of the Mountain Community Club's history. Officers and members kept excellent records about the club's activities. Here's some of what I learned about the club and its seventy years of fellowship and service.

The "Lloyd Ladies" organized in 1933,

the club changed its name in 1939

The original purpose for forming the club was to help the Lloyd School gain a 'superior rating.' I could never find exactly what the rating was but Vonnie Davies wrote, in a narrative for the club's 25th anniversary, "For the (superior) rating it was required that there be a community organization interested in the school. Through the efforts of the ladies the school received its rating and has retained it ever since." Whatever was required for a 'community organization' to support the school, the Lloyd Ladies group seemed to fill the bill.

In 1939, six years after organizing, the club changed its name to the Mountain Community Club. The club regularly submitted news stories to the "Opinion." One of those stories in the newspaper noted the membership had expanded beyond the Lloyd School area "and now contained ladies from several communities." New members from areas outside the Lloyd School service area likely prompted the name change to be more inclusive.

How the Mountain Community Club functioned

There were monthly club meetings and, for many years, only at the houses of members. Paulette Keller explained, "The original group was very formal and the ladies prided themselves on being correct in their social graces and how they conducted themselves in public. That tradition carried on over the years." Keller added members always wore their Sunday best dresses to meetings and addressed each other as "Mrs." Even in period news stories the members were always identified as "Mrs." and the husband's last name, never the woman's given first name.

Keller said that hosting a meeting meant your house would be put to the "white glove test" and a lot of effort was put into housecleaning, preparing a full course meal and using one's best china, silver service and glassware for the meal. A list of who would be hosting each meeting was prepared a year in advance. Often two hostesses would work together, one having the meeting at her house with help from the other, then switching roles the next year. In later years some of the meetings were held at restaurants as some members had moved to smaller places or could not physically host a meeting and prepare a full meal.

In the mid-1940's the club members began to invite their husbands to special meetings once a year. These meetings were held at different locations around the region-a picnic at Zurich Park, a dance at Cleveland, meals prepared at the I.O.O.F. (Oddfellows) Hall and at the Elks Lodge in Havre. The ladies sometimes varied their meetings with themed parties, like a Hat Party in the mid-1950's, and a masquerade party in the same time period.

Dues were fifty cents a year when the club organized and were raised to a $1.00 in 1939. Eventually the dues reached $3.00 a year in 1967. As the club began to support other projects some fundraisers were initiated. One that endured was an annual auction. Prior to the 50th anniversary celebration, the club also celebrated their 25th and 45th anniversaries with special events at the Oddfellows Hall and the Pastime Steak House respectively. Club membership varied from the original six in 1933 to around 20 through the 1980's and 1990's.

The club served beyond the Lloyd School

Early on the club spent most of its energies supporting needs of the Lloyd School, like holding its first fundraiser, a raffle in 1939, to buy three dozen folding chairs for the school. In reality, it was hard to separate serving the school and serving the community as many projects overlapped. Eventually club members began to make lap blankets for patients at the Fort Harrison hospital, supported the annual Cancer Fund drive and gave funds regularly to the Sweet Nursing Home and Northern Montana Hospital Auxiliary. They donated to orphanages and supported what eventually became the March of Dimes. And they put together Christmas food baskets and provided gifts for needy folks in Blaine County.

They even did their part during World War II. Members did sewing and knitting projects to support the Red Cross and its work for the troops. They took first aid classes, they wrote letters and sent packages to soldiers. Interestingly, there's a note in club notes reminding members to bring their own coffee and sugar to club meetings because of rationing during the war.

The Club's 50th Anniversary was a major milestone

The Mountain Community Club's 50th anniversary was celebrated in 1983. A list of active members for that year showed about 70 paid members, the membership up a bit from prior years. A big anniversary event was planned and held at the Sweet Park in Chinook and husbands were invited. In addition to the commemorative books mentioned above and other souvenirs prepared for the event, Paulette Keller wrote an original play based on the lives and personalities of the founding members and some of the early members. She explained the purpose of the play was "to honor the memory of the ladies who got the club going in its early years."

The play, titled "Looking Back 50 Years," was set at a monthly meeting from the early years of the club. Various characters, all addressing each other as "Mrs. 'Fill in the family name'" talked about life on the ranches and farms, concerns about family and local news. All of the actresses were wearing some item of clothing or jewelry once owned by the person they were portraying. And the mannerisms and famous quotes of those early members were woven into the dialogue of the play.

The last major event staged by the club was an anniversary celebration for Lloyd School in 1986. (Lloyd School closed in 1999 and celebrated a very large 100th anniversary event in 2015). Keller said, "There was nothing particularly significant about the year we picked. I think some former residents connected to the school and the area were coming for a visit and we used that as an excuse to plan an event." Former and current students as well as former and current faculty were invited and 300 people showed up at the school. A major part of the celebration was a new bell and tower that was added to the school. All students, former and current, were allowed to ring the new bell that day.

The Mountain Community Club held its last official meeting in 2004

Over the years many original and early members died. The club had many daughters and daughters-in-law of the early members. But, there was a finite number of potential members as agriculture changed and fewer people lived on the farms and ranches. And,times changed, as all organizations learned, it was more difficult to recruit and retain members for any service organization. More wives were also working outside the home and nationally there was less interest in civic organizations. Interest in the Mountain Community Club waned.

Paulette Keller said, "We agreed to meet annually at a restaurant or someplace that would provide a meal. That took some of the pressure off members opening their homes and preparing full course meals." The club held its last scheduled annual meeting at Jean's Bakery in Chinook in October, 2004.

Both Paulette Keller (in photo with materials) and her mother, Doris Hofeldt, were active in the Mountain Community Club, a group in the southwest part of Blaine County that originally organized to support the Lloyd School. When the club ceased operating in 2004, Paulette kept the club's materials for safekeeping. The club was blessed with some excellent writers and recordkeepers who produced a lot of materials that tell about the club's history, its members and its activities.

I was curious to learn some of the early members who still were around. Paulette helped me identify Doris Hofeldt (Paulette's mother), Betty Lou (Barber) Stender (whose two daughters were also members) and Mary Hofeldt, who also had adult daughters in the club. There are other former members still around and, for the most part, are in their 60's and 70's.

The original charter members of the Mountain Community Club had family names still found in the south country and the surrounding area. The founding members were Mrs. Joe Dolan (who hosted the first meeting), Mrs. Jack Barber, Mrs. William Davies, Mrs. Jim Barber, Mrs. John Thompson and Clara Barber (also identified in the newspaper as Mrs. Harold Groven). Clara Barber was selected as the first president. That group of six started the seven decades of service and fellowship that defined the Mountain Community Club and its role in the lives of so many in the south country.