story anD PhotograPhs By Cassie Butler
“P
repare the youth of today to be the good citizens of tomorrow.” It’s only fitting that this is the motto of Aberdeen’s venerable Cardinal Book Club, widely believed to be not only the oldest continuously operating book club in the Sandhills, but among the oldest in all of North Carolina. A commonly expressed joke — one that holds a grain of truth — is that the only way to gain admission to the club is for a sitting member to pass on. Even so, more than sixty years after the club’s founding, the ladies of the Cardinal Book Club assemble faithfully for refreshments, a book exchange and catching up on each other’s lives every first Thursday of the month. Today, only one of its original founding members, Doris Moon, 84, is still an active member. Moon joined the club as a young married woman and served as hostess at the first recorded meeting on July 7, 1949. She recalls that in the early years of the club, membership ranged from 18 to 24 members, but in the 1970s the club was reduced to 16 members. Since the club does not meet during summer months, June through August, and does not exchange books in December, there are only eight months of book exchanging per year. Basically, each member only needs to purchase one book every two years for club purposes. The idea to provide a stream of stimulating reads that would appeal to other members of the club through a system of exchanging titles seems to work without a hitch, if longevity and member dedication mean anything. “I’m a reader, and I certainly don’t get all my books from the book club, I get them from everywhere,” notes club member Juanita Auman, who admits by the time she gets a book near the end of the two-year rotation, chances are she’s probably already checked it out from the library and read it. Ironically, the Cardinal Book Club was created for young mothers and wives following World War II by the older women of the Sandhills Book Club. Now nearly all the Cardinal members are in their 80s. “It’s pretty embarrassing. We’ve grown old together, and that’s a fact,” says Auman with a laugh. “The club has changed as we’ve changed, but
our l aDies oF the CluB (leFt to r ight) roW 1: Doris moon, Juanita auman, louise BuCKhan; roW 2: roBBie harter, marJ gsChWinD, eDna Donathan; roW 3: elDiWeiss loCKey, K athryn KuZminsKi, JoyCe mCinnis; roW 4: ann mCneill, eVelyn taylor, ruth sinClair; roW 5: Carolyn Burns
PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P May 2012
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