The Just-A-Mere Club organized in 1933 at the home of Mrs. Bess Blakemore in rural Dade County, Missouri. Twice a month, local women gathered at each other’s homes to have lunch, read Scripture, and work on sewing projects together.
I learned of this club when I discovered a very old unfinished quilt in my great-grandmother’s things. Names of club members are embroidered on blocks, surrounded by material that likely came from colorful fabric feed sacks. And at the center is the name of that club, stitched in black.
It was one of many women’s clubs that once dotted the Ozarks during the 20th century. Members gathered for fun and friendship and, oftentimes, to complete a shared task like quilting. Sometimes they were for practical education, like food safety, or expanding one’s knowledge about broader topics.
They were especially important in the past, when people stayed closer to home and small communities were important. But even today, some of these legacy clubs continue.
"We need each other in a way — like-minded people," said Norma Stillings from the Nubbin Ridge homemakers club in Douglas County. "I think it's more of a social need than it is a practical, homemaking skill-need. We're just enjoying it."
Now in her late 80s, Stillings is still a member of the club, which is named for a long-gone community west of Ava. Nubbin Ridge was an extension club, one of many overseen by the University of Missouri- Extension.
A bit of a history lesson here: Those extension clubs tie to the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which established a national Cooperative Extension Service. Long before Google, that effort extended outreach programs to educate rural Americans about advances in agricultural practices and technology, according to the National Archives Foundation.
In addition to Extension clubs, others were organized by groups like the Women’s Progressive Farmers Association or simply by neighbors meeting a need.
The latter is true in Rader, Missouri, where the Helping Hands Club began in the 1930s after a tornado devastated the town.
Rader rebuilt with assistance from the Red Cross, which led to the club’s start. Even today, its members gather in the Rader Immanuel Lutheran Church’s basement for meetings and quilting.
One of its members is Bertha Rader Terry, who is nearly 100 years old and remembers the tornado and the club’s start firsthand.
"They organized it then, and they said they needed a name for it," Terry said. "Blanche Keesling was the one who come up with the name – she said it should be the Helping Hands Club because everybody was helping."
Clubs like Rader and Nubbin Ridge continue not because they are history, but because they are present. It’s true in Chadwick, Missouri, too, where after more than 90 years, that Just-A-Mere Club’s quilt is now being finished.
Many of those quilters – including me, actually – are part of the Chadwick Friendship Club, established in the 1950s, which maintains the Chadwick Community Building. That space is a vital resource for local gatherings like birthday parties, family reunions and coon hunts in the rural Christian County village. Marie Day, one of its leaders, has been part of the club since the early 50s when she got married.
"Basically, I think the club is very important because they've one that kept these grounds and the building alive all these years," Day said.
It’s true that things have changed since the heyday of community clubs. People don’t stay as close to home as they did, and clubs have evolved too. Women entering the workforce led to lower numbers in some places, too. But for ones that continue, they still make a difference for their communities created by interest rather than physical proximity.
"There's fewer people that are actually interested in doing some of the older crafts," Stillings said. "Instead of being from one local area, we've got people who come from Hartville, north of Hartville. We've got some that come from Cabool to our Nubbin Ridge. We and several of them here in Ava."
"They don't even know where Nubbin Ridge is — it's just a name that carried on in this particular club. And part of it, I would credit to people like myself that just really, really did want to have a club continue."
