A Year of Fortnights

Alice D. Rayner 1918-19

A Year Of Fortnights.

In the dim ages of the past some unusually precocious savage made picture marks on a stone or a bone or a bit of wood. These served to recall to him and his companions certain events which seemed remarkable or important; there had been an earthquake or a battle, or a famine. Such records were necessarily brief, and no attempt was made to connect one with the other or to interpret them. Posterity was thus informed concerning the perils, the valor, the strange experiences of their ancestors. At the time when they were inscribed, they had no further value than this. But after the lapse of ages they acquired [a] new significance, far greater than the original one, and not contemplated by the scribe. For they assumed their proper place in the long story of mankind and helped to indicate the manner and direction of the processes by which man has become what he is from what he was.

With what trepidation then, must one who is entrusted with the pen of a chronicler approach his task!

The twentyfifth year of the Queen Anne Fortnightly Club has passed into history, and it devolves upon your humble servant to record the events thereof. As we looked forward one year ago to the program which we were to present for the edification and delectation of each other, it loomed before us a stupendous weighty thing. The burdens of the world were upon our shoulders. The problems of the nations just emerging from a world cataclysm awaited our solution. Our brows were furrowed with anxious thought as we poured over those slender folders of green cardboard. How might we prove ourselves worthy interpreters of such momentous themes!

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Well, those fortnights have rolled by, and what seemed a mountain as we approached it, has smoothed itself out into a succession of gentle slopes in retrospect. We have been persecuted with the Poles, we have lived with the Lithuanians; We have neigh-bored with the Near East. We have agonized with the Albanians. We have studied the Slav, both Czecho and Jugo. We have come to understand the meaning of Ukrainia. To those at least, who labored to bring us into a more intimate knowledge of these peoples, must have come a fuller realization of the difficulties attending a just and amicable settlement of the European situat-ion, a clearer vision of our responsibility in the matter. If in some degree this has not come to all of us, then the year’s study has been in large measure, a failure. These peoples are among us today, here in our midst. Their problems are our problems, and will be so increasingly. To be indifferent to that fact, is to be unpatriotic. To cultivate a truer understanding of them, is to make better Americans of us all. To round out this side of our study, the program of our Open Day was planned. The Committee secured as speaker a man honored among educators today as one of the keenest and most careful students of world history, a man whose opinions are founded upon knowledge, who has gone beneath the surface material which is visible to us. He opened up to us new depths, hitherto almost unsuspected, and gave us a wider horizon of vision.

In the realm of fiction too as well as fact, we went adventuring. Not content with the gems from well known authors brought to us so delightfully by Mrs.Bartlett, Mrs.Pike and Mrs. Cunningham, eight of the club’s most fertile brains collaborated on a serial story. This tale was so startling in plot, so [unclear: copied]

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original in treatment, and so entertaining in characterization that it proved a decided drawing card. It’s scene of action fittingly lay in the countries of which we were studying, and our authors wove into the thread of their narrative many quite enlightening bits concerning the manners and customs of the people.

Other parts on the program which seem to merit especial mention were the reviews of Hugh Walpole’s “Jeremy” and Robert Hichens’ Mrs.Mardin“ given by Mrs.Bartlett, Mrs. Bailey’s address on the Near East, Mrs.Parker’s talk on ”Combing the World for new Crops“ and Mrs. Black’s ”Impressions of the Orient". Each of these was a model of its kind and worthy of presentation to a larger audience.

Our good times together began even before the scheduled program with a charming luncheon given by Mrs.Dearborn to honor Mrs. Black on the eve of her departure for an extended trip in the Orient, and our retiring “war” president, Mrs. Cunningham. On this occasion Mrs.Seckett, Mrs.Compton and Mrs.Blaine distinguished themselves as after luncheon speakers in their graceful and felicitous toasts to the honor guests.

On September 26th Mrs.Compton opened her home for the entertainment of club husbands and families at a cafeteria dinner in celebration of the quarter century anniversary of the founding of the club. Our inimitable cooks had vied with each other in the concoction of their favorite viands. Meat loaves, escalloped potatoes, salads, rolls, jellies and pies of every known variety from the succulent pumpkin and juicy apple to the more delicate cream and lemon were temptingly arrayed on every available

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resting place in the spacious dining room. Here the guests laden with trays and utensils circulated and chose, each according to his or her taste and appetite. The smiling committee on arrangement, Mrs.Blaine and Mrs.Bayley, flushed with triumph et cetera, constantly replenished and poured. All formality took to itself wings under the cheering influence of food, and even husbands who had reported unfavorably on Club parties in general seemed to unbend completely. Later Mrs. Miller responded to the toast “Fortnightly Beginnings” Mrs. Speer spoke on “What Fortnightly has done to Me” and Mrs.Thomas gave a delightful example of the things we have come to expect on our regular programs, which was in this case, her“Memories of Capri”.

We had promised ourselves an afternoon of utter relaxation and unadulterated joy on April First, under the capable direction of Mrs.Bayley, but [a]she was forced to celebrate the day by having her tonsils removed, it was a sort of April Fool joke on all concerned.

Mrs.Whitney’s home was the scene of our Open Day meeting, when we repaid our obligations to other Federation clubs by inviting their presidents and the officers of the City Federation. The members of the Queen Anne Study Club [were] were also our guests on that day. The Committee of arrangements in charge of Mrs.Goodwin dispensed our hospitality in a manner to make every one feel at home. The following meeting at Mrs. Black’s took upon itself something of a gala aspect in that we were welcoming her back after her long absence, and because Mrs.Black served such a very high tea, that it stood out in

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our minds and elsewhere, in comparison with the exceedingly low ones to which we became addicted during the war.

As a happy close to our year of fortnights, we journeyed across Lake Washington on June tenth to the Bellvue home of Mrs.Speer where a collation awaited us which surpassed anything ever prepared single handed for such a number. Needless to say, the club did ample justice to Mrs.Speer’s chicken and hot biscuit, and one of the members established a record for the consumption of ice-cream.

The year was marked by the extensive travels of a third of our membership. Mrs.Miller and Mrs.Bushnell spent the greater part of the year in Washington D.C., Mrs.Black accomplished an Oriental pilgrimage. Mrs.Fales made almost a complete circuit of the United States, [and] Mrs.Compton, Mrs. Cosgrove, Mrs. Foster, Mrs.Holmes, Mrs.Pike, Mrs.Turrell and Mrs.Whitney left us to our own devices and oratory while they enjoyed the golden sunshine of California for a season.

For your president, the year did not end until after the State Federation Convention at Wenatchee, the first week in July.

When I began the preparation of this brief resume of our year’s work, it seemed to me that there was but one topic of which I might speak- that one theme overshadowed all, namely the passing from among us within a [twelve-month] a twelfth month of three of our oldest and most honored members. But the more I considered it, the more was it borne in upon me that they would have been the last ones to have it so. Belle M. Stoughtenborough, May I.Rasor, Anna M.Sheafe built their lives into the Queen Anne Fortnightly Club in a way that cannot

be taken from us. We are all different women because we have known them. The standards they set for us will not fade from our memories. We will continue to strive after the ideals they held before us. The spirit in which they faced life’s tasks, its trials, its disappointments and its joys will ever be an inspiration to us. We shall miss the wisdom of their counsel, the pleasure of their friendship, but they will still be with us in a very real sense. May we make the year upon which we are just entering and all the years to come worthy of these women to whom this club of ours meant so much.