I remember as a girl growing up in Great Falls the organizations with which my Mom and my Grandmother Irene belonged. There was the Junior League of Great Falls and P.E.O., as well as their bridge group(s) [I think there was more than 1}. There was also the CM Russell Museum. I know these were their groups because they were always going to meetings or playing bridge, and it was always with the same people. I didn’t think much about it at the time, I just figured it was what everyone did.
My first clue that these groups were more than “ladies who lunch” or did service projects was when I figured out that the Junior League was a chapter, and to have a chapter, the community needed a population approaching 100,000 people. So, many communities in MT didn’t have a chapter other than Great Falls and Billings (that I knew of for sure). And I learned this about the time my Mom became the President of the Junior League. And Mom ended up having to have a 2nd landline installed in the house for all the Junior League phone calls and business she had to do, so as not to tie up our house line. Keep in mind, this was l0-0-0-o-ng before cell phones. We weren’t supposed to call the Jr. League number, since that was for Jr. League business. But what’s a girl to do when the house line is busy? If I got a busy signal on the Jr. League line, then I knew both my Mom and my sister were at home and on the phone and I had to call Grandma! [fortunately, by then she lived across the street and was always available to pick a kid up when needed]
Now, I did ask what P.E.O. was, but I never got a very straight answer. You can look it up, but essentially, it’s a service organization. Since Mom was in a sorority in college, this made sense. There were chapters, just like with fraternities and sororities, and the name itself wasn’t for “public consumption” but their work was important. They were about empowering, celebrating, and supporting women. Their projects advanced educational objectives and helped girls get scholarships, etc. I figure that’s a pretty important bit of business.
And both the Jr. League and the P.E.O. chapters they were involved in had ties to the Russell Museum. I loved that place. They had programming in the summer for kids, often centered around art. I loved knowing this was a place that supported and maintained the work of C.M. Russell as well as other artists. I mean, I went to a high school named after the man and apparently, he had done one of his paintings on my grandfather’s cattle ranch, so that was an awesome connection.
But why, might you ask, did I call a bridge group an “organization” and group it with these other groups? And the answer is simple: the ties of women. Even though they were there to “play cards” they did more than just track tricks and who won high and who won low. They talked. They talked about issues, they talked about kids, they talked about who needed their help, and who could just use a boost. They talked about which of their groups was selling tickets to what event, who needed help on what committee, and when the next fundraiser was scheduled. And when they weren’t getting together, they were calling around to see who could host, or give a ride to an older member, or who could handle the phone tree next. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s the ‘70’s and ‘80’s version of social media! And they were really good at it!
“And what does this have to do with anything?” you might ask. Well, it was women leading by example. Women doing that networking thing that they learned in college or through work or by the example of other women. It’s a system that has been around for centuries. Many of these women who were “leading by example” in my life and the lives of others had been in the sorority/fraternity system in college, but not all of them. And yet, wherever they were, they figured out how to get things done., and this includes 1st Congregational UCC in Great Falls. [YEP! They were there, too!] They didn’t blow their horn, or say “Hey! Look at me!” They just did it and kept on doing it. And kids like me learned, not because we were lectured, but because we saw it work. So, when we stepped out of high school and began to make our own decisions, join our own groups, establish our own groups, we drew on these examples.
I’m now decades away from those years. I like looking back now and then. It’s nostalgic to remember how we did things before computers and cell phones and social media. And yet, the essential things haven’t really changed. Some things get done faster with those electronic gadgets, but the principals of how to do it haven’t really changed. Those lessons were invaluable for me and for many women of my generation and the men who noticed and appreciated the women in their lives and the things they were capable of doing. They learned not to put up roadblocks or barriers. They learned to work with us to reach the goal.
Love and caring aren’t always expressed with words. Often, actions speak louder and with more power if we look hard enough. You can’t do what these women from my childhood did, and still do if they can, without loving and caring for their fellow human beings. So, I honor them. All of them who laid the groundwork for me. They showed their resilience and their strength at a time when the “glass ceiling” was still a thing and we were still breaking down barriers. We still have a few barriers to remove, but God will see us through, as God has seen us through all the others. Not because God moved mountains, but because God gave us the strength and the resilience to confront those obstacles and network to get the job done. It takes all of us. I learned that early and often.
Thanks, Mom! [Grandma Irene, too!]