52 Ancestors week 34 of 2024 Members of the Club

 It's been a while!  When last seen, I was recovering from another round of COVID but mostly I've been well since then.  It seems that COVID is here to stay (no surprise there) so this may not be my last contact with it.

Members of the Club.  Well.  Family members have joined a number of organizations, mostly respectable, though I suspect at least one of these was a little sketchy.  I will start with the earliest I know about.

There is a vague indication that my 2x great uncle Pearl McDuff belonged to a group that I think had to do with his time as an undertaker, but the truth is they could easily have been much less respectable.  I'm hoping not, but it's been hard to find any information.  We will for now give Uncle Pearl the benefit of the doubt.

For whatever reason, the International Order of Odd Fellows seems to turn up in references pretty often.  The fact is, I've never found that anyone in my family actually joined this group, but a couple of my ancestors did end up getting buried in cemeteries run by the IOOF.  Once I became aware of the existence of the IOOF, I started seeing the name everywhere, chiefly carved into the sides of hundred year old buildings, though I recently saw a painted sign advertising meeting times for the group and for their women's auxiliary, the Rebekahs.  I do find the whole organization, well, odd, but their function is service, and burial of the dead is part of that so thank you.

Though I don't know how active either of them were, my maternal grandparents were members of the Masons and the Order of the Eastern Star.  Grace and Melvin Belknap have the symbols for these groups carved into their grave markers.  Grace was an active member of her local PTA in the early 1930s which is when my mother would have been in her later elementary school years.  References to Grace in this role show up frequently in the Daily Olympian which is the only reason I know this:  she never talked about it (which was her usual practice).

My parents:  were they joiners?  Not my mother certainly, an introvert to her toes, but my father was a member of the local Elks club when I was a young child.  The Elks provided a place to go out to, getting dressed up and hiring a babysitter for me if my sister was not available.  Dad did not keep up his membership after they started moving frequently, but the habit of service stayed with him the rest of his life.

And me?  Well, I've belonged to the Girl Scouts, PTA when my kids were in school, and the American Gold Star Mothers after my son was killed in Iraq.  Each of these belong to a season of my life, joined for the support they could provide to me when things were difficult but also teaching me that serving others was a way to heal and grow.