Sewing circle's last supper represents the end of an era. Forest Home Sewing Circle disbanding after 70 years.The Ithaca Journal, Oct 15 1979, P. 9, Cols. 1-3, with group photo
By Deborah Schoch, Journal WriterCaption for photo:
Members of the Forest Home Sewing Circle prepare to disband after 70 years of making bandages, darning socks. sharing tea and providing companionship and support. From left, Alice Scott,
Margery Kellogg,
Gracie Bush, Kay Dean,
Molly Briant,
Carrie Dunbar,
Lily Ann Newbury and
Helen Sundell.
Charlotte Blye and
Doris Coyle missed the session.
Photo by Raymond Pompilio.Extracts from article by Deborah Schoch: Forest Home was different in those days, they say.
It was smaller, more neighborly, more a rural village. And the lives of Forest Home women were also different then. Most of them did not work at outside jobs, but instead spent their days cooking. cleaning and caring for their children.
"Back in 1909, you had a baby carriage and you pushed it around Forest Home, as I understand it," said
Margery N. Kellogg of 501 Ellis Hollow Creek Road, a former Forest Home resident.
So, in the first years of the 20th century, a group of Forest Home women began meeting regularly to talk and to sew. In 1909, the group gained a formal name — the Forest Home Sewing Circle - and its meetings became a twice-a-month tradition among the women residing in the quiet hamlet alongside Fall Creek on East Hill.
"It was church on Sundays and Sewing Circle on Thursdays," recalled Kellogg. who joined the group in 1931 and served as its last secretary.
The Thursday tradition ended last week for the group's 10 remaining members. Friday, they held their 70th anniversary celebration at the Holiday Inn. It was also the group's last meeting. Just 70 years after it was founded, the Forest Home Sewing Circle has disbanded.
"There's only 10 of us, and half of them are heading for Florida," Kellogg explained.
But the demise also illustrates a sweeping change in how women spend their days. Full-time jobs leave little time for joining sewing circles; as a result, years have passed since a new member has joined the group's dwindling ranks.
...
It was formally launched in 1909 by Forest Home residents
Helen Kent,
Ethel McElwee and
Alice Mitchell, its first president. Mitchell also wrote the motto, repeated at the start of each gathering:
=== "
Friendship here we know, to have and to bestow." ===
By 1919, the group was publishing a yearly program with delicate Gothic type on pale ivory paper. The program lists members of the group's five committees as well as a schedule for the twice-monthly meetings in the year ahead.
The meetings themselves followed a time-honored agenda: first came the motto, then roll call, minutes and correspondence, old business, new business, committee reports and then a program produced by a member. In the "sunshine report," the women made plans to send cards or flowers to friends who were ill.
"If you were really sick, you'd get a plant. And, if you weren't that sick, you'd get a rose," Kellogg said.
Throughout, the women sewed, knit, crocheted and darned.
They made supplies for the hospital and the tuberculosis preventorium. Or cancer dressings - averaging 50 per meeting — for the cancer society. Clothing and blankets for the old orphanage on Seneca Street. Wool helmets, gloves, leggings and fingerlets were produced for the soldiers overseas; the women also put together packages with soap, shaving cream and other essentials for the soldiers. "The boys who went from Forest Home and Varna — we sent to them, too," Bush added. And in World War II, the group "adopted" a French orphan and forwarded money for education.
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The factor the women blame most for the group's demise is the fact that it has not been able to attract new members.
"Since '60, it's been dwindling," Kellogg said.
"The younger generation has so many other things to do, they just don't want to sew."
"Most women have to work. They're too tired now at night to do anything."
"It takes two people to work now to bring up a family," Bush agreed.
...
So the remaining members have gathered together the artifacts from the group's 70-year history and donated them to the DeWitt Historical Society.
For years, the group held its annual anniversary dinner at the now-forgotten Forest Home Inn.
Sometimes the event drew 60 people, including all the members and their husbands. This year, 15 were expected to join in the last celebration at the Holiday Inn. "It's like a last supper," Bush said.
...
"I feel sorry for anyone who never joined us." Bush remarked. "They could think. They could stand on their own two feet."
Still, the "last supper" was viewed with surprisingly little regret on the part of its participants.
"It is simply the end of an era," Kellogg said.
And Bush concurred: "We just plain died a natural death, I'd say."