The Evolution of the Punxsutawney Garden Club

By Gloria Kerr for Hometown magazine

This is the first installment of a two-part history of the Punxsutawney Garden Club. The second installment will appear in the June 2023 issue of Hometown magazine.

The Punxsutawney Garden Club is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year as the club was officially organized on April 4, 1933. The original founders and members dressed up for social meetings, wearing white gloves and hats, for 2 p.m. meetings where hostesses served tea during the first four and a half decades of its existence. However, the club has evolved into a working team of mostly women who are hands-on diggers, weeders, and planters whose main mission is to beautify Punxsutawney.

In 1933, the year the club was born, our nation was deep into the Great Depression during one of the worst years in our country’s history.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had just begun his first term in office a month before the club was founded. In his first hundred days, he initiated his New Deal by issuing executive orders and pushing through unprecedented federal legislation to provide relief for the unemployed, 25 percent of the workforce, and to promote economic recovery. Those Garden Club founders may have been motivated by a desire to be doing something pos- itive that did not require much money but would benefit the community and provide members with a social outlet.

The first two decades, 1933-1940s: The first meeting was held at the home of Mrs. Lee North, president, on April 4, 1933. Twenty-five members were present; dues of one dollar were collected with a fiftycent assessment for the club program booklet. The object of the club was, and still is, according to the club’s constitution, “the advancement of gardening, the development of home grounds, the furthering of city and highway beautification and aiding in the protection of forests, wildflowers and birds.”

Meetings were held at 2:00 or 2:30 in the afternoon.

Member Nancy Hallman remembered in an interview for a Hometown article in April 2000: “When I was a little girl, I used to like to sit and watch my neighbor lady when she went to Garden Club. She was always dressed up so pretty, complete with a hat and white gloves,” a fashionable style for women’s outings in the 1930s.

That same style of dress continued into the 1940s when World War II, rationing, and an emphasis on practicality made squared shoulders, below-the-knee skirts, and narrow hip suits very popular. Luncheon teas with cookies were served by hostesses after a program

Punxsutawney Garden Club members celebrated the club’s 90th anniversary at its April 4th meeting by wearing dress-up hats and gloves as members did when the club organized in 1933. (front, l. to r.) Cindy Stefancik, Barb Postlewaite, Dotty Jekielek (corresponding secretary), Kerri Stebbins, Gloria Kerr (secretary), Kim Wittenburg (president), Peggy Brown, Zana Fye, Kim Lininger, Susan Lefcowitz; (back, l. to r.) Ann Lott, Laura Deet, Dena Taylor, Melissa Ferguson, Barb Certo, Char Skarbek, Donna Grabany, Suzy Meyer (vice president), Destiny Pifer, Judy Dumont, Debby Elder (treasurer), Clarence Troutman, Linda Amundson, Carol Bonnett. (submitted photo) was presented, often by members. These were usually related to gardening and the outdoors, such as growth and care of roses, growing African violets, pruning shrubs, birds of Jefferson County, flowers for a rock or shade garden, and members’ reports on travels abroad.

The following committees gave the club structure: Program, Social, Scrap Book, Cemetery, and Floral. The Program Committee developed topics to be presented by members or invited speakers throughout the club’s year, which ran from July 1 through June of the next year; thus early booklets were la-

Garden Club

beled, for instance, 1947-1948, with a hiatus in the winter months of December through February. A 1942 amendment to the club’s constitution addressed attendance at club meetings; it stated that “absence from three consecutive meetings without a written excuse acceptable to the Executive Committee shall be deemed equivalent to resignation. A written notice will be sent with an opportu- and polio research, among others. In 1942, there was no flower show due to World War II and “general conditions that now prevail,” while a flower show in 1943 was for members only. nity to be re-instated.” That amendment has gone by the way years ago.

A meeting set for Tuesday, June 6, 1944, was cancelled because it fell on the day of the Allied invasion of Normandy, now known as D-Day. After the war years, during 1947-49, the club did make two different field trips to Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh and organized member flower shows.

The Social Committee organized luncheons and card parties for members, while the Floral Committee organized some informal flower shows as meeting programs, the purpose of which was “educational, stimulation of civic improvement, and competition among exhibitors.” The Cemetery Committee focused only on encouraging care of the “Old Cemetery,” which is the historic cemetery on North Findley Street where some of Punxsutawney’s earliest residents are buried.

From its beginnings, the Garden Club was interested in collaborating with the Punxsutawney Hospital as club minutes report on members helping with some landscaping there in June 1936. In 1938, records show a Garden Club member was on the hospital council. That same year, the club had a committee “to superintend plants at the new West End bridge,” and members protested against cement walks being poured in the Barclay park that would damage or destroy plants and shrubs there. The club also held a fundraising card party at the Elks, with 68 tables, to raise money for park shrubbery. In 1939, it participated in what was called “Punxsy’s Big Farm, Flower, and Poultry Show” which it did not sponsor.

During the 1940s, the Garden Club continued its interest in the hospital grounds and the Old Cemetery, paying someone to trim trees, mow grass, and straighten tombstones. With funds raised, the club donated modestly to the YMCA, Red Cross, Selective Service Board,

1950s-1960s: In the 1950s, the Punxsutawney Garden Club began to take interest in beautifying Punxsutawney more broadly. On March 7, 1950, Bill Mechling, vocational agricultural instructor at the Punxsutawney High School, spoke to the club about ways to beautify the town at large: plant more grass, improve lighting, remove overhead wires, and dress up approaches to the city.

Another club program in 1954 featured a speaker from the Pennsylvania Department of Highways speaking about the increasing

Punxsutawney Garden Club presidents: 1933-69

1933-35 Mrs. Lee S. North

1935-37 Mrs. William Hampton

1937-39 Mrs. Charles St. Clair

1939-40 Mrs. H. W. Lyons

1940-41 Mrs. N. H. Boyd

1941-42 Mrs. J. P. Benson

1942-43 Mrs. G. M. Musser

1943-44 Mrs. L. W. Anderson

1944-46 Mrs. Jean H. White

1946-47 Mrs. John Lippert

1947-48 Mrs. George Gibson

1948-49 Mrs. Chester Bundy

1949-50 Mrs. Robert Mateer

1950-51 Mrs. Clair Tyger

1951-53 Mrs. F. D. Pringle

1953-54 Mrs. Paul Barclay

1954-55 Mrs. W. A. Dinsmore

1955-56 Mrs. Charles St. Clair

1956-58 Mrs. John Michele

1958-60 Mrs. Mrs. Clair Tyger

1960-62 Mrs. Anthony Barletta

1962-64 Mrs. John Barilar

1964-65 Mrs. Mrs. H. J. Purdy

1965-67 Mrs. D. R. Thomas

1967-68 Mrs. John Tushim

1968-69 Mrs. D. R. Thomas

1969-71 Mrs. Andrew Daskivich