The Junior League of Santa Barbara: 75 Years

NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine Of The Santa Barbara Historical Society Winter 2000

Vol. XLVI, No. 4

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The Junior League of Santa Barbara: 75 Years

HE Junior League of Santa Barbara inccnporatcd sevent^-fivt years ago. Based upon the pwicipks ofthe earliest Junior Leagues on the Bast Coast, the Junior League of Santa Bariyara stresses the importance of voluntarism both in lutlping the community and in building the character ofthe women volunteers. Over its seventy-five year history the local League has been involved in an amazing number ofpmjectsfrom tuberculosis treatment to chil dren 5 camps to educational pwg7-ams to outreach counseling to enviimimezital concerns— the list goes on and on. The League luis adapted to changing times, successfully facing economic downturns, war, and social upheaval. Its good worfts have served the community well.

T^axine Crandall,a Junior League member since i960, relates the history ofthis vibrant organiza tion in this issue o/Nocicias. Drawing heavily upon the League’s archives, she has largely allowed the women to tell their story in their own words. She also maltes clear that although at the core of the League is a commitment to service, these womendo lijuyw howtohavefun.Stage shows,Jcmnaldances, fashion shows, etc., have all been put on over the years, albeit usually jor the serious purpose offund raising to support League programs, programs which have enriched the community in a myriad of ways.

All photographs arcfrom the archives ofthe Junior League ofSanta Barbara unless noted other wise. Front cover-image is the present Junior League logo. Backcover image is an earlier logo.

THE A VTHOIL Maxine Chauncey Crandallformerly taught English for tiventy -six years in the Santa Barbara High School District. She holds a BA. in English and a Secondary Teaching Cre dentialfrom University of California, Santa Barbara. Her jxrsitions with the Junior league include Past President, Sustainers; Chair ofthe Plistory Committeefor twenty-five years;andeditorofboth the neivsletter and yearbook- In addition to her League activities, she has served on the lobero Theatre Foundation and is presently a docent with the Santa Barbara Flistorical Society.

INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS; NOTICIAS is a quarcerly journal devoced to chc study of the history of Santa Barbara County. Contributions of articles arc welcome. Those authors whose articles arc accepted for publication will receive ten gratis copies of the issue in which their article appears. Further copies are available to the contributor at cost. The authori ty in matters of style is the University ofChicago Manual ofStyle, 14th edition. The Publications Committee reserves the right to return submitted manuscripts for required changes. Statements and opinions expressed in articles are the sole responsibility of the author.

Michael Redmon, Editor Judy SuccIiHc. Designer

® 2000 The Santa Barbara Historical Society 136 E. De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara. California 93101 ● Telephone: 805/966-1601 Single copies $10.00 ISSN 0581-5916

The Junior Le/W5Ue of Santa Barbara Mission Statement 2000 The Junior League of Santa Barbara, Inc., is an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women,and to improving the community through the effective action and leadership of volunteers.

Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable.

The Junior League of Santa Barbara reaches out to women of all races, rcUgiDas, and naftrmal origins who demonstrate an interest in and commitment to voluntarism.

The Junior League of Santa Barbara "There is properly no history, only biography,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emer son. Certainly the history of the Junior League of Santa Barbara is written not just in facts that may be read in the chronolo gy of annual reports, but more interesting ly in the lives of many hundreds of players, women who have made their en trances and exits on a grand and unique lo cal stage in a continuing performance that began seventy-five years ago. and as stat ed in the original by-laws, promises to "have perpetual existence.” As part of the junior League’s observance of its seventy-

■ Tvlaxinc Crandall

fifth anniversary, this sketch of our histo ry— with emphasis on the voices of the women who lived it—is here presented by decades beginning with the 1920s and continuing to the present day. Curtain!

The 1920s.

The Beginnings The opening scene is a September day in 1924. Eleven young women are meet ing for tea at the home of Mrs. Frederick Forrest Peabody to discuss the idea of forming a volunteer organization. The set ting is beautiful, the Peabody estate, So/ano. on Eucalpytus Hill Road, later to be come the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. These ladies are present: Mrs. Peabody. Mrs. E. Bryan Kelso, Mrs. J. Osborne Craig, Mrs. Ste phen Gates. Mrs. Herbert Spoor, Miss 73

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Th^ home ofMr.and Mrs. FrederickForrest Peabody, Sohno, was the site ofthe September igi^ tea at which eleven women gathered to discuss theformation ofthe Junior League ofSanta Barbara. Santa Barbara Historical Society.

Fredreka Gane, Mrs. Daniel Nugent, Mrs. Oliver Schaaf, Mrs. Gordon Forbes, Mrs. Peter Cooper Bryce, and Mrs. Law rence Fox, No photographs of this gathering are known to have been taken, nor minutes.

Imagine, then, that these public-spirited gentlewomen of leisure, proper in after noon tea attire, the drop-waisted short gowns, rolled stockings, T-strap shoes and cloche hats of the time, might have discussed some of the local topics of the day, such as the 10,000 who lined the streets from the Arlington to the Bath House to view the first Old Spanish Days parade, or the young Western artist Ed ward Borein who had just arrived in town or the Community Arts Association of Bernhard Hoffmann and Pearl Chase, or the opening of the beautiful new Lobero Theatre. They had a serious purpose be¬

sides tea and chatter, however; they in tended to form the Junior League of Santa Barbara.

To give direction was Mrs. Fox, vicepresident of the Western Division of the League, who urged that the preliminary steps be taken immediately and the fol lowing temporary officers were chosen: President, Mrs. Peter Cooper Bryce of the New York League; Vice-President, Mrs. Stephen Gates; Treasurer, Mrs. E. Bryan Kelso; and Secretary, Miss Fredreka Gane. The others were to form the Board of Directors.

According to Angelica Bryce’s Presi dent’s Report, "During September and October an energetic membership drive was made with the gratifying result that the membership was quickly increased to an active and willing group of eightyfive.’’ When asked to cell something of

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JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS

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Frederick Forrest Peabody and his wife,Kathleen Burke Peabody,were both major benefactors to Santa Barbara and were active in numerous local organiz/itions.

Santa Barbara Historical Society.

those eleven charter members, Mrs. Hor

fornia of the Association of Junior Leagues

ace Gray, Sr., the first elected president, replied, "I had lived here only a short time so I was not one of the first persons. Bet

of America, preceded by San Francisco.

At the March 2 meeting, Mrs. Bryce, in conformity with the national ruling pro hibiting a member of one branch from act ing as an officer of another branch, hand ed in her resignation as president pro tern, and Mrs. Gray was elected president. "It was a fluke, you know, that I became first president of the League. I was only to be the acting president because I was going to the East Coast that year, and I could carry the application.”

Other directors at incorporation were Elizabeth Park, Esther Hammond, Melba

ty Fox had a great big house on Fernald Point. They were from Kentucky. She did the early organizing. Kathleen Peabody had arrived in Santa Barbara; she had or ganized hospital units during the war in Europe and had so much wonderful expe rience. Mr. Peabody was a widower at the time. She went to Solano as a bride. After Mr. Peabody died, her second husband was killed in a tragic accident. She later married Mr. Girard Van Barkaloo Hale.”

The first general meeting was held on November 24, 1924, at the Gray home on Olive Mill Lane with fifty founding mem bers present. Reading like a Who’s Who in Santa Barbara Society in the 1920s such names as Mrs. D.B. Bromfield, Mrs. Albert Billings, Miss Gertrude Chase, Mrs. Harold Doulton, Miss Augusta Haz ard, Miss Frances Lincoln, Albertine Holmes, Frederica Poett, Francisca Dibblee, and Mrs. Arthur Ogilvie were among the roll call of founders.

Incorporation to6k place at the meet ing of January 2, 1925, and the local League became the second branch in Cali-

Spoor, Martha Edwards, Frances Forbes, Florence Alexander,and Jane Haserick.

A guiding force in the League from her first thirteen months as president before transferring to the Chicago and San Fran cisco Leagues, Mrs. Gray returned to San ta Barbara in the 1950’s. Sylvia Brickley Weller wrote a biographical sketch of her in League Currents, the organization’s newsletter, which read, in part: When Katherine Meekp" Qray and her two sisters were growing up outside Chicago during the early part ofthe century, people of privilege sometimes educated their children with tutors in the family library. '’Weil,” she

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twinkled when 1 asked ifher parents had been schooled in the same way, "I should say not.

My father was a meat packer, you know.”

The Meekers, along with the Armours, did not work in the stockyards, but Katherine would have one imagine her father hurling slabs ofmeat amid bleating cattle and sweatsoaked backs.

Perhaps it was this sense ofhumor and her often surprising self-deprecation that was so endearing. It made her a cozy person to be around. She had a warm and sometimes puz zled concern for the people for whom she cared. But in Katherine something else was operating. There is a certain alchemy that en ables some people to reach beyond the original bonds. She extended herfeeling ofcaring to the community and especially to its less empowered people. She did it not only with her checkbook but with her imagination and in telligence. Her visions that she hoped would help people lead less troubled lives were both creative and sound. She was of an era of women, Eleanor Rposevelt comes to mind, who felt an obligation to do something posi tive by way of and because of their advan taged positions.

One of Katherines good friends was Margaret Sanger, who sprangfrom the same circle but had become a pariah in her group.

She ignored the gossip and accepted Miss Sanger’s invitations to dinner parties, meet ing Bertrand Bussell and a group ofEurope an intellectuals who supported birth control.

She started the Volunteer Bureau and

Mrs. Horace Qray, Sr. was die firstformallyelected president ofthe Junior League ofSanta Barbara. She felt that with prixnlege came responsibility.

At lunch at El Paseo one day in 1969, Mrs. Gray reminisced about the early League years: On the times; Vdewereaverysmallcommunity then,a little over 20,000 and we knew almost everyone. Some ofthe girls were over forty years old in the Provisional CLiss[tradi tionally open to eighteen to forty-yearolds]. but we needed members so we didn't ask too many questions. . . . There were women who lived in town and women who lived in

Planned Parenthood and spearheaded many other causes, among them the League of Women Voters and the Democratic Party.

There was also the Council of World Affairs and probably others of which I am not

Montecito. The women in town said that they raised children and were supported by their husbands, while the women in Montecito

aware. Her daughter, Joan, and daughterin-law, Qina Qray (Mrs. Horace Qray, Jr.), were active Leaguers as well as her granddaughter, Suze Qray Williams, a re cent past president.

raised dogs and supported their husbands.

My sister Qrace Lloyd and 1 were very lucky because we played with both groups. We went to the Edgecliffe and to the Montecito Country Club Saturday night dances.

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS On her first meeting; Beth Parks should have been president. She had lived here a long time but was terrified oftaking on such an as signment. 1 was so frightened at that first meeting that 1 could hardly speak, VVe prob ably talked about what we shoidd devote our energies to. What were the needs? Rachel Ogilvie said, “/ thinfiwe need a Preventorium for pre-tuberculous children. We need tofind some land and build a cottage."Wefound out that the County had land out near Qeneral Hospital; what we could do was raise money for a building.So we had a Country Fair.

A browse through the 1925-1926 year book reveals that there were two Presi dent’s reports that year, Mrs. Bryce's and Mrs. Gray’s, as well as reports from five standing committees and eleven subcom mittees including a Flower Committee.

"Three girls took charge each week, col lecting flowers from the gardens of those who kindly donated them and sold them from a pushcart in front of Diehl’s Gro cery Store. The girls who did not sell flowers supplied the hospitals on Tues days. One thousand dollars was collected in five months.”

There was a Sewing Committee.

"Twenty-six aprons, six doctor’s gowns, six dozen bags for compressors, twelve dozen muslin squares for wrapping com pressors, and two muslin dresses were de livered to the VNA [Visiting Nurse Asso ciation]. . . . Nine flannel petticoats and nine flannel dresses were made for the Eastside Social Center.. . . We also mended for the VNA twenty nurse’s aprons, one sheet, ten towels and one washcloth.” Oth er members formed the Wolf Cub Com mittee. "The Wolf Cub packs each con sisting of from ten to seventy boys, met on the grounds of the various public and pri vate schools. Of the twenty-one leaders, eighteen were Junior League members.”

The secretary wrote that the member-

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ship stood at eighty-seven Actives( un der age forty, later under age fifty), three Sustainers (age forty and over, later, age fifty and over), three Professionals and twelve Provisionals (prospective mem bers), 117 members in all, and that the League took its first office at 112 East De la Guerra Street "for which we pay a small rent.”

Mrs. Gray’s report said in part, "Fol lowing the earthquake of June 29, 1925, a motor corps to serve all relief agencies to which we could render the greatest service was organized. The corps became the ex clusive property of the National Red Cross here to investigate and relieve all cases of distress caused by the quake. I am so proud of the way our members have responded, often in real danger when the brick building where our headquarters was held would totter alarmingly with settling quakes.

About thirty of our members kept at this useful but fatiguing work for two months.”

Other projects were bridge parties, and the Tuberculosis Seal sale, netting $3500 toward the building fund for Sunshine Cottage. "We have our plans and specifi cations costing us very little, thanks to the kindness and courtesy of Miss Julia Morgan, the architect, and the Plans and Planting Branch of the Community Arts Association who furnished a draftsman.

We had hoped to give an entertainment, but throughout the summer and autumn it was impossible to raise money for any other cause than earthquake relief,” Angel ica Bryce wrote.

The first Country Fair in 1927 was held at Peabody Stadium, built in 1924 with a $100,000 bequest from Frederick Forrest Peabody, the first League husband.

One hundred Leaguers worked on the fair to make $10,000 for Sunshine Cottage.

The history scrapbooks of the League de vote pages to the cottage and to the subse-

NOTICIAS

The League'sfirst Country Fairivas held at Santa Barbara Hish School's Peabody Stadhim. NumeT' ous loccdbusinesses donated items ofall kinds, helping to make tKfair afinancial success.

quent fairs that supported it. An early ar ticle from Woman’s News of the local paper reported: Peabody Stadium, easily accessible from all parts oftoion, provides an ideal settingfor the Junior League Country Fair. The old fashioned strains ofa calliope, synonymous of a carnival such as this will be heard whis tling through the streets to announce to visi tors and residents alike that the Fair is ready, and thousands are expected to attend. It will be brought up firm Los Angeles. .. Amuse ments of all hinds have been provided for young and old, with inviting stands of hot dogs, ice cream, and ice cold drinks to refresh the revelers during the hours ofplay. No one need go home for dinner. League members have provided from their own homesfood for hungry men and women and there will be baked beans, salads, sandwiches, coffee and pie in abundance.

Thefamous string ofseven donkeys to de light the youngsters will again be on hand with Jerry, their custodian... the Municipal Band will play a concert in the afternoon from 3 to 4.30 and in the evening the Billbrew Quartet will add their jazz music to the cla mour ofvoices until midnight when all stock in the thirty booths will be depleted.

A lined ledger sheet, handwritten in blue fountain pen ink, lists the donors.

Whole hams were given by Bromfield, Storke. Fleischmann, and others. Hunt’s Mercantile Company gave knives, forks, spoons, cups and saucers, two dish mops and six. barrels for garbage. Diehl’s (in the 700 block of State Street, a legend in its time, purveyors of marvelous imported foods and fancy groceries—rather like Park and Tilford in New York), donated eighty pies at cost, thirty-five cents each, serving trays and six bunches of parsley.

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JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS Jordano’s gave fifty heads of lettuce, ten pounds of Kraft cheese, six jars of mus tard, twelve bottles of ketchup, and fifty loaves of fresh bread. Enterprise Dairy do nated twenty pounds of butter, four gal lons cream at $1.60, four dozen half pints of milk at four cents each; Andera’s donat ed seven yards of oil cloth at seven cents a yard. Quaint, but such was the nature of corporate sponsorship in our community in the 1920s.

Sunshine Cottage opened in 1927. The Sunshinerwas the first League news sheet and its editor, Beth Park, wrote routinely on the importance to members of Sun shine Cottage. "Our interests may vary, but as an organization, we have one cen tral thought, Sunshine Cottage . . . it is our gift of health to the city we love. It is our brain and heart child on whom we lav ish our care to make it a real community blessing.”

Dr. Lawrence Eder was appointed the first staff pediatrician after the retirement of a volunteer medical staff of Drs. Allen

Williams, Edward J. Lamb, and John Manning, Margaret Eder wrote; The foresight and perseverance of Dr. Williams were the nuclei around which ideas and plansfor the Cottage grew. As early as 1915 an open-air school for undernourished children was started, the first in California.

This school was conducted in the old Neigh borhood House [on East De la Guerra Street] until 1925. The school was sponsored by the local I{ed Cross and the Visiting Nurse Association, the Board ofEducation, and the Associated Charities. It was main tained largely by funds raised from the local Christmas Seal sale which was conducted by the VNA. During the summer months there was a camp located at Leadbetter Ravine.

Because ofthe damages during the earth quake^ of 1925, the school was abandoned.

Dr. Williams, consulting physician for the Open Air School had long hopedfor a twen ty-four-hour school, a place where children might live until they were physicallyfit, and this seemed an appropriate time to make a change. Dr. Williams’desirefor a change co-

So proud ofSunshine Cottage was the League,it named its new newsletter,The Sunshiner.

THE SUNSHINER Santa Barbara Junior League No. I

FEBRUARY, 1930

Volume I.

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HFLf liAKE

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THE SUN SHINE ON

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COTTAGE

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inckkdfortuitously with the Junior League s wish for a major project, one specifically that would involve the care of pre-tuberculous children.

According to the archives of the TB and Health Association of Santa Barbara County, "Dr. Williams was much inter ested in the League’s offer and recom mended that they immediately work on plans for erection of a preventorium that would give a twenty-four hour-a-day, year-round school for children of the city needing such care. The proposed plans were submitted to the California TB As sociation and accepted with the provision that the VNA be responsible for supervis ing the medical and nursing service.’’

A triumph for the League, the building was completed on a site lent to the group for ninety-nine years by the County, and ten boys and girls were enrolled.

President Elizabeth Park in her 19261927 President’s Report, wrote chat "Un der the very efficient supervision of Mrs. Harold Chase, the eagerly-awaited Home for Undernourished Children has been brought to completion. The League cannot be too graceful to Mrs. Chase for her gen erous and untiring interest which thor oughly developed the practical and charm ing establishment of which we are the proud possessors."

Contributions of tnoney, services and furnishings came in from a supportive community. Entire plans and specifica tions were donated by architect Arthur C. Hutchason, who replaced Julia Morgan, and other gifts included a Frigidaire, Viccrola and records, twenty-six beds com plete with springs, mattresses and bed ding, a sandpile and playground equipment, a bird and birdcage and an airedale dog; all donated to the popular cause of TB prevention in children.

The prevailing pediatric thought of the

NOTICIAS times chat spawned the many preventoria such as Sunshine Cottage and others like it across the country was explained by pedi atrician Dr. C. Seybert Kinsell in a recent interview: The emphasis in pediatrics in those years was on preventive medicine with immuniza tions, proper infantformula ifnot the preferred mother’s milk, proper posture, nutrition, exer cise, and rest. These were the established rules for healthy children and could be measured by height and weight. Coughing, being too thin, and resistance in general were thought to be precursors oftuberculosis. Chest diseases in cluding various forms of TB were common and prevalent among children and a cause of death. The TBC bacillus was discovered by Koch in the i88o’s, the tuberculin test in the i8go’s. Christmas Seals as a means to raise fundsfor thefight against the disease known as "The White Plague” were introduced in igoi.

Anti-tuberculosis movements ofthe early igoos sought to change health habits, espe ciallyfor children. Wlovementsfor social ser vices and special carefor children originated often with upper-class women who became medical activists and guardians of the new hygienic order.

Hospitals were mainly devoted to acute illness and often lacked special facilities for children. Pediatrics was in its infancy and was mainly associated with babies and diar rhea. When,during its latent phase when the tuberculosis process could be isolated and managed by the body,poorenvironmental and socialfactors such as poverty and malnutri tion were identified negativefactors.

For adults sanitariums such as Saranac near Lake Placid in New York pioneered with a treatment offi-esh air, good food, rest, and cod liver oil. Thus would improved nutri tion increase general health—in children, height and weight strengthened resistance and tipped the balance ofhealth over disease.

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JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS Children could be treated as small adults.

Against this background, the Santa Bar bara Junior League marshalled its forces for child care, prevention ofTBC and lung dis eases, malnutrition and poor health. Sun shine Cottage was to be the frontier ofgood health—a bulwark against disease; fragile, thin children and their families had a new ally—the JuniorLeague.

Viewpoints of young patients in for a medically prescribed stay of two or three months or until a five to ten pound weight gain was achieved, were varied, "Spring has come, and oh what fun at Sunshine Cottage! Kites, beach, picnics, and hikes over the hills—we have all been very hap py lately; twice Miss Phillips has let us put on plays written and produced by our selves. . . . If we don’t gain weight, we cannot participate in the plays. The next one is going to be a health play. Won’t you come?” a little girl wrote anonymous ly in The Sunshiner.

On the ocher hand, some did not have as approbacive a view, as these comments from a former patient, Robert Kallman, attest: I was ten years old when Doctor Edward Lamb recommended to my parents that be cause I was too thin they should enroll me in Sunshine Cottage. Some children may have liked it, but I hated it with a passion bom of desperation. Our weekly communal baths with several children in the same cast iron tub being thoroughly scrubbed by a hefty staff member, as well as the daily cold showers, were dreaded events. The morning school ses sions, however, were welcome diversions. The one- room schoolhouse, presided over by a kind and understanding teacher, held several grades. 1 remember my fourth class had three other students, and the teacher covered all subjects with patience and humor.

Free time after lunch and a nap was treasured by all ofus. Boys and girls played together, cutting tunnels through the chapar-

Sunshine Cottage, dedicated to the prevention oftubercubsis in children, opened in igzj. It was the League’s major project in the igzos. Santa Barbara Historical Society

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rat to connect up the numerous clubhouses and gang hangouts. We had great adven tures in the abandoned cemetery next door us ing old tombstones as sleds on the hillsides and hiding in the open and empty graves. 1 was at Sunshine Cottage for almost six months, and 1 didn't gain a single pound.1fi nally escaped by breaking my anhiel Dory Langdon’s memories are similarly mixed. "A typical day began with a rush CO the shower room and a cold shower.

TTien brushing the teeth for a full two minutes and a drink of water from a full tin cup. Then into shorts and a halter.

Breakfast followed, huge and always in cluding two slices of coast. We were in structed to eat the entire meal or sic there until we did. Then came lunch. A huge meal again, plus two slices of bread and dessert. After lunch it was nap time, a two-hour nap at which time we were al lowed CO turn over once and were not al lowed to open our eyes. Miss Haynes lay

on one of the cots and held a fly swatter CO be used for any transgression.” In the League view, of course, the benefits of Sunshine Cottage were unassailable.

In the words of these first reports may be heard the voices of the founders telling of their desire to serve their community while living up to every noblesse oblige sensibility. The founding years were years of accomplishment and of a joy and fun of doing, exemplified in Angelica Bryce’s re port in which she mentions a newlyformed Entertainment Committee with Mrs. Peabody as its chairman. "They ar ranged a dinner and dance at the Moncecico Country Club. In addition to the $300 raised at this party the League enjoyed an advantageous publicity and an apprecia tion of its work.” This was a happy group of flappers, dancing the Charleston and the Shimmy, raising money for a loving community and having their pictures in the rotogravure coo. Exeunt Omnes.

The League was also heavily involved in the WolfCub scouting groups. For a time, the majority ofthe leaders o/ these groups were League members.

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JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS

Local Leagues are members of AJLI, the Association of Junior Leagues. International. A summary of the Junior League movement must include the earliest Mission Statement of AJLA, the Association of Junior Leagues of America, the forerunner of AJLI: The Junior League is an organi zation dedicated to the development of ^xdai consciousness in the indi vidual member, and to the training of the member to use her head and hancR in dealing wkh the social problems of which her League expe rience has made her aware.

It represents in general a serious endeavor on the part of the young woman of leisure to become an ac tive and constructive faacM: in the activities of the community in which she lives, and in particular, an effort on her part to become an intelligent citizen and to bring the advantages of her education and lei sure to bear cm raising o^mmunity standards and promoting human welfare.

The 1930s: Decade of Contrasts "The young woman of leisure” in the New York City of 1901 when the first Junior League was organized was the debu tante. the young woman making her en trance into society. Among the debs that year were five members of the Roosevelt family, all eighteen years old: Alice.

Christine, Elfrida. Dorothy and the re doubtable Eleanor. All had made their presentations at the Assembly Ball at the Waldorf Astoria on December 11. The Assembly, according to Eleanor, was utter

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agony. She felt she was not a popular de butante and left as soon as she could.

Two of Eleanor’s friends. Mary Harriman and Natalie Henderson, also debu tantes, would seem to have agreed with Eleanor’s disdain of the New York society into which they were born and successful ly began to rally other debutantes to the more serious causes of the times. They persuaded them to give "entertainments” to help finance what were known as the "college settlements,” in which students worked in slums to aid the residents, a movement begun at Wellesley College.

Miss Harriman and Miss Henderson en rolled in Barnard College to study eco nomics and sociology and subsequently launched the Junior League, one of whose purposes was to assist the settlement houses. While all debutantes were auto matically inscribed as associate members on the lists of the Junior League, only a few were volunteering for active work in the settlements. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of them.

Eleanor soon emerged as one of the leaders in the new organization. Her first assignment was to work at a settlement house on Rivington Street in one of the most densely populated parts of the city.

It was a harsh introduction to some fear some realities. She saw misery and exploi tation on a scale she had not dreamed pos sible. In fulfilling her provisional require ment of volunteer service for League membership she wrote, "Women and children were 'sweated,’ employed in fac tories and sweat shops. Ten hours made a long day watching and feeding a needle which sets 4000 stitches a minute, or treading in standing position the pedals of an ironing machine. It was not uncommon for girls in factories to work twelve, thir teen, even fourteen hours a day, six days a week at a weekly wage of $6.00.”

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JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS Inspired by the New York City model, Boston debutantes started a Junior League in 1907; in 1910, Brooklyn and Portland, Oregon formed Leagues, and in 1912, Bal timore, Philadelphia, and Chicago joined the ranks. These six formed the first Jun ior League Conference in New York, an event that is since held annually around the U.S. and to which each League sends two delegates. In 1921 the Leagues then in existence formed the AJLA, Incorporated, that with the inclusion of Leagues from Canada. Mexico, and Great Britain has be come the AJLI, Inc., with 295 member Leagues and 193.000 women. Since that early Mission Statement the zeal to move from socialite image to one of social acti vist has intensified, however, social elite ness. perceived in the public eye at least, persisted through the 1920s and into the 1950s.

As reported in the March 3, 1930, issue of The Sunshiner, the earliest of Santa Bar bara Junior League news sheets, a writer known only as Lady Adam wrote an arti cle for the February issue of The English Speaking Union Magazine ihout the begin nings of the New York City League in 1901, started as the local League was. with a group of young women of leisure who wished to organize themselves into a cadre of community volunteers. "The one thought of these ten young women was service, their aim, their reward. But as the idea grew and spread an odd state of mat ters arose. It was found that the ten had founded one of the most exclusive clubs in America. They did not mean to be exclu sive. Why should they? What they wanted was simple: young women who

LEFT: Members of the 1939 provisional class proudly pose for the photographer in their stylish outfits.

85 would cake the problems of their commu nities seriously; yet because of their own rules, this 'Service for Others Club’ has become another more widely spread Four Hundred Club. Being a member of a Junior League is the American equivalent of be ing presented at court.”

The very social Junior League of Santa Barbara in the 1930s ejosced in an epoch of contrasts. From the lean years of the Great Depression to the era of Hollywood-inspired glamour, Leaguers toiled for hard-earned dollars to support their projects and had an extraordinarily good time in the process. Several firsts in League annals were a rummage sale, a Fol lies. a Horse Show and Ball, an exhibition golf match, and a chance to break into the movies. Sunshine Cottage, the pride of the League, was the inspiration.

"Thanks to the valiant efforts of the membership, we were able to start this fiscal year unencumbered with a debt on Sunshine Cottage,” Mrs. Archie Edwards wrote in her President’s Report of 1929 1930. Indeed, this and other accomplish ments of the League were enormous given its small size and the nature of the times.

In 1930, there were fifty-seven Actives, ten Provisionals and fifteen Sustainers (Active membership ceased at age forty).

At the end of the decade membership had increased by just fifteen, yet despite the Depression, the League had retired a $10,000 mortgage on Sunshine Cottage, furnished and maintained it. employing a medical staff and maintenance workers and treating an average of twenty poten tially tuberculous children a year in resi dence. "There never has been a happier at mosphere in the entire household than at the present time,” wrote Mrs, Eben Bark er. President. In addition to staff pediatri cian Eder, there was a nursing staff of three, a teacher, a kitchen staff of two, a

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physiotherapist and a part-time gardener.

Besides the salaried workers, the volunteer services of doctors, nurses, and dentists were offered. Mrs. Barker wrote of her gratitude to these and others: "There are innumerable friends of Sun shine Cottage all of whom it is impossible to mention; the tradesman who makes a gift of a box of apples or candy; the work man who gives volunteer labor, the parent who gives service in gratitude for the care of his child, the 'friend of little children’ who sends a check for an extra treat on feast days; the merchants who give a gen erous discount on purchases, the projector and movies from the Rotary Club . . . we are proud and blessed to be responsible for an institution that is so well loved.”

"Money raising in these hard times is appallingly difficult,” Mrs. Edgar Park, Ways and Means, wrote, but President Barker listed a creditable number of pro jects. A fourth annual Country Fair was held. "Gloom hung over it occasionally due to the Depression and an epidemic scare but succeeded and netted a very sub stantial sum—$6,659.16. There was the Christmas Seal sale grossing $6,210.84 from which the League received a penny for each seal sold in the fight against 'The White Plague.’ and there was the Com munity Chest campaign, a sale of 'tired dresses’ earning $185.25, and a second Children’s Theatre Series at the Lobero.

We have found that these productions are remunerative—$3,113.57—aside from the sheer joy and pleasure we receive in the preparation and the attempt to edify the 'theatre-mindedness' of our young pa trons."

The League was affected by the De pression in myriad ways, as reflected in minutes of the meetings. Miss Lilia Tuckerman was appointed chairman of a committee to cooperate in canvassing

NOTICIAS Montecito on behalf of the drive to create jobs. Mrs. Davy announced that because of finances, the League could not send a delegate to Conference. Mrs. Painter moved that $1000 of the money budgeted to Sunshine Cottage be refunded to the Community Chest because the Chest had so much extra welfare work due to the Depression.” Mrs. Beard reported, "Sud denly finding ourselves very poor and dip ping alarmingly into reserve, fearing and detesting assessment, we nonetheless asked the membership to raise $10.00 per capita. This was met with splendid grace.

The Sunshiner was discontinued in 1934, reportedly viewed as an unnecessari ly extravagant frill. There was much dis cussion as to ways of cutting the budget at Sunshine Cottage. The cook earned a weekly salary of $17.50. Possibly this could be cut. The $10.00 per year dues might be cut and a plan for its payment in two or more installments be worked out.

It was decided to hold a rummage sale twice a year with Mrs. Geyman and Mrs. Eder in charge. Sales were held at 826 State Street.

A debate raged on the merits of a Placement Bureau versus the Hours Sys tem (each member was to perform one hundred hours of voluntary service per year). Mrs. Ussher, Hours Chairman, re ported that the Hours System was not working out as it should. "Some members have fallen down on their selected jobs while others have been most faithful to their posts.” Mrs. Beard showed a chart with different colored stars noting the dif ferent kinds of work, a special colored star for the girl who was not doing work of any kind. A Placement System in which League volunteers were given community volunteer assignments was decided upon and it was written into the by-laws.

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JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS

President Cameron took on the editor in our defense and received an apology.

The League sponsored an exhibition match of professional golf with the golf ing great of the time. Bobby Jones. "To pay tribute to the King of the world of knickered knights, golf enthusiasts will gather en masse at La Cumbre Country Club this afternoon when Bobby Jones, hero of every caddy, will make his debut.

May 16, 1934 is designated Bobby Jones Day by Major T.R. Finley,” the newspa per reported.

The society page of the paper was rou tinely aglow with praise for the League’s fundraisers, each account with its inevita This gracfful ^ painting adorned the program ofthe first twrse snow co-sponsored oy the Junior League in iQ^4~ The show wasfollowed by an ele gant dance hall at the Biltmore Hotel.

ble social overtone. "Society gathers at Feast,” headlined the heralding of Gala

Some meetings were held at the Little Town Club, some at the Montedto Coun

ior League and it is authoritatively stated that never b^ore has a theatre offered its pa trons any or all ofthe varied divertissements, namely dinner in the Arlington Loggia, a screen show of TransAtlantic featuring Qene Hersholt and?Ayma Loy and a supper

try Club, others at members’ homes. Mr. Henry S. Kinsell of the El Mirasol Hotel offered a room, free of charge, to be used as an office. Mrs. Whittemore of the

Night on August 14, 1931.

It has been said that never before has so atnbitions a program been put on by any Jun

Sewing Committee announced that bolts of outing flannel had been bought with money collected at the last meeting. There would be plenty of sewing from now on as pajamas for the children at Sunshine Cottage were to be made.

The League got its chance at Holly wood stardom when a studio representa tive contacted President Ina Cameron, ask

dance at 11.30 p.m. with an aggregation of headliners—a Fanchon and Marco Vaude-

ing that some of the members act as extras in a movie being filmed at the Old Mission. The going rate would be paid, the studio to provide box luncheons. This was a good way to make a little needed cash, the Board agreed, and all started on film careers. The next day. the League was sharply criticized in the newspaper for depriving the regular extras of salaries.

In return for one-half the proceeds, the League co-sponsored several shows with the Santa Barbara National Horse Show

ville Unit show with Jose Arias and his or chestra, the Three Rjiythmettes, the Crooning Melody Sisters, Earle and Blare in Song and Dance;Maurice and Vincent, Acrobat ic Comedians; Fred Zimbalist, Harmonica Master; and Zaro and Vallon, Sensational Skaters.

Committee. The first year of such events was 1934 about which Mrs. Horace Rupp reminisced in a 1989 interview. "The biggest money raiser was the National Horse Show and Ball, netting $2,388.44.

The Horse Show has never been the same

NOTICIAS since. The League was small and very exelusive, and this was a very social affair with people coming from all over the

put their energies into such a commit ment. The Follies of 1937 was the first ef fort. The Santa Barbara News-Press re-

state. It was held at Pershing Park and everyone dressed formally, the women in long gowns and the men in tuxedos for going on to the Horse Show Ball at the

ported, "Dress rehearsal of the Junior League Follies at the Granada for the su

Biltmore afterward.” The elegant pro gramme for August 1.2,3,4 of 1924 details a period picture of the 1930’s social scene in Santa Barbara. National Horse Show Committee members were listed. Judges were from all over California; those from Santa Barbara included Edward Borein, Referee for California Stock Horses; Cap tain Charles A, Beaucond, U.S.A., Ring master; and Official Veterinarian. Dr. George W, Nelson. Sketched was a plan of the fifty-six arena boxes by number and their occupants, among them Mr. and Mrs. C. K. G, Billings. Mr. and Mrs. Har old S. Chase, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Jefferson, Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Mitchell, Mr. and Mrs. Dwight Murphy and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Storke. Advertisements in the programme included these from such long ago purveyors of goods and services as Diehl Brothers, the Hitchcock Motor Company, Hunt's China Shop. Ott’s Hardware, the Tucker Shops, and Trenwith’s. Photographers from Anderson's, J. Walter Collinge, and Gledhills Portraits contributed stunning full- page photo graphs of League members endorsing products. One showed Miss Barbara Strong leaving her home in a new Packard from Hitchcock Motor Company with the caption, "Ask the Leaguer Who Owns One.” Engaging a New York City-based Fol lies Production by Professionals Company, which would supply the artistic director, sets, costumes, and general how-to infor mation was common to Leagues in the days when members had leisure time to

per colossal performance Wednesday eve ning surprised even the cast with the charm and beauty of the show. Under the brilliant direction of George Chiles of the Jerome H. Cargill organization in New York City, the Follies is out of the classifi cation of amateur entertainment into a professional ranking with the youth and beauty of the young Santa Barbara and Montecito cast a distinctive asset.”

Another article headed, "Junior League Follies Far Ahead of Schedule Set by Di rector, Given Vacation,” read. "So abun dant has been the talent uncovered here that Director Chiles has abandoned his procedure of daily eighteen-hour rehear sals. His cast of some ninety-odd persons has been dismissed for a two-day holiday that they may return revivified for the ar duous two weeks ahead. Chiles said yes terday, 'I have directed a number of Junior League Revues in other places. Nowhere have I seen such an aggregation of beauti ful women and handsome men—Not In the South, the traditional Home of femi nine pulchritude, nor in the Eastern cen ters, natural magnets for whatever combi nations of brain, beauty and brawn exist.”'

Credit for the local spade work was given to Margaret McDougall when it was said of her in the same article, "Miss McDou gall displayed a stroke of genius when she turned the casting over to Mary Lou Con rad. In her firm and gentle manner, Mary Lou has coaxed young swains out of ar chitect and law offices, off ranches and out of the diplomatic service to come and trip the light fantastic with the most beautiful girls anywhere. It is quite easy to forgive any inordinate pride that may be

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS felt by the Walter Franklins, the Warner Edmondses, the Vincent Woodses, the John Rocks, the Donald Butlers and all who are lending their talents and their ex quisite beauty to the Follies.”

In the evening edition of July 22 fol lowing opening night, the TVetcs-Press re marked unabashedly, "In smart summery frocks under lovely wraps of furs or vel vets, for the nights are cool in Santa Bar bara. Montecitans, townspeople and sum mer visitors formed a memorable picture in a gala throng at the Granada Theatre last night where they gathered in parties for the big Junior League Follies Show.

Glimpsed in a large no-host party were Mrs. Walter Scott Franklin, smart in a printed crepe gown with vivid flowers on a black background, under a white ermine wrap. . . . Mrs. Robert Doulton in white chiffon with a white fox cape . . . . The Bar oness Maximillian von Rombert, there with the Bar on, was stunning in a multcolored vivid hued evening gown with flowers in her hair.”

A Graceline Cruise Dance at the new theatre ballroom of the Biltmore was followed by the Follies, cover charge, one dollar fifty. The ballroom was trans formed into a magnificent deck scene. Lester Parker’s Lido Or chestra from the Ambassador in Los Angeles played for danc ing. the Waldorf Astoria sent party favors including napkins and hors d’oeuvre, and a winner

Mary Frink, Bonnie Lewis, Peggy Ednumds, and Mary Lou Conrad pose on board the Qraceline cruiser, Santa Paula, to publicize the first Junior League FotUesin iqyj.

89 was announced for the Graceline cruise through the Panama Canal. "Vying in in terest with the scintillating Junior League Follies that lilted its rhythmic way through two score fascinating scenes on the stage, a brilliant, cosmopolitan Santa Barbara audience thronged through the lobby of the Granada Theatre last night to fill the pit and galleries to the last seat . . . hundreds attended the show that set a high mark among League entertainments in Santa Barbara."

The Follies programme designed by Mrs. Joseph Knowles, is a collector’s item, its pages devoted to advertisements for lo cal businesses, "Be Perspicacious—Use Mission Ice and Artesia Water, Talk right up to the Wolf, Little Girl," read an ad featuring a cartoon of a wolf talking to

90

NOTICIAS

THE SUIVSHIIVER Santa Barbara Junior League Volume I.

CUNIC FLOWET^ WOLF CuBS

JUNE. 1930

TRANS PORTATION

No. 5

NEWS SHEET

SEWIN-G

HOUS'E

ENTER

TAIN M£NT

OUR COmOTEES Little Red Riding Hood. "The Junior League is backing you. The Big Bad Wolf of Undernourishment is being banished daily from little lives out at Sunshine Cot tage. thanks to the Junior League. Golden State Products are helping in this constant battle. Were proud of our part in this.”

The curtain falls again, but not all have exited. Some Leaguers can still recall por tions of this decade, surely among the glo ry days of the Junior League. Two League women today who knew the 1930s are El sie Wheeler Hunt and Vi Tuckerman Hansen. Vi lives on a Happy Canyon ranch in Santa Ynez. "My sister and I joined the League in 1930,” said Vi. "We were two of five daughters of Wolcott and Lilia Tuckerman of Carpinteria. Dur ing the Depression each of us learned to feed a family of five on $10.00 per week by taking turns grocery shopping. . . . As a Leaguer, one of my tasks was to drive a child out to General Hospital to visit her father, a TB patient there. I remember, too, attending a League conference in Bev erly Hills. We stayed with a family whose chauffeur drove us in a touring car

fr

daily to and from meetings. That im pressed us country girls!”

Said Elsie. "My sisters Helen and Peg gy Wheeler participated in League Follies and plays in the early 1930s and I joined in 1939. The latter part of the decade and the beginning of the 1940s saw some dramatic changes in our way of life. From the glam our and gaiety of the latter part of the dec ade, we were plunged into the drama and horror of World War II." Curtain!

The 1940s and the Wartime League The scene was the twentieth AJLA Annual Conference, Olympic Hotel, Seat tle, May 15, 1940. The lead in a news story the next day read, "The war in truded on the Junior League of America Conference last night, the unpleasant pos sibility of war work being introduced in the talk of Miss Helen Leovy, retiring president.” Delegates were advised that the League recognized the need for ser vice in war, and should it be necessary, were urged to give it. "However, this special work is not to interfere with ex-

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS

LEFT: This illustration from the June 1930 The Sunshiner shows the mykad ofprojects in which the Junior League ofSanta Barbara was involved.

isting commitments for community ser vice.” Though the winds of global war were picking up, our own delegates re turned to Santa Barbara and a prewar community with League commitments as usual—until December 7, 1941.

Such idyllic topics as the Hours Sys tem versus Placement, sluggish cookbook sales, and a newsletter’s debut concerned us. The merits of requiring Actives to put in one hundred volunteer hours per year, and Provisionals, eighty, were debated.

Detractors maintained that, "Forcing girls to count hours on monthly report cards has its disadvantages for the slackers, but undoubtedly chokes out many an earnest girl’s interest at the start by doing volun teer work that bores her.” It was said that Placement imposed hardships on many who could not remain in town throughout the year. Leaguers continued to count hours until Placement became permanent in 1947.

"Local Chatter,” a News-Press column in the Women’s Section, devoted consid erable space to the accomplishments of the League years in hours. "If anyone thinks the life of a Junior Leaguer is just one gay, lazy time with no cares or worries, they should hear the Hours report made by Bet sy (Mrs. Milton ) Geyman, President; 'Twenty girls turned in three hundred and ten hours doing Red Cross work; eleven spent one hundred and fifty hours at Cot tage Hospital rolling bandages. Sewing and knitting are always popular and twen ty-two girls turned in over eight hundred and sixty hours!”

Sales of The Junior League Cookbooks circa 1940, were not going well. A news-

91

paper notice announced a reduced price of $1.00, down from $2.00. "Some of the four hundred and thirty-three tested reci pes are original, having been handed down from generation to generation; some are favorites of the cooks in many of Santa Barbara’s finest homes.” The reader was advised to pick up her copy at any of the five Jordano stores, or Piggly Wiggly, or call the League’s phone number for prompt delivery.

The Junior League lieporter, supplant ing The Sunshiner, made its entrance in 1940 with Miss Rosario Curletti, editor.

Miss Litti Paulding, a professional contrib utor, later became society editor of the Neu/S'Press, and the League for years basked in a most favorable social limelight in her "Town Chatter" column.

When World War II burst on this peaceful League life, existing commit ments were honored, but the war became the primary focus of effort, and we, like the rest of the country, were dedicated to winning the war on the homefront.

"But is it shortening the war?” was the question that became the yardstick by which Leaguers were continually asked to measure their volunteer time. Jessie (Mrs. Carroll) Toll, one of the wartime presi dents, often presided wearing the uniform of a Red Cross Staff assistant. "May I emphasize that in connection with win ning the war we must continue to aid in Air-Wac recruitment programs, keep prices down by checking ceiling prices when we shop, discourage Black Market activities, and above all, keep our organi zation abreast of the times,” she said.

The League as an organization did not have a war project; members worked as individuals toward victory. Jessie remind ed them often of their responsibility to show appreciation on the homefront.

There was no blood bank in Santa Barba-

NOTICIAS

Members of the League threw themselves wholeheartedly into the war effort during World War 11.

Here patientsfrom the army’s HoffHospital get a morale lioost with a visit to the home ofMrs. Charles Coates Carroll,seated at Ifft.

ra, so Jessie entrained to Los Angeles to give her contribution. "1 hope I never need blood,” said a young serviceman and fel low passenger to our attractive president, "but if I do, I hope I get yours!”

Mrs. Edward Bates was Placement Chairman and wrote, "The second year of the war finds the greater part of the Ac tive membership engaged in full-time homemaking; it has brought about a loss of many who have followed their Service

(American Women’s Volunteer Service) Snack Bar on lower State Street. Mrs. Ralph Brooks was "the angel of the Snack Bar,” having provided the location free for the duration. Leaguers washed dishes and provided food and coffee at the facility designed to offer space for read ing, letter writing, piano playing, and so cial relaxation for servicemen. The Ration Board, the Garden Hosts who sponsored tea dances for officers at the Coral Casi

husbands to various parts of the country; yet it still finds the League engaged in multiple home and war service activities,”

no, and the War Chest provided steady work towards victory.

Practice blackouts were conducted

Among chose were the Well Baby Clinic of the Visiting Nurse Association, Neigh borhood Toy Loan (toys, like everything else in wartime, were in short supply, so toys were on loan weekly to children in the same way that books are loaned from and returned to a library), and furnishing a day room for Camp Cooke(now Vandenberg Air Base).

Leaguers ran errands for the bedridden at Hoff Army Hospital( at the site of to day’s MacKenzie Park), and one member rode horseback into the mountains doing patrol work during the dry season for the Red Cross Mounted Patrol. A popular place to do war work was the AWVS

throughout town and a real one occurred when EUwood was shelled by a Japanese submarine in February, 1942. A dimout was continuous with the ocean side of the State Street lamps painted black. Industry shifted to war materials and our supply of consumer goods was curtailed. No auto mobiles were manufactured between 1942 and 1945. Letters were written on Vmail; Victory drives promoted the sale of war bonds and stamps. Meat rationing began in 1943 and each person was al lowed two and one-half pounds a week.

Sugar and butter rationing followed and, to case food shortages, everyone planted Victory gardens and raised chickens.

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS Sunshine Cottage, the pride of the League and community, was forced after seventeen years to close in December of 1944, because of wartime shortages of qualified personnel, especially nurses. The building was sold back to the county in 1946 for $7,304.

Through it all the Sustaining members of the League logged hours of war work as reported by Rosario Curletti in The Junior League Reporter: Mrs. Francis V. Ldoyd supervises Tues day nights at the Snack Bar, works at the AWVS, Red Cross, War Bond Saks Booths, Ration Board and does Night Patrol on Mondays. This last consists ofmaking six quarts of coffee and something to go with, it, perhapsfive dozen cupcakes. In the pitch dark the Night Patrol delivers these to Coast Quard secret posts. Dorothy Edwards is a Nurses Aide at Cottage and HoffHospital.

Mrs. Oliver Qates instructs in surgical dressings at Montecito R^d Cross three after noons a week where fifteen or so gather to work Those delightful thank-you notes every one receivesfrom the Snack Ear comefrom the appreciative pen ofMrs.John Stewart, who has written almost two thousand notes; yet she has thefull-time chairmanship ofthe Red Cross workroom in Hope Rpnch.... Eleven Leaguers are marking time until their hus bands return firm pinning back Top’s ears and smacking Hitler's nose.

Mrs. Hewitt R^eynolds is America’s ideal landlady. She has eight servicemen’s families with seventeen children residing on herfortyfive acre Montecito estate [now the site of Westmont College]. Children are wanted, along with the chicks and lambs. Neither the children or the animals are corralled;the vege tables arefenced instead.

At war’s end V-E and V-J Days were celebrated riotously on State Street which was closed to traffic. The community readjusted to a joyful peace and postwar

93

gaiety and celebration replaced the gloom of war. We began the postwar era with renewed determination to build a better community and to the resumption of good times as well.

Never before or since has the League received so glowing a press as it did in the era of Litti Paulding. "Black and white posters of harlequins and pierrots and pierrettes and abstract designs will decorate the lounge of the Club. For the first time since the war the League will give a large party to add to the Fall festivities.” An other account lauds the success of the Fol lies of 1947: The dazzling glow in the neighborhood of the Fox Arlington last night emanatedfrom thefirst postwar Junior League Follies with its superSurrday-washday'Sparhk keeping an audiencefrom the orchestra to Clubo ChL CO infine titteringfettle. It was a show ofpro fessional merit with the added attraction of fiesh charm, and a typical Santa Barbara audience loved it, not because most everyone there hriew someone in the cast, but because the talent was excellent. Every street in San ta Barbara, Montecito, Hope Ranch, Qoleta, Carpinteria and way points was repre sented in that great andfriendly audience... by the time ofthe Qrand Finale, the League had endeared itselffurther to the public and the success of the Night and Day Summer Camp,for which the Follies was given, will be assured!

Litti was eventually made an honorary member of the League, Under production by the Jerome H. Cargill organization and staged by Fred Evans, the Follies, under the chairmanship of Mrs, William Hanssen, began rehear sals in February at the Biltmore for the March 11 opening. Sustainers acted as ba bysitters while young mothers rehearsed.

Posters designed by Standish Backus. Jr., were all over town, and the Retail Mer-

U

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■OU^PJ ■puo^ Tin JP uvn-j upnvmp]^ tfsni vuovi4 surquaiu gi'd i uj TnSvrj ojui urifjo tsuts pTmsuM v ’jijSnaiq jj up^ TV^/Wjo snoucQOin ti^

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS chants Association lent its support with ads in the programme: Andera’s Depart ment Store, Copper Coffee Pot, Kallman's Garden Nursery, Talk of the Town Res taurant and Tweeds and Weeds. An inelusion in the program, "Ladies in Hades" starred Louis C. Soles as Henry VIII and wives Barbara Storke, Madeline Haugan, Margo Gherini, Lois Liggett, Mary Perry and Fern Spreitz.

Camp Conestoga was sponsored by the Junior League in cooperation with the City Recreation and Park Commissions.

A fact-finding group made up of local businessmen headed by Harold Chase was formed to investigate the community’s needs, concluding that the most urgent was a recreation program "to help with the juvenile delinquency problem." The camp opened July 14, 1947, in Anapamu Park, " . . . a large, grassy, wooded plot next to Mission Creek where it crosses Anapamu Street west of the highway.

Two outstanding attractions are the team of old work horses from the TR Ranch in Santa Ynez pulling the Conestoga Wag on, Mollie Pitcher and Independence. The wagon was donated by Sam D. Stanwood.

The camp zoo consists of only four snakes and a screech owl at present, but campers are expected to add to it.”

The program’s director was Frank Van Schaick, a popular elementary school teacher. "Campers, ages 8-12, develop qualities of cooperation, responsibility and a work ethic through a program of outdoor living. Summer campers in the first year numbered over five hundred and fifty.

They cooked their own meals, made beds and shelters, chopped wood, made camp ing articles of natural materials, and gained knowledge of the natural world, enjoying its beauty and relying on themselves for en tertainment." Van Schaick wrote.

Evenings at the camp featured camp-

“ 95

fire suppers and entertainment. There was no registration fee and transportation was arranged for all children without cost. An eighteen-foot hand-carved and handpainted totem pole constructed by the campers was installed at the camp’s en trance, for which Sally (Mrs. Hamilton) Bingham, League President, turned the first shovelful of dirt. This was a handson experience for members who took part in all phases of the program.

Litti Paulding wrote, "A zoo, corral, knife and ax yard, teepee camp and cook ing pit all received the youthful and daily attention of more than one hundred boys and girls during the week at Camp Cones toga. The site is rich with wholesome ac tivities and the enthusiasm of children who are attending is heartfelt. Lines of children watch the saddling of the camp horses while others adjust an attractive flour sack teepee. The shouts of the girls and boys playing on the swing, an old tire dangling from the limb of a tree, are heard, and at the rear, a neat chuck box and cooking pit are being arranged.”

Eyewitness accounts of their youthful experiences at Conestoga were written in this composite piece for the News-Press in 1947 by Clarence and Jerry Middleton, ages nine and five; Susan Van Schaick, six; David Garst, ten; and Marilyn Phoe nix, eleven: Camp Conestoga is a good place, his a friendly place. It is a place where you can haveJim ... every day we havefun riding the horses. The horses are Snowball, Billy, and Sherry. There is a donkey named Bandy. Bil ly is the strongest horse. Snowball is thefast est horse. Sherry is the one who minds good.

Bandy kicks and sometimes bites. Every day we learn to put on saddles and bridles and we brush the horses and clean the corral.

After you have been to campfor three days you can go to the workshop and make- a me-

96

NOTICIAS

dallion to wear around your neck, This is a round piece of redwood that the big boys brought back from Sonoma County. You sandpaper the piece of wood and brand it with a red-fiot iron i in the shape ofan ox yoke, 'Then you bum your name on it. Then you shellac it and hang it around your neck on a leather thong.

By 1947 the League office had moved CO 19 East Canon Perdido Street, occupy ing one large room on the second floor of a building in what used to be the heart of Chinatown. “A small balcony with potted plants cakes the place of Chinese lanterns strung along the upper veranda, but as a tribute to old Chinatown, the door and much of the furniture is painted a lacquer red."

As the decade drew to a close, the Volunteer Bureau was sponsored by the League and Community Chest. Its purpose was to find the interests and skills of vol unteers and to direct their talents to agen cies needing their help. Channel Tidings, a new magazine, made its debut with Gretchen (Mrs. Grant) Erhlich, editor.

Children’s Dancing Classes ushered in 1949. These were held in the ballroom of the Montecito School for Girls [now Casa Dorinda] with Mme. Maria Kedrina, ballet and ballroom teacher, instructing. Jane Ketron (Mrs. Donald) Patterson was chair man for the class which was noninvitational and limited to one hundred children.” Scions of Leaguers and others were taught the essentials of ballroom eti quette. how to ask for, and accept an invi tation to dance, how to offer a partner a glass of punch, and how to greet and thank the hostess. Proper party attire was required—white gloves and stockings com plementing party dresses for girls, ties and jackets and polished shoes for the boys.

The curtain closed on the 1940s with the League reaffirming its resolve to do

good works, but not to neglect good times either. The League sponsored the Yale Glee Club concert with a supper and dance afterward at El Paseo, a lavish luau at the Coral Casino to mark our twenty-

fifth anniversary, and a Candlelight Ball at the Moncecico Country Club in Decem ber, 1949. Although the newspaper account proclaimed in its headline, "Society Goes Dancing,” some soul-searching had already begun. The League in time was to insist that stories of its activities belonged not on the society pages, but in the gener al news. The League was on the eve of an attitude

change, some

vigorous

Old

Guard opposition notwithstanding.

The 1950s; Decade of Grace and Style If one could characterize in a single word the Junior League of the 1950s it would be elegance. From the felicity and formality of the language of their reports —ever "Respectfully Submitted”—to the high fashion of their dress and certainly to the breadth of their sky’s-the-limit pro jects, Leaguers projected a group image of style. To be beautiful and charming while gracefully pursuing public spiritedness was an ideal to which each member was pleased to uphold for herself, and the col lective result was a League of which leg end is made.

What becomes a legend most? Image, surely, and ours was not lost on a wor shipful press, in the vanguard of which was "the dean of society editors of Cali fornia,” to quote The Los Angeles Times, Litti Paulding of the JLews-Press, who continued to follow the fortunes of the League and its members with unrelenting interest. "Never have I had my picture in the paper so often.” said Barbara (Mrs. John F.) Merritt, 1958 -1959 President.

She, Jean (Mrs. John S., Ill) Bailey. Debo-

97

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS rah (Mrs. Godwin J.) Pelissero, and Shirley (Mrs. William H., Jr.) Wilson are the last of the six 1950’s presidents, and each has stories to tell of her part in this most Camelot of eras.

"The party chairman, Mrs. Arthur Bissell, did not have to say a word; the whole day spoke gorgeously for her work,” Litti wrote.

Deborah Pelissero, 1952 -1953 Presi

We were off to a fashionable start by observing the League's twenty-fifth birth day with a Silver Anniversary Tea at the Montecito Country Club, Jean Bailey pre siding. Founders, charter members, and all twenty-one past presidents were there.

For four hundred guests a gathering of presidents modeled dresses of the style they wore during their tenures of office.

Mrs. Bailey, "cunently chic in black,” pre sided as reports were given showing that members "were devoting thousands of hours to the philanthropy, culture, educa tion, and recreation of Santa Barbara.”

dent and Director of Region XII—the first and only member of our League to hold that latter office—recalled her appearances on television when she visited other

Coverage in the newspaper included a poetic vignette to each president, penned

by Norman Jaffray, a League husband; Listen my children and you shall hear A running account ofthe League's career Featuring costumes smart arm sexy Worn by the girls who have served as prexy.

Hardly a one,1 venture to say, Ofharmsome assemblage gathered today Would care to be looked at dead or alive In the clothes she sported in ’25.

However a sense ofcivic duty Has spurred uson to reveal our beauty Infashions worn by the chic young resident Back in the years when each was president.

Leagues. "It was as though the Queen were coming to town! Television was new then and I was often interviewed on camera and invariably asked, 'What is the Junior League?’” The interview would feature her explanation. "None of us know much about the national Junior League,” she said, "but we were fortunate to have many of the early members still with us who could help.” Region XII com prised the California, Oregon, Washing ton, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada and Honolu lu Leagues.

Shirley Wilson, 1956-1958 President, reminisced about "the tempest of activi ty" of the 1950s: Juggling a large family, work, school lunches, camp, business, and community re-

BELOW:A successfulfundraiserfor the League in 1952 was the appearance ofthe V.S. Marine Corps Band.

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98

NOTICIAS

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One ofthe major events on the Lea^ calendarfor ig^ was the Knight in Paradise dinner and dance at the Coral Casino. A highlight ofuie evening was when League members modeled "Fashions, Furs, and Frivolities. ”

sponsibilities was exhausting yet stimulat ing. The world was emerging fivm the post war era, delighted to give up the deprivations and restrictions of a war economy. We eager ly ushered in different concepts ofcommunity —some old, some new. We welcomed the return of a more enlightened society but we did try not to take ourselves too seriously. Yes, we were an anomaly - a paradox. We wore hats and gloves, pearls, and Hattie Carnegie suits to teas; we presided at meetings with a copy of Kpberts Exiles of Order bffbre us. Some ofus were members of the first Board to invite the participation of a group of prxyminent busi ness community leaders, all men, as an Advi sory Board, and then did not take their ad vice! They said we'd never get a sponsor for a Follies; we did.

We disliked the "society ” connotation of the League and strove to overcome it. We in filtrated non-profit boards, sometimes as the only woman or one of the few on that board.

Barbara Merritt said, "I remember al¬

most every Board member being pregnant at one time and all our children being in the Dancing Classes. It was not unusual for a League member to be on six or seven community boards at a time. We didn’t mind the 'society’ part of it because it helped us to reach our goals, and we did work very, very hard.” Obviously this was a period of transition.

Some characteristics of the Leaguer of the 1950s emerge as one leafs through pe riod scrapbooks. Notably, she was most elegantly dressed; de rigueur for a morn ing meeting and luncheon at the Montecito Country Club was a suit with hemline four inches below the knee, pumps, hat, handbag over the arm, gloves worn brace let length and, not infrequently, a little fur.

To be invited to join the Junior League was a signal honor. Candidates were pro posed by members who wrote accompa nying letters of recommendation to the

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS Admissions Committee. Proposers intro duced their candidates at outwardly un contrived social events, during which the proposed were carefully observed by com mittee members, watchful as hawks. Once admitted, the candidate became provision ally a League member, attaining Active status only after a year’s training in the ways of League and community. Once a junior Leaguer, one was expected to give one's very best, and Provisionals were trained accordingly.

The Volunteer Bureau and Camp Con estoga continued as the League’s major projects, and there was the Welfare Plan ning Council whose aim was to prevent duplication of agency function, investigate new needs, and coordinate the activities of existing agencies. The League also helped to support La Morada, a residence for troubled teenaged girls.

Julie (Mrs. Wilson) Forbes, 1954-1956 President, was particularly devoted to Conestoga. At her own expense, she pub lished a brochure telling its story , of its trips to such farflung places as Huntington Lake. Yosemite, and Big Sur, and of its camp pets, Bernice the sheep and Bambi the goat. Following distribution of the brochure, letters from community leaders to the League came in, lauding the value of the program to the young. Reluctantly, the League surrendered the program in 1964.

The Volunteer Bureau, whose purpose was to match volunteers to service agen cies requesting them, operated until 1958.

Leaguers responded to many of its typical ly six hundred requests for volunteers in a year's time for duties such as sterilizing in struments and test tubes for the County Health Department, cataloguing books at the Historical Museum located at the Old Mission, and teaching crafts and entertain ing at Hillside House. The Bradbury Dam

99

Project at Lake Cachuma often requested clerical help.

Dazzling fundraisers for these projects were hallmarks of the time. The fashion show, ever a mainstay of non-profit pro motions, debuted with the League on Sep tember 20, 1951, at the Coral Casino, chaired by Dede (Mrs. Donald) Balch. I. Magnin supplied the gowns. Of this lav ish affair Litti Paulding wrote, "The mag ic names of Dior, Balenciaga, Path, Patou, Parisian couturiers to princesses and queens; of Carnegie, Rosenstein, ManorBourne, the favorites of America’s best dressed beauties, of Visconti, Fabiani and Schuberti, leaders of Italy’s steadily as cending star in the Amies and Lachasse, proud heralds of England’s creations in wool and tweed; all will come to life in what promises to be one of the most dra matically beautiful fashion shows in local memory.”

Her elaborately detailed descriptive prose is a fashion commentary on the richness of the times. "Press releases from the recent Paris openings state that the new clothes are 'definitely romantic.’

League and professional models will drift through the audience in bouffant formals, short and long, designed in rich, heavy fabrics dye to match the glowing blues, greens, purples and reds of the great Ren aissance paintings. A satin gown worn by Mrs. Baldwin is designed in a warm shade of pink. This gown has a full flaring skirt and the wide-draped V-neck is built up with a 'modesty' embroidered in shiny palettes reminiscent of a highly sophisti cated Dresden princess.’’

An even more extravagant internation al fashion show outdid them all in 1955.

Chaired by Michael (Mrs. Norman) Jaffray, the Celanese Corporation brought a half-million-dollar collection of European couturier designs to town to the joy of

100

Leaguers who by now were practiced models. "Santa Barbara will be the only city on the West Coast to see the collec

NOTICIAS lavishly decorated by Marjorie (Mrs. Ken neth) Elmes.

tion before it tours the country and re turns to London for a command perfor mance before Queen Elizabeth in June , . .

There is a problem in models,” Litti wrote.

"Sally Mundy, director of the collection, needs models who measure 5’8", have a 21" waistline and the new Dior flatness.

There was the ubiquitous rummage sale, by now being held at the National Guard Armory on East Canon Perdido Street, and offering a pre-sale buffet sup per prepared and served by members in cluding roast turkey, ham. soup, sand wiches, casseroles, and, homemade pies and cakes. In the late 1950s and well into

California girls come in larger sizes, she says, but she is certain our models can cinch in their waistlines at least 3" before the show.”

the 1970s the League had the advantage of permanent storage facilities at no charge from a League member and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Beaudette,

Another popular 1950s fundraiser was the doll fair, and Leaguers held theirs, the first in Santa Barbara, just before Christ

who put several capacious garages at their estate on El Camino Viejo at our disposal.

The Beaudette garages became something of a day care center with members and

mas of 1952. Mrs. Barkley Wycoff, chairman, commented, "The Fair will prove that the fine art of needlework is not a lost art in Santa Barbara. The dolls’ dresses show exquisite needlework!”

Members dressed dolls and assembled complete wardrobes for them. Rosario Curletci outfitted Ramondta Carrillo, a doll named for one of her Spanish Califor nia kinswomen, her grandmother. She wore a fiesta gown of blue brocade trimmed with white lace. With this she wore a white lace mantilla and tiny gold earrings. Another dress was of russet and black uncut velvet with a mantilla over a tiny tortoise comb made by Mrs. Wilson Forbes. The doll’s trunk was of maroon leather studded with brass brads, made by Mrs. Bertie de L’Arbre, Jr. A tiny booklet of Senorita Carrillo’s history went with the doll.

their pre-schoolers meeting every Thurs day morning year ’round, the mothers to sort and price rummage, the children to test the toys designated for sale.

After the 1953 sale, thank-you notes were sent to over one hundred merchants who had donated new merchandise. Ex penses that year amounted to $287.17, net profit. $2,925.14. Each of eighty members was required to bring in $100 worth of "saleable” rummage, saleability to be determined by a price list to help de termine whether she had met her quota.

Examples included wool dresses, fifty cents to five dollars; playclothes and swim suits, twenty-five to seventy-five cents; belts and gloves, ten to twenty-five cents; men’s suits, two dollars to one hun

ing medieval armor, shields, spears, and a bar decorated by a jousting tent. The Black and White Ball at the Biltmore es

dred dollars; shirts (if clean) ten to seven ty-five cents; and all ties, ten cents.

A feather in the League's fundraising cap was the presentation of the United States Marine Corps Band for two Sun day concerts at the National Guard Ar mory on October 19, 1952. On transcon tinental tour at the time, the band known

poused Greek and Roman art. Both were

familiarly as "The President's Own” was

Fancy balls came in for their share of popularity. Two were given, the Knight in Paradise Ball at the Coral Casino featur

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS founded in 1798 by an Act of Congress and has played for every presidential inau guration since Thomas Jefferson. The eighty-five member band’s first conductor was John Philip Sousa in 1891. "When Harry Truman is in the mood, he can call for fiddlers or a full-sized band and the U.S. Marines will oblige with anything from Brahms to Don’t Hit Your Qrandma With a Shovel—and never flinch, even when the rain pours in the tubas,” wrote Henry F.Pringle in a reprint from a 1952 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Debo rah Pelissero gave a dinner party at her Tecolote Ranch for the conductor, Lt. Col. William F. Santelmann, to meet League Board members.

There was the Circus Cabaret, March

101 30-31, 1952, directed and produced by the Jerome Carghill Company. The event fea tured a floor show, side shows, and games of chance in the badminton court of the Montecito Country Club. Litti wrote in one of her several news releases, "At the Cabaret the clowns will be your best friends, your next door neighbors will be in the pony ballet, the identity of the bearded lady is still a mystery, but Bill Nichols will be the barker. The air will be redolent with sizzling hot dogs and ham burgers grilled by your doctor, lawyer, merchant or chief. Every Junior Leaguer will have taken an active part and hus bands and friends will have their special work as dancers, singers, or roustabouts!"

1959 passed into history on the wings

Dottie Sheehan, Beth Woodworth, Dora Bradley, Julie Bates, Stan Woodworth, and D. S. Morrison prepare to embarhon the Orchid Odyssey,the lavish musical staged in 1959.

102

NOTICIAS

of Orchid Odyssey, the musical to which Leaguers seemed to have devoted their whole beings that year. Charity benefit show business reached its pinnacle for the Santa Barbara Junior League that year when the Carghill productions of New York brought to bear "its vast resources of costumes, song and music rights, plot ide as, books, props, and the experience of putting on shows with amateur talent in hundreds of communities for more than thirty years," wrote Ronald Scofield in the News-Press. Its young director was Ho ward Miller, an actor and specialist in Carghill-directed amateur charity shows.

"I gave five years of my life to the show and the parties connected with it,” said Pat Starbuck Wygant, who as Hospi tality Chairman and Talent Chairman, was one of the show’s top talents in music and dance.

Orchid Odyssey told the story of a search for a rare black orchid, the idea the brain child of Pat and Sylvia Brickley Weller. The show was a tour de force that Leaguers, their husbands, and friends, making up a cast of 150, brought off on the Lobero stage on January 29, 30, and 31. Its sponsor was Samuel B. Mosher, lo¬

cal oil (Signal) and orchid (Dos Pueblos Orchid Ranch) tycoon and president of American Cruise Lines. When Pat, Syl via, three 1950's Presidents, Merritt, Wil son, Pelissero, and Mrs. Donald French, Ways and Means Chairman, journeyed to Beverly Hills in quest of backing, they braved the lion in his luxurious den and came out with money. On assuring Mr. Mosher that they could write a wonderful show, the thoroughly charmed curmud geon said, "Just to get you in the mood, why don’t I fly you and your husbands to San Francisco in my private plane, take you to my President’s American Cruise Line ship for overnight, dinner and danc ing, and send you all back to Santa Barba ra the next day?" Dazzled, the group ac cepted for a fabulous time and, of course, inspiration for the extravaganza that was one year in preparation, wowed the townfolk. and is still being talked of today.

In his review, Ronald Scofield wrote, "How such a lavish exposition of euphor ia could be put together so quickly with almost exclusively local, non-professional talent is a miracle and the miracle man is Howard Miller. No less a miracle is the degree of discipline, verve and plain mus-

This number evoking the color and rhythms ofSouth America was just one of the ")xrts ofcall’’in the Orchid Odyssey.

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103

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS cular stamina exhibited by what used to

members. Her

be laughingly called the weaker sex. Sure ly the years of dance training, gymnastics, tennis, and reducing exercises were glori

changing mood of the times as the League struggled to redefine itself.

Winds of change had begun to blow in the early sixties, inspired by Betty Eriedan’s The Feminine Mystique, her historic

ously justified by the chorus line that swung, swirled, and kicked its way tire lessly through Rockette and Barbarette formations.”

Sylvia Brickley wrote of the 1950’s for League Currents in 1969, "Pat Starbuck personified an attitude that we hope has always set the League apart.” This was an echo of what Ernestine Koeford, writing of the earliest League days, said, "All of America seemed very young and very gay. Here and there, however, and in San ta Barbara too, were those who felt that life wasn’t all a constant round of merry making, that to have real meaning it had to have real depth as well as surface.

Those activities that spelled Junior League

thoughts

reflected

the

appeal for a wider role for women in American society. Sylvia Brickley had re viewed this book in the October, 1960 Currents, noting that "Many women will reject this book for the simple reason that they have too much invested, in the mys tique. Others will be fired up and sense that we are on the eve of a cultural swing.” League members then seemed to fall into both categories; some clung to the belief that women’s "rights” meant the status quo: home, husband, children, volunteer work, the cherished imperative

to me represented a joining always of high purpose and a joyousness in the doing of it.” Curtain!

of the traditional Leaguer. Others ques tioned that imperative; as our society and community change, so musn’t we?

In the area of public relations. Leaguers were ambivalent. We were glad of the

The 1960s: Challenge of Change

generosity of the press if a bit uncomfort able with its form. Into the early 1960s, part of the Public Relations Chairman’s

In 1965, Virginia Castagnola Hunter wrote a letter to League Currents voicing her concern that our scrapbooks reflected

job was described thusly, "Litti Paulding of the News-Press is invited to all mem-

a policy in apparent opposition to the pur pose of the League as set forth in the by laws then existing, "There shall be a Pub lic Relations Committee whose function shall be to evaluate attitudes of members and the committee in relation to the Junior League; identify the purpose and activities of the League with the public interest; and plan a program of action to earn under standing and acceptance of the member ship by the community.”

She worried that the scrapbooks con tinued to indicate a strong leaning towards the social aspect and urged Leaguers to Dortrav a more meaninsful imase of its

bership meetings and it is the Chairman’s responsibility for reminding her of the meeting and getting her to the meeting place. If Litti brings a photographer on some special occasion the Chairman helps her with setting up the groups she wants pictures of. and if other papers want pho tographs taken, it is imperative that Litti get photographs that are different from those they obtain.”

Public Relations chairmen invariably thanked Litti in their reports for her coop eration, such cooperation translating in one year to sixty complimentary newspa per stories and thirty-five photographs.

Marv Kavser. outsoine 1959-1960 Presi-

104

dent, concluded her Annual Report with, "We face the future with our most valu able assets; an inexhaustible supply of leadership potential and our heritage of 'noblesse oblige,”' Perceptibly the tide was turning, and Leaguers reflected a new thoughftulness and a new seriousness. They questioned their every activity with the prevailing Social 1960’s query, "Is it relevant? took on a new meaning, as in social pro grams. The League sponsored Dr. Char lotte Elmott’s Special Guidance Project in connection with the Santa Barbara School District and the California State Depart ment of Social Welfare, its purpose "to study school and community responsibili ties for the prevention of behavior disor ders, personality problems, and delinquen cy.” Another social program was Project India, the sponsoring of a UC, Santa Bar bara student, Judith Wolfe, for a sum mer’s sociological study there. These were sizeable projects, requiring like funding.

Ways and Means Chairman Karen French, wrote in 1961 that, "Ways and Means has had an almost too-busy year.

The greatest lesson we have learned is that it is more important to concentrate efforts on one rousing project than to disipate to smaller ones.” These included the Symphony of Orchids Tea Dance at Dos Pueblos Orchid Company, and the open ing of the 19th Agricultural Association Flower Pavillion at Earl Warren Showgrounds with Gina Gray and Pat Lewis taking on the task of preparing and serv ing a party buffet to five hundred peopleprofit $500.

A summertime Youth Concert was held at the Music Academy of the West.

Workshops, jean Spaulding in charge, worked year ’round on handmade gifts for sale at the Christmas luncheon—profit $350. The Dancing Classes, spearheaded

NOTICIAS

by Pat Starbuck for fourth through sev enth grade assemblies, were instructed by the Ted Dalbergs with music by I. New ton Perry and earned a profit of $2000, The Rummage Sale at the National Guard Armory headed by Gina Gray made a profit of $4,720.06. The redoubta ble Chairman French noted that, "To make this profit in the face of some League apathy and with increasing out side competition is a victory.”

The arcs, especially those benefiting children, came in for a fair share of League effort with the Young People’s Art Pro gram co-sponsored with the Santa Barba ra Museum of Art. The YPAP provided for a docent course taught by Dr. Howard Fenton, professor of art at UCSB, gallery tours, and painting classes for children.

Vern Swansen, the museum's curator of education, said, "The project’s goal is to have every sixth grader in Santa Barbara city and county, public, private, and paro chial schools visit the museum this aca demic year and to have each understand what he or she sees.” A component of the YPAP was the Traveling Art Exhibit un der the direction of Robin Jones, Connie Churchill, and Natalie Hansen. Arc works from the museum with short descriptive summaries written especially for children traveled to the elementary schools in League station wagons.

Children’s Center Creative Work shops were designed "to give children in the day care centers a variety of creative experiences, to provide new methods of self- expression and to build confidence.”

Wilson and Franklin Schools’ Extended Day Care Centers were sites for this ac tivity that benefited over two hundred children and their families.

The League and Junior Programs of California sponsored plays for children on Saturday afternoons at the San Marcos

JUNIOR LEAGUE, 75 YEARS

Camp Conestoga opened in 1947 and ronained a majorproject ofthe League until it relinquished it in 1^64. Here a young man discourses about snakes to afascinated and delisted audience.

High School auditorium. A sixcy-cenc ad mission ticket entitled the young theatre patron to such performances as Sleeping Beauty, Shipioreck at Swordfish Bay, and

mg orange juice and champagne in tulip glasses with bread and marmalade breaks in the board room.”

Heidi.

Speakers were Rosario Curlecci, League member and descendant of the Carrillo

The Goleta Boys Club, the Girls Club, the Moncecito YMCA, and La Morada

family, who cold tales of life in early Cali fornia and then served delicacies of the pe

also provided opportunities for voluntar ism as well as financial support.

In 1967, the League began its coonerative project with the Santa Barbara His torical Society with an Interpretive Guides program which brought history to life for children. The first training class for seven teen, including ten junior Leaguers, met Monday mornings from March through May of 1968 under the direction of Cura tor of Education Timothy Hillebrand, and Mrs. Betty Giusco, an elementary school teacher. Specific tours were developed: Presidio, Transportation, and Rancho and Way of Life in Early California.

Sessions were held in the Covarrubias Adobe, 715 Santa Barbara Street, about

riod: jerked beef, cheese, pinon nuts, squash seeds, almonds, sherry, anise cook ies, and penuche. Others speakers included Fr. Maynard Geiger, OFM; Jeremy Hass; Courtney Monsen; Russell Ruiz; E. Selden Spaulding; Pearl Chase; and Elizabeth Hvolboll, the latter celling stories and

which Mary Lou Riley, docent trainee. wrote, We have enjoyed our meetings in the adobe with its man-high fireplace with fire crackling cheerfully on chilly morn ings, tours of the museum, and the hospi tality of the Women’s Board not only for luncheon at Fernald House, but the charm-

singing songs of early California. Of this project, forerunner of the museum's Do cent Program today, Judy Piper. Interpre tive Guide, said, "We hope to help chil dren gain an understanding of history through sensory perception by allowing them to handle and touch objects used in our history, for example a reaca, abalone shell, arrowheads, and a lace mantilla.”

Always relevant was the League's pen chant for having fun while raising money.

To help fund the YPAP, the fabulous 1960 Bal Masque was chaired by Deborah Pelissero who gave an all-day preview party at her home for two hundred guests, who were given poster paints and large card board posters CO create decor for the

106

NOTICIAS

Masque. Kites flew, there were pony rides for the children, strolling musicians, base

highlight of the show, staged by Pat Starbuck Enterprise was the Animal Soul

ball games, photographers and a picnic.

The resulting works were eligible for priz es, such as a white ermine cape and a black Labrador puppy for the most artis tic. Marjorie Elmes coordinated the decor

Dance with the dancers wearing giant wild animal heads designed by Alan Kenward and constructed of paper-mache by Nancy de L’Arbre and Mrs. Kenneth

at the Coral Casino attended by brilliantly-masqued guests who came as clowns, Arabs. Hindus, gamblers, tramps, dance hall queens, and ballerinas.

It was the era of pop art and the League was right up there with Andy Warhol, making art history at the 1966 Gone Mod party at the Polo Club. Louise Reddin used five-foot-high Campbell Soup cans for decor with black and white polka dots making crazy patterns as psychedelic lights waved over them. Smaller soup cans on tables held pipe cleaners starkly ar ranged to look like monster fingers hold ing such oddities as glass eyes, electric wires, and drooping candles.

The Captain’s Cruise, the party of the year, was chaired by Carol Doane and Frani Crawford, and was sponsored by I. Magnin, Dos Pueblos Orchid Company, and American President Lines. Staged at the Coral Casino on April 3, 1964, the event began with cocktails by the pool in which mermaids performed in torchlit wa ters while Tahitian boys in outrigger ca noes speared tropical fish. A fashion show with League models wearing cruise clothes and ball gowns from I. Magnin followed the aquacade.

Frank Perry was captain of the S.S. Samuel T^osher on its one-night cruise to a magical island. An exotic show, the Fla mingo Frolics, was staged after the cap tain’s banquet and featured torch dances by performers from the De Cott’s School of Dance; Huiano, a Tahitian dancer who danced in the movie Mutiny on the Bounty, and exotic dancers Puana and Lealoha. A

Peck. I. Newton Perry provided music for dancing for the five hundred and twentyfive guests, and Lt. Commander Richard Wisham of the U.S. Naval Reserve do nated sailor uniforms for the ship’s crew.

Proceeds from the party went to A Child’s Estate Project, then on the draw ing board, to begin the funding for the ed ucational facility at the zoo that the League would finance.

The Rummage Sale continued to reign supreme in League and community fund raiser annals. Wendy Yager was 1964 chairman, the first year a separate furni ture sale was held on Marjorie Elmes’ Montecito patio. Wendy reported a prof it of $7500 and a total of 3,123 volunteer hours spent on the two sales, but admon ished members anyway for the ever present lack of full League participation.

"This year, five Active members gave no time to the sale and thirty failed to put in the total twenty hours. Seven gave twen ty hours, fifty gave more than twenty. I feel that our League is too small to allow us the luxury of permitting some mem bers to contribute nothing. Many of us, myself included, find the Rummage Sale great fun; others hate it. But we have yet to find an easier way of making so much money.’’

Deborah Pelissero chaired the first Si lent Auction, gifts for which were priced at the donor’s evaluation, and were tax exempt. Examples of the superb gifts re ceived were crystal carafes, sterling silver, first edition books, a gold compact from Switzerland that played the French na tional anthem, and a collection of rare

107

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS cookbooks dating back one hundred years.

A highlight of the decade was the 1965 midwinter meeting of Region XII held at the Bilcmore Hotel during three gorgeous January days. Chaired by Shirley McKearnan and Sylvia Brickley, the dicor was planned by Nancy de L’Arbre—sea and mountains—the changing yet changeless nature of both reflecting the theme "The Challenge of Change.” A roll call of dele gates asked each to respond to variations on the theme: "A Challenge of Change We See Ahead—Is Upon Us—or That we have Met.” Nancy Carlson, local delegate, cold the gathering. "We in Santa Barbara find in some areas the very real challenge of remaining the same, of preserving what is best.”

Four years later the League adopted this resolution, "The Junior League of San ta Barbara supports the Get Oil Out

(GOO) Committee in calling upon the State of California and the Federal Gov ernment to take immediate action to have present offshore oil operations cease and desist at once—to issue no further leases in the Santa Barbara Channel, and to have all platforms and rigs removed from this area at the earliest possible date.”

The decade stood for change for the League, in image and in attitude; it also stood for the unchanging values of bene faction to the community and for the en during commitment of its members to chose values. Lee Kimball, 1963-1964 President, closed her annual report with words from the 18th century poet Ed ward Young, The purposefirm is equal to the deed; Who does her best hercircumstance allows Does well, acts nobly;angeb could do no more.

"We’re offto Camp Conestoga!"ig^^.

JUN OR. LEAGUE

i

108

NOTICIAS

Plus c’est la meme chose, plus ca change.

The more things remain the same, the more they change, and for the League the reverse is true. Leaguers, regardless of dec ade. are basically the same. "Comeliness,

jHa Mo^uiAa

intelligence, vivacity,” these things Kay Alexander, 1964-1965 President, would note of her League, whether of the 1960s or any period. "We are ladies trained to accomplish our goals, and still grace our communities.”

The 197&: Awareness, Advocacy, Action Following the great oil spill of January 28, 1969, spring was on its way and envi ronmental awareness was blooming every where. The League plunged into the dec

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ade by participating in the January 28, 1970, Committee Program to save the en

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vironment. This committee, headed by J. Marc McGinnis, planned an all-day conference to mark the one year anniversary of the spill. We all admired his style; he was an ecology-oriented young lawyer whose office in a small frame structure on Santa Barbara Street had flowers in win dow boxes and a vegetable garden beside it instead of parking spaces.

A feature of the day was the signing of the Santa Barbara Declaration of Environ mental Rights, written by Dr. Roderick Nash of the Environmental Studies De partment at UCSB, proposing "a revolu tion in conduct toward our environment

LOCATED AT 66 SAN ANTONIO ROAD (Ju«t off HoMitfor Avo.) S«n)a Barbara, California

which is rising in revolt against us." A sculpture entitled, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” was built of debris—old

'Ihe League began to help support La Morada in the 1950s, a home for troubled teenage girls.

auto parts, a gasoline can, an old metal fan—by Gail Towbes, chairman of our in fant Environmental Involvement Commit

children reverence for life, and to take

tee and others as a spectacular decoration for the El Paseo banquet that evening.

Dr. Nash spoke to us at a meeting, urging us to start gardens to teach the

them on frequent excursions into the wilderness. He also advocated smaller, less powerful cars to conserve gasoline and reduce air pollution. Huge gas-

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS gobbling station wagons were common place then; we all seemed to drive one, and it was getting to be a little embarrassing.

In many ways, we became aware of the fragility of Earth, refusing to purchase non-returnable beverage bottles, recycling cans and newspapers, and banning the styrofoam coffee cup at meetings.

On Earth Day that April, the League announced its plans for an Elementary En vironmental Education Project at A Child's Estate. Co-sponsors were the county schools and UCSB’s Environmen tal Studies Department. A beguiling pic ture in the News-Press showed a velvet muzzled llama bestowing a grateful kiss on Connie Churchill who holds a model of the proposed Education Center in her hand. The plan provided for a classroom, an instructor, materials, and trained zoo guides, all to teach children the wondrous world of nature, and that it must be pre served at any cost.

Suzanne McEwen, Chairman, remem bers the beautiful May day when seventyfive school children inaugurated the pro gram. "Each guide was dressed in ladylike fashion in the mode of the day—Ivy League corduroy wrap skirt, buttoned down Oxford cloth shirt, knee sox and loafers, and we each took a group of fif teen to the classroom for an hour, a tour of the zoo, and a ride on the train. The children brought their lunches and one child fed a large banana to a valuable pea cock who nearly choked to death. The children’s favorites were the snakes.”

Beverley Jackson of the News-Press wrote a charming piece about a tea at the home of General and Mrs. Charles Ott in honor of new members: "Mrs. Charles Schick had been asked by A Child's Estate to babysit with a tiny one-week-old opos sum who stole the show. He must be fed every hour, so she simply brought her

109

charge along in her very chic handbag. He slept happily there in a warm woolen sock between feedings, being brought out sever al times to greet his admiring public."

Environmental awareness was the key to the 1970s, but it was by no means the entire decade's emphasis. Marilyn McMa hon, 1969-1971 President, used three phrases—Awareness, Aristotle and Gran ny Goose—as the basis for what she hoped the League would accomplish in the first year of the decade. Looking back to those times, she said, "This disparate combination was to symbolize League goals of the 1970’s in Santa Barbara. We wanted to increase our awareness of each other and our community (in its broadest sense, to include Earth), and we wanted the community to be aware of us. We wanted to achieve balance, as idealized in Aristotle’s the Golden Mean, by concen trating our efforts in the areas of welfare and education in contrast to earlier em phasis in the arts. And in Granny Goose, the name of the potato chip in the 1970’s commercial 'They’re Provocative,’ we saw a symbol of challenge, or stimulus to ac tion.”

Marilyn was confident that her League would accomplish its goals and that in the process we would have the usual amount of fun at it. "Are you woman enough for the Junior League?” she asked, borrowing a query from the popular commercial.

Convinced that each of us were, she con cluded her Annual Report with a ringing recap of the year’s activities, "You’ve come a long way, baby!”

"The hand inside the white glove has grown strong indeed,” Joyce Gibb, 19711972 President wrote, along with the ad monition to "be selective in what we un dertake, for our resources of money and energy are limited. In our eagerness to get at the problems, we perhaps have lost a

110

licde of the warm and gracious air that some remember from less compulsive days,” From this idea evolved a mandate from the membership for a renewed em phasis on fun and fellowship. Betty Gor don, 1972-1973 President, noted its result in the League’s "involvement in a number of curious activities; tap dancing, bread making, plant propagation, needlework, quilting, and tennis tournaments,” In addi tion to adopting eight projects that year, the members embarked on an era of great personal creativity, organized by Cindy Harris, April Thede instructed in wreath making; Lou Greer’s expertise was needle point; Suzanne McEwen and Carole King taught plant propagation; there were classes in Chinese cooking and calligra phy; and Marjorie Boyle's breadmaking class in her kitchen with its antique gas stove was the ultimate in down home.

The early 1970s saw new committees and projects, including the birth of SPAC. the State Public Affairs Committee, through which Junior Leagues of Califor nia could focus on such areas of commit ment as education, family support, health, anti-violence, and voluntarism. PAC, the Public Affairs Committee within the League, provided local representation to SPAC. Mary Standlee remembers when she and Marla Hemingway attended a SPAC conference in Sacramento. After

NOTICIAS of two authentic fragments of the Royal Presidio of 1782. In this appropriate set ting, planning began for a community cel ebration of the fiftieth anniversary of our founding. It has now been almost thirty years since the League staged a Follies, and it would seem that a burn-out of sorts was inevitable after the 1970s for in that decade the League presented three such productions; The E^eL Thing in 1973, the Mini Follies as part of our fiftieth birth day observance in 1974, and Top Hat in 1978.

The Reel Thing, chaired by Barbara Burgess and Joanne Holderman, was a re vue of the fabulous Hollywood studio era of film, and its forerunner, the Flying A Studios, founded in Santa Barbara in 1912.

The two sold-out performances were the result not only of the lure of pre inflationary priced tickets at $5.00, but the chance to see easily recognizable San ta Barbarans by the score onstage at the Lobero impersonating stars of the Golden Age; Dr. Charles Hamilton as Charlie Chaplin, Sam Battistone as Tarzan, Dr, John McLychok and Marina Ziemer as Dick Powell and Betty Grable respective ly. Dr. Art Greditzer as A1 Jolson, Claire Parent as the Perilous Pauline, and Sue Dalzell as Marilyn Monroe were among those turning in convincing performances.

Reviewing the show, Beverley Jackson wrote. And as for the chorus liners, the

checking into the Senator Hotel, they awaited the opening of the elevator doors, surrounded by their luggage. A distin guished-looking gentleman appeared, offer ing to put their bags into the lift before joining them for the ride up. No, it was not a masher, they realized, but the Hon orable Pat Brown, Governor of California.

Junior Leaguers will hold their own with any line in Las Vegas, and for that matter their high kicks could carry them right along with the big stage in Radio City Music Hall with any Rockette in the line!”

Sally Wilcox, 1973-1974 President, called our first meeting to order in new League headquarters on East Canon Perdi do Street, the historic Cancdo Adobe, one

Opening night, March 2. 1973. rivaled those on Broadway or in Hollywood with klieg lights illuminating the skies above the Lobero Theatre, and the arrival of ce-

Ill

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS lebrities recorded by TV cameramen and announced by I. Newton Perry in the style of the glittering Hollywood pre miere. The show was produced and direct ed by Michael Pober, who had brought his dog, Gypsy, out with him, of the Carghill organization in New York.

In 1974-75, the League marked its fifti eth year of volunteer service.

HolJoanne derman, Presi dent, wrote, "It was a time to cel

Northrup, Carol Doane, joAnn Horton, Jean Spaulding, Robin Jones and Natalie Hansen, told the League’s history in word and photograph.

Laura Kuhn coordinated other events during that anniversary year, including a pictorial Santa Barbara architecture en gagement calendar, publication of a new publicity brochure, r,' 5' and implementa tion of an eight|j week FOCUS EdR ucation Course, If r-

ebrate the past, to recognize and appreciate who we are and where

lies at the Coral Casino was held on April 25, 1975.

take up the chal lenge of devel oping tools and skills that will enable us to effec

sary was celebrat ed with a brilliant

suit of

members.

4 League The Mini Fol

we are, and to

tively plan for the future.”

The anniver

designed to the needs

At the top of the evening was a Musical Revue, a

The. Young People’s Art Program, cosOonsored by the League, ivas desigied to enharKe children's apprecia tionfor art and inauded traveling exhibits.

party at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on October 4, 1974. The purpose of the gala was to thank our Sustaining members and our friends who had enabled our success. Our thanks translated into all-out elegance from the calligraphy of the invitations, chamber music by the Santa Barbara Symphony and champagne in the Thayer Gallery to formal table set tings with each member's specialty hors d’oeuvre ("No Lipton’s onion soup mix and sour cream dip, please,” we were ad vised by Wendy Yager, chairman of the event), silver candelabra and fresh flowers from League gardens in silver bowls. Huge panels, the artistrv of Tara Brown, Susan

depiction of our history in song and dance, the creation of musi cal director, Pat Starbuck, and

choreographers, Patti Reid and Linda Eichelberry. Costumes were the creation of Ginger Wilhoite. A special star was Mary Jo Miles in a solo for which she wore a rhinestone tiara and a sequinstudded gown over long red flannel under wear with brass cymbals strapped to her knees, singing, 'Tve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” in cockney. The finale was a huge resplendent birthday cake on wheels out of which sprang Beth Anne Burgess, "Miss Junior League of 1985,” in gold lame, whose mother, Barbara, had chaired the event. A singing, cheering cast sur rounded her and our fiftieth anniversary celebration came to a thunderous close.

112

"For the seventh time in forty-two years, the Santa Barbara Junior League will parade its members before the foot lights to raise funds for its various com munity charities,” declared the NousPress, and parade we did, with a 1978 mu sical, Top Hat. produced by the Carghill organization and staged and directed by Christopher Jones. Co-chairs were Patti Reid and Alice Van de Water with Barba ra Burgess, consultant. A^ews-Press report er Charles Ireland, in his review, wrote, "The strength of Top Hat is in its lavish production numbers, outstanding cos tumes and lighting and special effects at times favorably comparable to the best of the Follies, Scandals and Vanities in the days of Ziegfield, White and Carroll.”

Reminiscing, Alice Van de Water

said: This was a particularly wonderful time for me in the League. I came out of semi-

NOTICIAS

retirement to do 'TopHat.”1 had done mostly administrative jobs since joining the League in igyi until Patti, a relatively new member came to my house with her idea ofa Follies. It was not a popular idea with the League as over half the members were working at jobs and careers. Squeezing a production ofthese proportions into a career and home schedule was a major commitment. ^The solution was to make participation purely voluntary; we would get the necessary votes for it, ifnot a one hundred percent commitment. The result was that only those who wanted to partici pate—nearly seventy percent did—and the enthusiasm was incredible!

Patti Reid said, "Everyone was so sup portive. Top Hat was a bonding not only of members and spouses but of the com munity as well. We were a very hard working group in the 1970s, but we felt it was a good thing to play a little bit. Eve ryone just let themselves go and we dis-

Merry-makers enjoy good times and companionship at the League’s Dixieland party in ig6z.Many of these parties in the igbos were not only about having jun; they were fund raisers to aid the League’s many projects.

I

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS

113

covered talent in ourselves we did not be

fid, and our souls chilled by viewing a sol

lieve possible!”

The Santa Barbara County Courthouse Docent Program was initiated in February of 1974. According to Connie Churchill, the idea was broached during a ride of the

itary confinement chamber."

A unique fundraiser for the program was the sale at the courthouse of the beau

Sage Hens, a women’s horseback-riding group. After finishing her term as Junior League President and then serving on the Grand Jury, Marilyn MacMahon, in coop eration with Betty Gordon and Betsy Chase, decided to go forward with a do cent program. They approached the Junior League, the Lawyers’ Wives of Santa Bar bara, and the Santa Barbara County Bar Association for funding for duplicating course materials. The idea met with the approval of the Board of Supervisors. The twelve-week course featured speakers and field trips and culminated in Law Day, May 1, 1974.

Students from all over the county par ticipated, bearing out the project’s key purpose; to help the young to know the law. Interested visitors assembled in the Mural Room for introductory remarks, embarked on forty-five minute walking tours of the courthouse, while the new do cents instructed in the history, art, and ar chitecture of the building, finally assem bling in an empty courtroom for briefings on the judicial system and the cases being heard that day.

Betty Gordon recapped that year in a League Currents article, "As a result of our attempt to survey every aspect of the courthouse, docents were later to find themselves experts on the plumbing sys tem of the jail as well as cognizant of the juicier elements of the criminal fringe. We were taught how to fashion weapons from toothbrushes, how to weave ropes of toilet paper and how to smuggle contraband into cells. Our minds and eyes were wid ened by exposure to genuine, explicit graf-

tiful first edition booklet, The Santa Barbora Counf^ Courthouse, written by the county supervisors to tell the public how the courthouse, completed in 1929, came to be. A forcward by the supervisors read, "The people of Santa Barbara built this courthouse. It is an expression of the tra ditions of this area, and was built to pro vide a fitting home for the type of govern ment which the people are striving to develop." Printed by the Schauer Printing Studio in 1931, booklets were discovered

by Warren and Connie Churchill fortyfour years later on a shelf in the Schauer printing establishment during an invento ry sale at its closing. "There were several pages wrapped in brown paper, a few loose ones, a few dirty ones, some without covers, said Connie. The historic booklets were salvaged, and a letter of au thenticity was written by Roscoe Schauer in 1975 in order that the booklets could be sold to the public.

Membership diversification became a national League trend in the 1970s, the re sult of an AJLI Board Resolution which the delegate body adopted as a general policy at the Annual Conference in 1978.

"Be it resolved that the following be adopted as an Association policy state ment; That member Junior Leagues reach out to all young women, regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin, who demonstrate an interest in and a commitment to volunteerism.”

Advocacy, another trend, was viewed

by Cindy Harris, 1978-1979 President, "Advocacy is the best way to effect sys tems change. Advocacy makes the most efficient use of three of our most precious resources; time, manpower, and money.

IH

The building of coalitions with other or ganizations who share similar concerns and interests further makes efficient use of these resources.’* One of the decade’s projects was pro posed and chaired by Ruth Ackerman and Joni Meisel, Volun-. teers for Abuse Pre- I -7T- I* vention, co-sponsored B with CALM (Child r Abuse Listening Meditation). Its objective Kjj|| was, The recruit' BIs ment, training, de ployment, and super vision of volunteers.”

NOTICIAS tion of Mary and of Patty Bliss, 19801981 President, was organized to offer training to community organizations as well as to ourselves. A program with Adult Education to teach parenting skills was also initiated. "It was a tyingtogether of all the ex isting child advocates in the communities in

iV'

a coordinated way,” Mary said.

Child and youth advocacy was the thread that interj twined each year of I the decade. The 1970s

This project was an 23. The disastrous oil spill in the Santa Bar- began with a Headoffshoot of the bara Channel in January 19^9 spurred the start Program with , Leamxe to become more inwlved in environ- n 11 c ■ l l c League’s part in / maitdissu^withanemphisisoncducation. AU-Saincs-by-the-Sea four-year program in Episcopal Church. It child advocacy initiat ended with our Legal ed by AJLA in 1976. This same year. Lea Education Project, the Center for Lawguers under the direction of Joan Lentz be Related Education, co-sponsored by the came television producers when ten of its Santa Barbara Foundation, the County members signed up for a six-week course Schools and the County Bar Association with Pacific Coast Community Video to in cooperation with the Law in a Free So learn camera work, interviewing, script ciety project sponsored by the State of writing, and lighting to produce three local California. The emphasis in this program TV programs on child advocacy and other was education for elementary and secon topics of concern. Judy Wood was chair dary students in the public, private, and man of the League’s Child Advocacy Com parochial schools. In its first year, the Center offered six courses for more than mittee which conducted a community wide survey to discover needs and promote awareness of them. "The next step is to stimulate action and involvement to deal with the problems,” she said.

Mary Standlee, then Vice-President III, said, 'TTiis was the first time that our Pub lic Affairs Committee and the Communi ty Committee worked together. We found that many people were involved in child advocacy but were not actually talk ing about it to each other so no support system was in place." It was then that the League’s Training Bank under the direc-

one hundred teachers, kindergarten through high school, throughout the county. Marilyn McMahon became its first professional coordinator. Emerson’s words became the project’s motto, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

The annual rummage sales continued.

One year, items of uncommon ingenuity were offered: a river trip for ten down the Stanislaus River with Drs. Rod Nash, Jim McKittrick and Bob Collins; golf lessons

by Larry Talkington and A1 Geibcrger;

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS horse stud service

by Mrs. William

Riggs; and a steel engraving of the White House with an autographed card from Mrs. Richard Nixon, Child advocacy in a lighter vein took on a festive tone with the continuing Ball room Dancing Classes now held at the Music Academy of the West. Mr. and Mrs. Ken Ota, the former an instructor in the martial arts, imparted social know how with just the right touch to reluctant boys. "Boys, converse with your partner.

Ask her about her horse.” For girls, the word to the wise was. "Don’t pull your gloves off with your teeth.”

Memorable in League history, the 1970s were a time of change. Many mem bers were in the work force and the first night meetings were held during this dec ade. Voluntarism as the League had long advocated it, with members required to devote a half-clay a week to community service, was becoming an ideal increasing ly difficult to achieve. Awareness, advoca cy, and action were called for but so was adaptation. Sandy Nash, 1975 - 1976 President, summed up the decade with this observation, "The Junior League is an agency for change; we have changed. We hope to facilitate change in our communi ty so that we may all benefit from en hancing the quality of its life.”

The 1980s: Women Volunteering for a Better Community The Junior League of the 1980s was in terested not just in voluntarism and train ing for ourselves, but in training for the rest of the community as well. The coali tion—a combination of League resources with those of other community groups of kindred spirit—was begun experimentally in the 1970s. It became commonplace in the 1980s. "Gone are the days when

115

Leagues can work in isolation, without community partnerships externally and without the coordination of League com mittees internally,” wrote Jennifer Bergquist, 1995-1996 President.

Our Training Bank, coalescing local agencies, voluntary organizations, and in terested individuals, was flourishing in our effort to train our members as well as oth ers. As a community service we pub lished, Volunteer Opportunities Bulletin, a forty-page booklet describing ninety-two community agencies, their objectives, the specific needs of each, and the contact person to call. These ranged from a group meeting at the Recreation Center on Fri day evenings for people interested in the art of conversation to the Santa Barbara Symphony League, with its newly formed docent program. The latter took tapes of symphony music to public and private schools to give the young an appreciation of classical music. In short, a liberal sam pling of where, when, and how to volun teer was offered.

"Santa Barbara; Portrait of a Unique Community.” a ten-week course in coop eration with the Continuing Education Di vision of Santa Barbara City College, was designed for interested parties to explore the community and its volunteer opportu nities and included such topics and locations as The People,” at the Old Mission; "The History.” at the Covarrubias Adobe; "Medicine,” at St. Francis Hospi tal; "Art,” at the Museum of Art; "Dance and Drama” at the Garvin Theatre and at the Faculty Club at UC, Santa Barbara; "Education, Public and Private,” at West mont College, and "The Environment,” at the Museum of Natural History, Coordi nator for the 1980 course, a requirement for League membership, was Ruth Ann Henderson. Danielle Mackall, 1984 Coor dinator, added "Food and Wine” at Santa

116

Barbara City College with Hugh Carpen ter, writer and authority on Chinese cook ing, John Dunn, manager of the Hotel and Restaurant Management program at SBCC, and Richard Sanford, a Santa Ynez winery owner, all to demonstrate the uniqueness and pleasure of the course. We later added an all-day boat trip to Anacapa Island to study its flora and fauna.

How to make pre-teens understand the word "compulsion” and how an addiction such as alcohol can result was one of the challenges of the Alcohol Abuse and Youth Project sponsored by the League, the county schools, and by Zona Seca, a South Coast alcoholic counseling agency.

Carol Archer founded and directed the program, assisted by Junior League in structors trained by Dr. Eleazar Ruiz of County Schools. In a session in Mrs. Julie Smillee’s class at Vieja Valley School, Ann Hammond, League volunteer, con ducted the lesson for the day, pointing out that there were good and bad addictions drinking apple juice, playing with Hot Wheel cars, eating artichokes, going to movies. "Imagine if you had to do this ac tivity every half-hour, twenty-four hours a day. How would this affect your school work, your friends? How would you sup port this addiction? How would you pay for the apple juice, the artichokes, the mo vies?" she asked. After engaging in small group discussions, the students as a class were asked, "Beginning right now, could you be happy if you could never use your addiction again?” The consensus was a chorus of "no’s,” thereby accomplishing the goal of developing empathy for the al coholic who is suffering from a treatable but incurable disease.

Another education program, the Crea tive Process in Education, caught our fan cy as we focused on ocher ways to en hance creativity in the classroom. The

NOTICIAS League acted as facilitator to gather infor mation from community leaders, parents, and teachers on ways to improve the schools’ teaching climate through the in corporation of creative arts in curricula.

The goal of this project was realized with the formation of PARTNERS, a county wide coalition for arcs in education.

Together with the Santa Barbara County Department of Social Services, the League sponsored a Foster Parent re cruitment effort during Foster Parent Week proclaimed by the City and County, October 9-15, 1983. The purpose was to recruit and train new foster fami lies CO fill critical shortages of adoptions.

We published a newsletter, FYI Foster Parents, four times a year about the issues of foster parenting.

In mid-decade the League selected three new projects from among fourteen possibilities surveyed in the community.

The Children’s Initiative, a survey of mental health services available for chil dren in the county. Head Trauma Recov ery, and Quality Child Care. The Chil dren’s Initiative Project developed a video/ film. The Child is Father of the Man, to show CO community groups as part of the Speakers Bureau’s aim to spotlight the Family Service Agency’s Child Guidance Clinic. Sheridah Gerard and Shirley Ann Hurley in 1983 had headed the advisory committee to establish the clinic for Santa Barbara’s Family Service Agency.

A videotape, Head Trauma—the Rude Awakening, was planned and produced af ter League committee members inter viewed trauma victims and their families in order to present to the community something of the experience of dealing with head trama from a family view point, and to educate the public about the problems faced by injured young adults.

"Severe head trauma is defined as serious

117

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS traumatic injury to the brain, requiring ex tensive services over a period of time,” ex plained Joan Muhr, the project’s chairman, "After head injury victims are created at the hospital and go through therapy at a rehabilitation hospital, there is no real care for them.’’

A conference was co-sponsored by Me morial Rehabilitation Foundation of Santa Barbara, Jodi House, Inc., and the Santa Barbara

care. Children needing it in the mid-1980’s numbered close to ten thousand. The League did a seven-month survey of li censed child care services in the communi ty CO determine unmet needs existing in the county and helped to form a coalition of individuals and groups dedicated to ad vocating for quality child care, and to in crease the involvement of employers in the child care is sue. Jennifer Bergquisc had a per sonal stake in the

Head Injury Sup port Group CO highlight current issues of medical

project for in 1984 she had been

care,

legislation. legal issues, clini cal issues for nursing, neuropsychoand logica behavioral prob lems. and theory of cognitive re~_i-rrrr. .U*-' traini^ Leagpe paicid' pants did research for the video by way of personal ^ interviews with VIC trauma Top in igyS, was one ofthe most elaborate productions ever staged by the Lea^. Here League cot i m s. One espe chair ofthe production, Patti I{eid, displays her talent. cially poignant inwas terview conducted by Carol Kallman with Jodi Wusceman, her high school friend who was hit by a car while jogging. Jodi’s ap pearance and personality were altered and her short term memory lost after the acci dent, and she remembered little of their girlhood friendship.

The goal of the Community Advo cates for Quality Child Care, founded by Jane Honikman in 1984 with Kathy Cow ell as League Chairman, 1985-1986, was to alleviate the shortage of affordable day

compelled to re sign her teaching position in order to care for her newborn son.

With her letter of resignation she in cluded a list of the child care options then available and the critical need for more. "Most members of the Junior League are working women. mothers and potencial mothers Because of this,

they know the responsibility of a new baby can be twice as complex when a woman chooses to balance motherhood with her career," she said. Jennifer’s situa tion was the subject of a Santa Barbara News and h^iew article in the September 10, 1986 issue that headlined, "Junior League Moves from Debutantes to Work ing Mothers.”

Meanwhile, the annual rummage sales dating back sixty years continued unabat ed. jo Wideman, May-September 1984

il8

NOTICIAS

The rummage sale h<is been a staple ofLeagueJundraising since igz8. By ig8g over one million items were included in the sale. Here members prepare far t^ 1985 sale, "Alice in B^mmageland and Throi^h the Looking Trash.”

President, wrote a brief history of the sales dating from their origin in the 1920s in a

torium. The next year it was expanded to three days.

single room in the San Marcos Building to "a sale of tired dresses” in the 1930s to the

In the ig6os each member was required to give 12 hours ofservice before the sale and 8 hours during the sale. In igbq. there were 20

"Monster Rummage” of 1989 with cochairs Robbie Jackson and Adrienne Schuele. offering over 1.000,000 items. A sampling; In ig^y the Board decided that rummage sales were so successful they should hold one twice a year, Spring and Fall, in the Benja min Franklin building on State Street.

In ig^g there was so much shoplifting that it was suggested that "a strong arm of the law"guard the exit.

In ig.<^g participation was so large the sale moved to the Piggly Wiggly building.

By ig<yo the sale was held only in the Spring andfor two days in the Carrillo Audi¬

departments to choose from and the League was providing snack service rather than a separatefood sale.

In ig6^ we moved the entire sale at the last minutefrom the Armory to Eari Warren Showgrounds.

In 1972 Qrandma’s Attic, a Sustainerrun department, was added; there was just one sale, in the Fall.

Through the years sale titles and themes varied. "The Queen is Coming” in News-Press advertisements in the 1970’s featured a royal herald with unfurled ban ner flung from his musical horn proclaim-

119 JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS ing the impending sale for weeks. Appear ing shortly before the sale was the an nouncement of "The Queen of Rummage Sales” to take place. "Alice in Rummageland and Through the Looking Trash,” in 1985; "To Market, To Market,” with fat pig motif in 1984; "It’s Up to You,” in 1986 reflecting the importance of each member’s contribution to the success of the sale; "Rummage Roundup” in 1987; and "Saile, Saile, Rummage Sale” in 1988.

Linda Meats of the Los Angeles Times wrote an article on April 7,1986, subtitled "Santa Barbara’s Rolls Royces of Rum mage,” about the four major fundraisers for charity: the Treasure Sale and the Clothes Gallery of the Santa Barbara Mu seum of Art, the May Madness sale of the Music Academy of the West, and the Rummage Sale of the Junior League. These four, she wrote, attracted more than 13,000 people in 1985 who divested them selves of about $348,000. She went on; It is the surprises that provide the fun.

Particularlyfor the many volunteers who col lect and sort throughout the year. Maybe it’s a piece ofcollector’s china at the bottom ofa box ofold shoes, an i8 karat gold necklace in an oldfrayed evening bag, a rare edition in a box ofotherwise sleazy paperbacks, or an an tique silver tea service and mink coat wrapped in a green plastic bag.

All majorfind raisers, their proceeds go to programs operated by these non-profit organi zations. But the sales provide a more immedi ate service as well, serendipitous purchases aside. From a practical standpoint, people who are on a limited budget can literally out fit afamily, top to toe, in quality merchandise for what it might cost at moderate retail prices to clothejust one.

Anotherreason these events are so well at tended and do so well, is that they are well run. If practice makes perfect, consider loj years of experience amons the gmups. Still

the logistics are awesome. Transportation and storage ofgoods goes on year round as does itemizing, bagging, tagging and moving merchandise to the sale site, display, volun teer orientation and security are details that must be attended.

"You can always tell the professionals and the dealers,” Jo Wideman, one of the 1980’s publicity chairmen, said. "They just have a look about them. They arc the hardcore shoppers; they want the most of the best the fastest. Some come in with boxes strapped through their belt loops.”

The second Santa Barbara Junior League cookbook in history began produc tion in 1987, A Slice of Santa Barbara, California Rj-viera Cuisine. Now in its sec ond printing, the cookbook was in the hands of six chairs; Beverly Borneman, Judy Egenolf, Barbara Kelly, Jonatha Kentro, Mary Millikin and Peggy Stevens.

Thirty-six Leaguers tested and compiled its 333 recipes.

Summer tasting parties with members, husbands, and guests were held to sample the creative gastronomic delights at the homes of Joan Jackson, Perri Harcourt and Amy Adams. Over two hundred submis sions were prepared, tasted by willing and adventuresome palates and critiqued.

"Small sumptuous tastings” were subse quently enjoyed at intimate dinner parties, the recipe committee supplying the hosts with a meal plan, recipes, evaluation forms, and instructions.

In her foreword to the book, Marilyn Maloney-Gutsche wrote, "Filled with the pleasures of the California Riviera, these recipes are inspired by the freshness of our Mediterranean climate, the tradition of our Hispanic heritage, the glamour of our star-studded community, as well as the simplicity of breakfasts on tiled terraces, beach barbecues, and picnics by our mountain streams.

120

NOTICIAS

The 1980s played out for che League with something for everyone with its two

deaths, and injuries. Students who have been drinking or using drugs could request

new projects oriented to youth, Anger Management and Friday Night/Live Safe

a confidential, safe ride home on Friday and Saturday nights between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Rides; to the elderly. Volunteer Support for Senior Services; and to all, Literacy Project. TAPP, Teen Age Pregnancy and Parenting, an adjunct to the Klein Bottle Social Advisors to Youth was an other coalition.

Shelter Servic

Debbie Williams and Alyce Parsons headed the Volunteer Support for Seniors Project designed to encourage greater vol unteer service to seniors, especially the frail elderly.

To inaugurate this project, the League sponsored a one-day confer ence at the Gar vin Theatre with

es for Women, Inc., co-sponsored che Anger Man agement Program whose purpose was "to educate 4ch

grade

Betty Friedan, au thor of The Femi

stu

dents regarding violence prevencion by showing children how to

’

manage and chan nel anger.” A col oring book. An

-

A

Anger Work,Book, written by Shelter Services and illus i trated and funded 1 , j Mrs. J. Warrai Churchill receives an appreciative oy me League ^5 cheek by a llama at the Santa Barbara was used in che Zoo, site of the League’s Elementary Environmental curriculum along Education Project, igyo. with discussion circles and role playing. Children learned about themselves and how to recognize how their verbal statemens when angry affect others.

Friday Night Live/Safe Rides was a co alition with the National Council on Alco holism. the Boy Scouts of America, and the California Highway Patrol. This effort focused on drug and alcohol abuse pro grams for high school youth with a goal of reducing drunk driving accidents.

nine. Mystique, as the keynote speaker. Her topic was "Beyond the Age Mystique.”

Coinciding with che Year of the

Reader, che

Literacy Project trained reading tutors and assigned volunteers to students. We

teamed up with United Way to sponsor an ESL (English as a Second Lan guage) curriculum with League member Leslie White, a teacher at Adams School

and co-chair Janet Lucy, coordinator of the joint effort. Guests paid $250 a plate for luncheon at the Coral Casino to hear "Second Lady” Mrs. George Bush speak about her commitment to literacy.

Afterward, she was honored at our re ception at the Santa Barbara Public Li brary during which she accepted an

121

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS award for her ten-year dedication to the crusade to eliminate illiteracy in this coun try. Mrs. Bush was presented with a small replica of the dolphin fountain at Stearns Vv^arf as she was greeted by Anne Kratz of the League's Literacy Committee.

The long-standing conventional wis dom of the League advises liberal measures of fun to temper the work ethic. In addi tion to the luncheons and teas signaling special events, there were some special evening parties as well. An After Taxes Rescue Party on April 15 cost but $5.00 per person ("no pennies, please!”) and fea tured dancing to Baron’s Mobile Disco and a Poverty Fashion Show ("with dignity and elegance,”). Attire was casual ("down and out informal, or whatever you can get together,”). Jane McCullough was respon sible for this on-a-shoestring affair.

A garden party, complete with whiteonly attire and croquet on the lawn, was held at a Montecito estate. A Casino Night at the Coral Casino featured profes sionals dealing blackjack, poker, and spin ning the roulette wheel. Music of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was provided by the Omega Band, and cafe-style dining in cluded Oriental and Italian dishes prepared to individual tastes by Four Seasons Biltmore chefs. Big winners had a choice of grand prizes, from a Carribean cruise to twenty get-away packages at hotels in places like New York, Las Vegas, and Beverly Hills. This party, however, had to undergo some rethinking when it was dis covered that State Attorney General John Van de Kamp had issued an opinion con cluding that such Casino Nights were in violation of the California penal code.

The decade represented the continuing effort of the League to adapt to its everchanging environment and to make the best possible use of its dwindling time and energy pool and its funding. With seven-

cy-five percent of its members in the work force, family life and volunteering had to be squeezed into after-hours. The former mix of day and evening meetings finally gave way to evening meetings ex clusively. Another first was the reschedul ing to evening of the Community Course.

Sue Schwartz, 1985-1986 President wrote:

Members felt that the greatest trick that women were being asked to per form was to balance their lives, to have perspective about what was important and to admit that they can’t do it all.”

We strove always to modify our tradi tional image, despite some in-house eye brow raising.

Jan Abel, 1986-1987 President, ex pressed it this way: The igSosfound the Junior League con tinuing to bridge the transitional gap with one foot in a League world that would have been very familiar and comfortable to our mothers'generation and the otherfoot in the very different world that was evolving for contemporary young women. There are three events during the ’80s that characterized this slcrw shift, and they were met with great con sternation by many Active, as well as Sus taining members.

The first two events were in the area of public relations andmembership. Prior to this time the League had notfelt the need to adver tise itself or its individual members, only its events andprojects. But in recognizing a need to diversify its membership to become more representative of the community which it served, the League decided to openly recruit prospective members using the print media.

Heretofore, members were chosen by invita tion and vote only. We also sponsored an an nual series of layout advertisements high lighting individual members and their involvement in League projects and the com munity in the newspaper in conjunction with National VolunteerWeek-

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NOTICIAS

The most difficult transition during these years was the decision to end the Ballroom

Renovacion Project, Pack-A-Sack, and the Community Assistance Fund, Public ser

Dancing Classes for young people that the League had sponsored almost since itsfound ing six decades earlier. There was new comBarbara, and attendance had slowly been de clining over the years. But many members still felt that the classes met a need and were a tra dition. Many Active and Sustaining mem-

vice announcements were placed in local newspapers, and on television and radio station. The League was the lead coalition member with counseling, medical, and law enforcement agencies to raise funds for the SART cottage which provides an alternative setting to the emergency room or police station for children and adults

bers had not only attended such classes them selves, but had children who had attended.

who have been sexually abused. Its pur pose is to help restore the emotional well

After much discussion over many months we decided to end the Dance Classes both for practical reasons, and perhaps more impor tantly, because their literal "white glove im age" no longerfit the emerging new image of the JuniorLeague.

being of survivors during the collection of physical evidence for prosecution. When the League held its New Year’s Eve Bash of 1993 at the Cutter Motors Showroom,

petition for this type of instruction in Santa

The 1990s: Among awards and tributes to AJLI in 1988-1989 was the United States’ highest award for volunteer activity, the Presi dent's Volunteer Action Award presented at the White House by President George Bush in April, 1989, to AJLI President Maridel M. Moulton. In presenting it, President Bush said, "To serve others, to enrich your community—this truly defines a successful life. For success is personal, and is charitable—the sum not of our pos sessions, but of how we help our neigh bors. May your example inspire and uplift others." National Volunteer Week, a time for celebrating contributions to communi ty made by volunteers in the United States was coming up April 22- 28, 1990, and the League began serious preparation for it.

It launched its Fifth Annual Promo tional Campaign through the local media with a "Working Together" theme and created a series of ads highlighting JLSB projects and programs, such as the SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) Cottage

BMW executives presented a $10,000 check for the SART program. League in volvement in the coalition came to frui tion with the successful completion of the remodeling of the cottage and its opening in June. 1994.

Pack-A-Sack was a bi-monthly collec tion of goods for distribution to agencies serving the homeless in Santa Barbara County. The Community Assistance Fund provides money to local organiza tions to help them reach their specific goals to benefit people in the area. For ex ample, the Botanic Garden used their grant to fund the development of new creative science outreach programs for children. PACE, the Parent and Child En richment facility at Santa Barbara High School, used its funds for refurbishment, and Goleta Valley Community Hospital’s monetary award went for scholarship assistance to families wanting to receive res pite care services in its "Guest Weekend for Frail Adults" program.

Other recipients were Marymount School to expand its Anger Management Workshop, initiated by the League in 1986; United Against Crime for materials to expand its curriculum in the schools;

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JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS ●●

' Education was one. of the top priori' ties of the League in the iggos. Here Julia Dawson-Korps tak.cs part in the Storyteller Project to instill a love ofreading in children.

%

^ scancial contribution to the Red Cross for aid to residents of the hundreds of homes lost, eleven

1 .

! of which were those of Junior League members.

Another endeavor of the ear ly 1990s was the State Public Affairs Committee (SPAC) Conference of the Southern Re gion held at the Sheraton Hotel in Santa Barbara February 1-2, 1991. The Conference, to which delegates of the fifteen Leagues in California focused on wom en’s and children’s issues, health,

Family Service Agency to help develop a STEP (Systematic Training for Effective Parenting) in their Child Guidance Clinic; and the American Diabetes Association for sending youths to ADA camps.

League assistance to Special Olympics helped recruit and train licensed day care providers for the Santa Barbara area.

The League itself was on the receiving end of some largess on August 11, 1990, with the Opening Gala for Paseo Nuevo’s Broadway Department Store. Robin Lee and Debbie Alex were co-chairs for this event that featured supper, a fashion show, dancing, and a variety of entertain ment. The event netted $70,000 for chil dren's programs and to aid victims of the Painted Cave fire. The League made a sub-

safety, and the environment, was hosted by local delegates and COMPAC (Community/ Public Affairs Committee).

SPAC supports the League's projects and programs with legislative advocacy. Sen ior and Junior Delegate positions within the League ate two-year commitments.

Both SPAC delegates sit on the Commu nity Programming Committee (COMPROG) and assist with input into public affairs issues.

Two new COMPAC projects were Done-in-a-Day (in which mini-projects that can be completed in a day's time are accomplished), and the Valued Youth Partnership Program, identifying high risk students as valued youth who are given an opportunity to improve self esteem and earn money by serving as tutors of younger children. Typical Done-in-a-Day projects included "A Day at the Zoo” for

124

NOTICIAS

foster care children and repainting and up grading the PACE Center.

the community emotional support and motivation to provide for their children.

The state-funded Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting Program (TAPP), started in the 1980s, had as its goals increasing birth weight of infants born to teenage mothers, keeping teen parents in school, and educat

Other Leaguers in the 1900 - 1991 phase of the program were Carol Anne Larson,

ing to postpone second pregnancies. Assis tance was given by the League with its ten-member committee who recruited and trained volunteers to work with Klein Bot tle Social Advocates for Youth (KBSAY) case managers and to become mentors of

League trainer of community volunteers, and Mimi Muraoka and Cathy Briggs, who matched volunteers with their re spective teen mothers.

As ever, fundraising punctuated the decade in the ongoing drive to balance the budget, and the League at last voted to hold just one event fundraiser per year— aside from the Rummage Sale.

The spring event was the Shipwreck Par ty, featuring a South Sea native feast, is

TAPP clients. League committee goals were to plan self-esteem workshops for teen mothers and to develop a manual of detailed instruction on each facet of the

land dancing and a grand prize trip to Hawaii. The invitation, mailed in brown

program, in short, to give teen parents in

paper bags, read;

Another innovative, project of the ic)gos was Done-in-a-Day. Here the League committee members proudly stand infront ofthe new Santa Barbara Shelter and Day Center which they helped to open.

Santa Barbara SHELTER & DAY CENTER

m ‘

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS

Tropical Storm Leslie has hit the West Coast of the Fiji Islands. The good ship S.S.JT.S.B. wasfound stranded on a coral reefwith tired but happy passengers and crew. Until the next high tide (iz o’clock midnight), they ivill be marooned with nothing to do but celebrate their good luckas they lookjorward to smoother sail ing together.

"The Daily Log: Saturday, May ig. iggo Port o' Call: Santa Barbara Yacht Club As the Sun Qoes Under the Yardarm yo’clockto midnight Marooned in: Casual Calypso dress Shipwreck Fee: ^50. per landlubber, reservation to FirstMate Ppbbie Jackson.

A Monster Pommage Sale, following in the tradition of sales seventy-five years past, is held in November. Given its name in the i990s, the sale is a hallmark of each year. A special department for the Sustaining membership, Qrandma's Attic, chaired by Barbara Allen and Cindy Harris, is a feature. Forty-nine Sustainers pitched in to help with the sale in 1998. "The line was so long to get into our department that security person nel would let only a limited number in at a time to snap up such items as crystal candlesticks, brass hardware, artichoke plates, a treadle sewing machine, or pressed glass punch cups,” Barbara re ported in League Currents. The 1999 sale grossed over $62,000.

A timely 1990’s committee to research areas of possible concern for the League was the JLSB Impacts Committee who settled on "Youth in High Risk Situa tions—Breaking the Cycle of Violence,” and encompassed some long-term, as well

125 as short-term projects. The OVERT(Do mestic Violence Emergency Response Team), a long-term project, was interven tion for victims ol domestic violence. Spe cial kits, complete with cameras to docu ment injuries to victims, pamphlets with information about where to get additional help, forms and instructions on filing a re straining order, and teddy bears to com fort children were provided to police offi cers for use in responding to 911 emergency calls reporting domestic vio lence. Jill Rode, 1998-1999 President, ex plained, "So often police are busy with the perpetrators. The League raised money to provide each police officer with a camera.

It makes abusers think twice before doing it again and aids the prosecution.”A short term plan, a Peace Education Project, was a program to teach children an alternative to the use of violence to settle disputes.

The JLSB became a partner in the Na tional Silent Witness Initiative in 1996.

Its mission was explained graphically to members at a general meeting, and to the public later at the County Administration Building, with a sobering display of six "Silent Witnesses” in the form of six wooden silhouettes of women, each bear ing the name and story of a woman killed by domestic violence in the Santa Barbara within the previous five years. The Diane Gilchrist Tribute Fund, created by the League to honor their immediate past President, who died of cancer, benefited the Silent Witness Program with the es tablishment of an annual scholarship in Diane’s memory to honor her commit ment to this program The scholarship is awarded to a female college-bound student with an interest in advocacy. The first re cipient was Mary Gallindo. The Annual Diane Gilchrist Advocacy Award in memory of Diane’s commitment to the Si lent Witness Program was given to Leslie

126

NOTICIAS

Person Ryan and Patti Hopkins for their efforts as advocates for women’s and chil

gallery, kitchen, and patio with the A.I.A., the American Institute of Archi

dren’s issues. Leslie Person Ryan won the award for her work on SART.

tects. Leaguers Kathryn Masson. Betsy Turner, and Mary Millikin were the coor dinators of interior design and furnishings in keeping with the building’s period style. The League moved into the quarters on February 1, 1991.

The Holiday Luncheon at Rockwood in December of 1995 honored members of the Junior League who have been named Woman of the Year: Deborah Pelissero, Carolyn Ferguson, Sheridah Gerard, Shir ley Ann Hurley, Mary Standlee and Pen ny Jenkins. Later in the decade, the names of Patty Bliss and Joanne Rapp were add ed to this list.

The Partnership for Excellence Confer ence, an annual project of the Sustaining membership, started in 1993. The League became involved in 1994 with Judy Piper, chairman. Gail McMahon, then Sustainer Liason to the League’s Board of Directors, felt the idea might appeal especially to Sustainers who were volunteering individ ually in the community, but not as a group. The Conference, sponsored by the Foundation Roundtable, is now in its sev enth year. It is financed primarily by local foundations. More than three hundred people representing non-profit agencies at tended the 1999 Conference at the Four Seasons Biltmore. Junior League Sustainers have voluntarily handled all details of the Conference, whose coordinator is Cindy Harris.

In 1996, the JLSB celebrated its seventi eth anniversary with a Salute to the Com munity, a reception at League headquar ters, the Acheson House at 229 East Victoria Street. The house was granted Structure of Merit Status by the Santa Barbara Historic Landmarks Commission on July 24, 1991. An Edwardian structure built in 1904, the stately two-story house in Classical Revival architectural style, is owned by the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara. The League occupies four second-floor offices, sharing a street-level

Another seventieth anniversary event was the Gangster Gala on April 27. 1996, at La Cumbre Country Club with a Roar ing Twenties theme to commemorate our 1925 founding. Invitations mailed in paper bags suggested the invitees attend in 1920’s attire—boas, shimmy dresses, fe doras, and wing-tip shoes—for an evening of dinner, dancing the Charleston and the Shimmy, and casino gambling. Patron classification fell into two categories, bootleggers at $70 per person, gangsters at $140. Proceeds would go to the Donor Projects coming up.

The quest for gender equality took an interesting new direction when Clark Clementson made national news as one of the first males ever to apply for Junior League membership. An Associated Press news story by Julia Produs in the News-Press on January 28, 1996 told of a Los Gatos man, a hairdresser whose many clients in cluded a number of Junior League mem bers. His bent for volunteerism did not escape notice when, perhaps as a joke, some encouraged him to apply for membership.

"After all, he had exactly what the Junior League values so highly—a commitment to help the needy."

Reasoning that the once all-male Ro tary Club had been admitting women for years, he could see no reason why the Jun ior League should not admit men. "It’s the height of discrimination.” he said. At the League’s International Headquarters in New York. Executive Director Holly Sloan of AJLI defended the no-men-

127

JUNIOR LEAGUE: 75 YEARS allowed position; The organization is commited to developing the potential of women, not men. The League in an Annual Conference vote remained commited

then Chair of the project, Jaime Gomez, an eleven-year-old Lati no boy. was the focus of the drive. Jaime suffered from a rare blood disease, aplastic

to this goal. We remain a women’s organ ization.

anemia. Marrow types are inherited, so a match would most likely have to be found within his ethnic group. The League worked with several community groups,

Storyteller Children's Center, a day care center for homeless children, received Done-ln-A-Day attention in June of 1999 with the sprucing up of the playground. A garden of flowers and vegetables was planted, and play equipment repainted.

Leaguers also took the children—eighteenmonths-old to three

including the Hispanic Chamber of Com merce, to find a match.

In December. 1996. a bone marrow 1 match was found for Jaime who was then being created weekly with blood transfusions. He re ceived a transplant in March of 1997 at Chil

1

years—on a field trip to Chase Park for play time and carousel rides.

Capping the decade were two signal plans that marked the

League’s historic con tinuing emphasis on women’s and children’s issues. A new focus area became communi

ty health. Within it, "The Community Health Collaborative”

became an umbrella term for several JLSB projects in the field of health, among them the Donor Projects and the Pediatric Health Enrichment Project.

Three Annual Donor Projects have been sponsored by the League. In 1996, a successful blood and bone marrow drive was held as an adjunct to the November Rummage Sale. Four hundred volunteers were tested and entered into the National Bone Marrow Registry and/or the TriCounties Blood Bank. "The highest at tended drive within the community this year, especially for Latino donors,’’said Leslie Person Ryan, 2000 President and

dren’s Hospital in Los An geles. The poster boy of the League’s donor drive, he wanted someday to be a policeman and was made an honorary one by the Santa Barbara Police Department with a plaque and badge present ed by Chief Richard Breza. The badge hung in his hospital room through his illness.

Bone marrow recipients have only a 50% chance of surviving transplants, and though Jaime was recovering well after his operation he died on June 19, 1997, of complications resulting from a virus. The Junior League will continue its drives in his memory. Subsequent poster children have been three-year-old Taylor Makala for whom a match has not been found, and nine-year-old David Clark who has recov ered from his illness and is no longer in need of a transplant.

Kimberly Sower and Tonya Crandall were co-chairs of the 1996 drive for which they received the Diane Gilchrist Advoca-

128

cy Award. "The Donor Project has been the most rewarding project I have been in volved with as a Junior League member,” said Tonya. "It is an excellent project for the committee to learn organization skills, event planning, PR , advertising, and com munity assessment while making an im mediate and lasting impact within our community.”

Leslie Person Ryan and Sheila Prendiville were instrumental in initiating a move to make the Tri-Counties Blood Bank a designated marrow registration site. Donors of blood can now choose to register in the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) to become possible do nors for children and adults with life

NOTICIAS puter network for hospitalized children. It enables them to go on-line and interact via video teleconferencing with other chil dren in the United States who share their illnesses. The second is to build a perma nent playroom at a local hospital. The League will involve itself in all aspects of designing, building and furnishing a play room in the pediatric wing of Cottage Hospital. The third component is the de sign and manufacture of hospital gowns (WellGowns) for adults and children, created especially for them by Junior League members to be used by hospitals, clinics, and doctors.

year at the JLSB Rummage Sale in No vember.

Today, more than eighty children have logged on to the system at Cottage Hospital. "In August, STARBRIGHT World took a virtual road trip across America. The objective of the journey was for kids to visit as many states (hos pitals) as possible where they could meet new friends. STARBRIGHT is an invalu¬

The first annual national Circle of Life Award from the NMDP went to Leslie

able tool for dispelling the loneliness and isolation of childhood illnesses,” said Har

Person Ryan, Kim Sower, Leslee Wulbrandt, and Sheila Prendiville. The JLSB was the inspiration for this award, accord ing to Pat Conley, Assistant Director of the American Red Cross Marrow Donor

riet Whaley,STARBRIGHT Chair, Leslie Person Ryan, League President,

threatening diseases such as leukemia. A new County collaboration had been formed with the League, the Blood Bank and the NMDP. Drives are held each

Program. "The reason the Circle of Life name was chosen was based on the level of participation of the Junior League. We noticed that when the League works with a focus patient, the group usually adopts the whole family. Like a circle incorporat ing recruitment, fundraising, and follow ing with whatever is necessary for the pa tient, completing the circle . . .the criteria for future recipients of this Award will be based on the quality of participation like your group.”

The Pediatric Enrichment Project con sists of three components. The first is to establish STARBRIGHT World, a com¬

said: In my negotiations with Cottage Hospital and STAKBRIQHT World, I ascertained the League's strong position in Community Health and belief that, indeed, ifwe brought STAI{BI{IQHT to Santa Barbara that our pediatric community would see an incredible ben^t. We would be the only small to medium-size community to have access to such a system oflife-altering capabil ities for our area's children who are ill and isolated in hospitals. Our kids would now be able to communicate via video teleconferenc ing with other ill children through a "find a friend”program in the hospital. What a bene fit to our small community. What a change for our sick kids. 1 now have had the experi-

129

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS ence ofseeingfirst hand the smiles ofour criticolly4ll kjds when they use STAfiBRJQHT. It is truly everything ive thought it would be and more.

The curtain falls on a momentous last decade of nearly a century of Junior League history in Santa Barbara. It has been a history of fulfillment of the organi zation’s mission by many hundreds of Santa Barbara women who have chosen to become members. Part of their fulfillment

may lie in a common feminine need co concern oneself with others, a concern chat has always been part of the feminine mystique; it is a feeling of wanting to see to the comfort, the happiness, the educa tion of the young, the aged, and the inbetween—simply to make things better and right—as natural a sensibility to a woman as her more intense concern for her own family.

The performance continues—in multi ple acts.

IK

IK

130

NOTICIAS

Presidents ^ unior League of Santa Barbara 1925-26 Mrs.Pecer Cooper Bryce (January-March 1925)

1942-43 Mrs. Barkley Wyckoff 1943-44 Mrs. Jessie Gorham Toll

Mrs. Horace Gray(March 1925-April 1926)

1946-48 Mrs. Hamilton Bingham

1944-46 Miss Elsie Phelps

1926-27 Mrs. Horace Gray

1948-50 Mrs. George M. Davis

1927-28 Mrs. Edgar Park (Mrs. Stephen

1950-52 Mrs. John S. Bailey, III

Gates) 1928-29 Mrs. Harold Haserick

1952-54 Mrs. Godwin J. Pelissero 1954-56 Mrs. Wilson Forbes

1929-30 Mrs. Wagner Edwards 1930-32 Mrs. Eban Barker

1956-58 Mrs. William H. Wilson, Jr. 1958-59 Mrs. John F. Merritt

1932-34 Mrs. Algernon Davy 1934-35 Mrs. Harold Beard

1960-61 Mrs. Robert M.Jones

1935-36 Miss Elvira Broome(Mrs. Jerome

1961-62 Mrs. George E. Leden

K. Doolan)(April-October) Mrs. Frank Learned(Mrs. Adelbert Kruger)(October-April)

1959-60 Mrs. Edwin E. Kayser

1962-63 Mrs. Donald French(Mrs. Alan Sears)

1936-38 Mrs. Roy Cameron

1963-64 Mrs. Lewis E. Kimball, Jr. 1964-66 Mrs. Harold B. Alexander

1938-40 Mrs. Julius Bergen

1966-67 Mrs. James Dow

1940-41 Mrs. Milton Geyman 1941-42 Mr. Robert E. Lewis

1967-68 Mrs. Edmond J. McKearnan,Jr. 1968-69 Mrs. H. Vernon Freidell

Sustainer Board Presidents 1965-66 Mrs, Guy Church Buck

1974-75 Mrs. Albert Spaulding. Jr.

1966-67 Mrs. Leslie Joynes

1975-76 Mrs. John Reynolds

1967-68 Mrs, John Howland 1968-69 Mrs. Frank Crandall

1976-77 Mrs. John Moseley

1969-70 Mrs. James Forsyth

1977-78 Mrs. Charles Piper 1978-79 Mrs. Frank Miller 1979-80 Mrs. W^illiam Gordon

1970-71 Mrs. Perry Kenley, Jr. 1971-72 Mrs. John Rachbone 1972-73 Mrs. Robert Carlson

1981-82 Mrs. Michael Rodrigue

1973-74 Mrs. Wilton Doane

1982-83 Mrs. Julian Smith

1980-81 Mrs. Paul Brickley

13i

JUNIOR LEAGUE; 75 YEARS

Presidents unior League of Santa Barbara 1969-71 Mrs. Timothy McMahon

1987-88 Robin Spiro Lee Woodworc

1971-72 Mrs. Joyce Gibb 1972-73 Mrs. William B. Gordon

(Mrs. Steven) 1988-89 Roberta Eckert Jackson

1973-74 Mrs. Phillip Wilcox

(Mrs. Lee Shough) 1989-90 Leslie Baldwin Power

1974-75 Mrs. Henry L. Holderman 1975-76 Sandra Jackson Nash 1976-77 Mrs. George T. Northrop 1977-78 Mrs. Fred Hayward 1978-79 Mrs. Walter Harris

(Mrs. Dennis M.) 1990-91 Carol A. ICallman (Mrs. Don Barthelmess) 1991-92 Vickie F. Acchley

1980-81 Carole MacElhenny

1992-93 Kathryn Masson 1993-94 Susan Carlson McDonald

1981-82 Patricia Dillon Bliss(Mrs. Terry)

1994-95 Diane Gilchrist

1979-80 Mrs. J. William Beaver

1982-83 Mary Jane McCord (Mrs. John J.)

1995-96 Jennifer Bergquist

1983-84 Jean Callanan(Mrs. Richard)

1996-97 Linda P. Stirling

1984-85 Jo Wideman(Mrs. Richard) (May-September)Sue Schwartz(Mrs. J. Terry)(September-May) 1985-86 Sue Schwartz(Mrs. J. Terry)

1997-98 Cindy Hamilton 1998-99 Susanna Gray Williams 1999-2000 Jill Rode 2000-01 Leslie Person Ryan

1986-87 Jan Edmondson Abel (Mrs. William S.)

Sustainer Board Presidents 1983-84 Mrs. Wymond Bradbury 1984-85 Mrs. Richard Thielscher

1992-93 Robbie Jackson

1985-86 Mrs. Patrick McMahon 1986-87 Mrs. Barbara Free

1994-95 Mary Standlee 1995-96 Gail McMahon

1987-88 Mrs. James Fulcher-Alberts

1996-97 Cindy Harris

1988-89 Jean Callanan 1989-90 Alice Van de Water

1997-98 Linda Clough

1993-94 Lynn Hamilton

1990-91 Shirley Ann Hurley

1998-99 Linda Clough 1999-2000 Linda Whiston

1991-92 Shirley Ann Hurley. Laura Kuhn

2000-01 Helene Beaver

The Santa Barbara Historical Society wishes to acknowledge the generous support ofthefollowing towards the publication ofthis issue of

Noticias

mum BaOR g TRUST ^ unior League of Santa Barbara, Inc.

Helene Beaver Maxine Crandall Cindy Harris Joanne Holderman Carole MacElhenny Lily Marx Leslie Person Ryan Anne Steiner

SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Board of Trustees President Ruth Brooks Scollin . First Vice President Gen. F. Michael Rogers, USAF(ret.)

Second Vice President Patricia Broome Treasurer Marilyn Chandler DeYoung Barbara Parker Robinson Secretary Victor H. Bartolome Alexandra Crissman Melissa Dvorak Elizabeth Edwards

Jean Smith Goodrich Leslie Flovey John Hunt Thad MacMillan

Catherine Perlman Jo Beth Van Gelderen James Vitanza Cicely Wheelon

Michael Rodrigue George M. Anderjack, Executive Director

Major Contributors—2000 Collectors Scries The Santa Barbara Historical Society wishes to thank and to acknowledge with pride the following members, and institutions for their most generous contributions to the 2000 Collectors Series

Patrons($1000 and up) Stewart & Katherine Abercrombie Norma L. Bowles Perri Harcourt Hutton Foundation Keith 6i Nancy Marston Jane Rich Mueller Kenneth & Mary Louise Riley Ivano Paolo Vit

Sponsors($250 and up) Albert & Rosalind Amorteguy Lee Bacon Adam & Penelope Bianchi

L^ Fe Bland

BencfactOTS($500 and up) John & Patricia Broome David 6l Melissa Dvorak Alger & Marjorie Chaney Priscilla K. Gilesen

Josiah & Karen Jenkins Donn Miller Donald & Jane Patterson Janet Dowling Sands/Rord Foun dation Ruth Brooks Scollin

Richard & Katherine Godfrey Harry & Leslie Hovey Richard E. Hughes Jean Smith Goodrich

Joseph & Jean Stevens Hugh & Mary Thorson Donald & Jo Beth Van Gelderen

Zelva P. Fischer Gordon & Constance Fish Valerie L. Fish Don & Susan Fuhrer Richard & Kay Glenn

Travers & Joanna Newton Chapin & Cynthia Nolen Alexander & Heloise Power Vir ginia Ridder Barbara Parker Robinson

Jim & Jane Burkemper Nancy G. Gray Eleanor H. Gritbon Mary Louise Case Chris & Dee Gronbeck Lani Meanley Collins Richard & Alexandra Crissman Janette Hellmann Rose Ann Hill Richard & Barbara Cleveland Arthur L. Hoff Janet Milligan John 6d Josephine A. Hunter Crary Edward & Nancy Lynn P. Kirst/Spectrum Tours Cudahy Frances D, Larkin Janet Larson Dunbar Charles & Eve Fairbanks Geonine D. Moriarty

Gayle Barnard Lal(a Brutoco

Special Contributions hlome Inmrovement Center Marion G. Macfadyen

Department 56. Inc. Ficldlehcad Stationery

Magellan Travel Supply Nordstroms

Michael & JoAnn Rodrigue John F. Saladino C. William & Nancy Schlosser Olive Shannon Eleanor H. Simpson

Sally St. John Robin & Stefani Taliaferro William & Barbara Tomicki Marie M. Wangeman Benyaurd & Pat Wygant

Sally Williams Fine Honey Nougats Sanford Winery Zaca Mesa Winery

Santa Barbara Historical Society ● 136 E. De la Guerra Street ● Santa Barbara, California 93102

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NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine of the Santa Barbara Historical Society P.O- Box 578 Santa Barbara, California 93102-0578

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CONTENTS Pg73; Santa Barbara Junior League Celebrates 75 Years