This past week I was put in charge of looking into who the members were and where they lived and also when they paid their dues to the Club. The notebook that we found was in box seven and contained a lot of different notebooks of various shapes and sizes. The one that I began to look at was kept by the treasurer and documented in alphabetical order where the members lived and the date that they paid their dues.

I found this task interesting but also somewhat mundane. After a day or so of doing this I started to rummage through box seven looking at the other notebooks that I had mostly skipped over. In the box I found a notebook that was simply the names and address of the different members in various “seasons” dating from 1898-1899 to 1915-1916. Although  there are some years missing, it is interesting to see the development of the members of the Club and to see some of the key members in the founding of the Club begin to resign.

The addresses are enough to make this type of transcribing engaging, I found myself keeping a mental track record of the ladies and where they lived. Many of them lived in the same areas, which makes sense. But talking to Hunter (a local Marylander) it is surprising to learn that many of these areas have gone through great transformation from the elite upperclass women that resided there during the turn of the century and early 1900s to the families that live there today.

An interesting aspect of this new notebook that was found is that it gives the Board of Management for each year. In this case throughout the years I can see certain members moving up from being just directors to secretaries and then some become vice presidents. All the while Mrs. Wrenshall remains the president for many years.

Another notebook that was found documents just the year of 1912-1913, even though this year is documented in the other notebook with many of the other years. I am curious to try and find out through reading the minutes of the meetings why there was the same information kept in two separate notebooks.

Something interesting about this notebook is that for certain years there is a list of the members signatures for when there was an election. I assume that this was just a roll for who was there and who was voting but it is interesting to see each members’ unique signature. It almost helps to make them seem like real people—not just names on a page.