Red Hat Speech

(left) The ladies of the Red Hat Club.

A text of their speech for the Maxville Gathering is reproduced below.

The social history of women’s clubs goes back decades, the heyday of these clubs being in the days before women routinely worked.

In our area, social clubs for women were present as soon as towns began to develop and grow. Women were certainly pressed for time with the demands of homemaking that involved cooking, laundry, cleaning and child rearing without the modern conveniences we enjoy today. However, women still needed their time of relaxation with other women, and social clubs filled that need.

In Wallowa some of the clubs for women that existed in the early part of the century were the Wallowa Women’s club, and the Chi Chi club.

One women’s group in Wallowa, name unremembered, raised the money to build the beautiful gazebo that stood at the junction of Hwy 82 and the Whiskey Creek Rd.

Each church in Wallowa has had social clubs that were purely social, Bible Studies or a combination of the two.

Jessica Social Club was affiliated with the Easter Star Lodge and was present in Wallowa four decades.

The Gamma Theta Sorority, social and philanthropic, was present in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

In Promise, the Grange helped to fulfill the social needs of the community. This organization is for men and women, but the women filled the traditional role of cooking shared meals and conducting the social part of the organization.

The Red Hat Club in Wallowa is the sole social Women’s Club in Wallowa today.
Although we are also purely social in nature, we do look for projects in the community that we can help with, such as this event today.