MAC AROUND THE CLUB
MAC LEGEND: Donald Sher n March 26, 2021, the MAC celebrated Don Sher Day, marking the 75th anniversary of the longtime Member’s join date in 1946. Looking back at records, MAC administrators are fairly certain there haven’t been any other Members who’ve belonged to the Club for that long. Sher joined the MAC because his father had been a Member since “the war years… around 1917,” Sher guesses. He grew up in University City and remembers riding the bus downtown after school let out. When he and his brother arrived at the MAC, they would play basketball in the gym for an hour and then take swim classes. “We swam in the nude, and when we played basketball, we played shirts versus skins,” he remembers. “We had a locker and we’d get a towel and take the bus home afterwards.” Sher’s father, Louis, had bad arthritis and was crippled when he was in his 30s, so athletics weren’t the main focus of his MAC experience. Louis was a lawyer, and as a fledgling Member, Sher got to know many of his father’s lawyer friends at the Club. Sher eventually went on to become a lawyer himself, graduating from Washington University in St. Louis with a law degree in 1949. He says the social aspect of the Club has been his favorite thing about the MAC as an adult, but he credits the staff when he was younger on their efforts in teaching him how to swim and “just putting up with me.” “Those coaches had to put up with me, and they had a lot of patience,” he says with a laugh. Sher calls himself a “pretty bad athlete… probably one of the last guys they’d pick on the team” and found the MAC’s declaration of Don Sher Day amusing. “I’m honored more than I can say that the MAC would consider to write anything about me,” he says. Sher has fond memories of socializing
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with fellow lawyers at the MAC while he was practicing and used to dine at the Jack Buck Grille regularly before going to the symphony. “You couldn’t beat the steak, my gosh,” he said. “And the oysters in half shell, and the tomato soup. The food in general has just always been very good.” He recalls taking his family to “superb” Thanksgiving meals at the Downtown Clubhouse and bringing out-of-town friends to dine, as well. “If you wanted to take somebody who had come from out of town somewhere special, you took them to the MAC.” He recalls a time when there was a bad power outage in Clayton. Sher, his wife, his sister and a friend of his called the MAC to see if they could come stay at the hotel for a few days. “We came down and spent three or four days until the power got renewed,” he says. “Those are good memories.” When asked why he has stayed a Member for all these years, Sher answered simply that his family has always enjoyed their time at the MAC. “It has been a family gathering place for us many times. There’s a great sense of community, too,” he says. Sher is also complimentary of the way the Club operated and adapted to change in all the years he’s been a Member. “[The MAC] was very quick in adjusting to the change in race relations, which I welcomed and was glad to see happen. They were also quick to adjust to [the addition of female Members] and made those adjustments. Their boards have been generally wonderful and wellhandled. It’s run so professionally,” he says. Sher is now 94 years old, and the MAC has been a constant in his life for decades. “That’s one good thing about living a long life because [the MAC] has always a pleasant place for us to go,” he says. “We all love the Club.” F
