The fiftieth anniversary in 1942 of College Club’s founding enjoyed wide spread coverage in The Cincinnati Post. At this time, membership had increased to as much as four hundred members with long waiting lists to join.

(Below Photo #3 Invite, Cincinnati Post 4-13-43) The College Club of Cincinnati will meet at 12:15 on Saturday in the Hall of Mirrors of the Hotel Netherland Plaza to celebrate the completion of 50 years of service to the community and the country. Due to the troubled times, the committee debated the advisability of proceeding with plans for a celebration. But, as it is admittedly a time of peril for the universities of the world, it seemed to be a fitting time for the friends of those institutions to rally to their support. The club will make its fiftieth anniversary occasion a demonstration of faith.

(Below Photo #2 Mrs. Lawrence B. Murphy, President)  (Photo #4 Mrs. Ellsworth Ireland, Program Chair)The speaker, Dr. Raymond Walters, President of the University of Cincinnati, has chosen the role of liberal education in the coming era as his theme. Mrs. Lawrence B. Murphy, President of the club, will call the meeting to order. Miss Frieda Lotz will be tribune. Invocation will be given by Bishop Henry W. Hobson. Mrs. Ellsworth F. Ireland is General Chairman of the Quinquagesima Committee. Mrs. Orville W. Crane is director of the celebration, which will be reminiscent of the past history of the organization.

A narrated pageant was presented which was an allegory of the club’s history. A baby was presented with gifts from its seven godmothers: “a cook stove, laughter, continuance, imagination, adaptability, the ability to live anywhere, and finally an uncontrollable urge to give a play.”

 (Below Photo #3 Invite, Cincinnati Post 4-13-43)  The College Club turned back the clock, at its Golden Anniversary celebration Saturday at the Netherland Plaza to review its stage successes from 1895 to 1941.

(Below Photo #1 Cast)  Mrs. Lewis Earle Lee, extreme left, author of the script for the Pageant of Plays, represents the Old Woman of “Pot of Broth,” production of 1900.

Tyltyl, Sugar, and Mytil, standing next in line, are the disguises of Miss Inez Richard, Mrs. Henry Arnold, and Mrs. Norman C. Lucas, cast of the 1928 production of “The Bluebird.”

The pageant closed with a melodramatic death, which represented the one-thousand-dollar debt the responsibility for which had been fulfilled years prior to 1943.

(photo of chorus above) Mr. Sherwood Kains, director of the University of Cincinnati Glee Club and Oratorio Society and a member of the faculty of the University, is directing the chorus of members which will sing at the fiftieth anniversary of the College Club of Cincinnati on Saturday, April 10 at 12:15 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Hotel Netherland Plaza. Prominently identified with musical life in Cincinnati, Mr. Kains was graduated cum laude from the Conservatory of Music and received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Cincinnati. He has also studied in New York, England, and Germany, and has also sung as soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He is a director of the Baker Hunt Foundation.

Within our archives are letters written to members of the club in 1968, at which time College Club would celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary. The allusion to the cook stove was reminiscent of the “nomadic” years when members carried a cook stove from place to place to prepare a luncheon. Libby Curtis, President in 1982, recalled that when she joined in 1959 lunches were seventy five cents (.75) and were prepared by the members. The average attendance was one hundred and ten members (110) at two meetings per month. Libby commented that she had never cleaned so much lettuce or buttered so many buns from Busken Bakery in her life!

Throughout our one-hundred and twenty-five-year history, the meetings of College Club have remained stable and have preserved their own individual pattern. We continue to enjoy not only the camaraderie of our members over lunch but thrive on interesting, informative and entertaining programs as did those women of long ago. One of the great blessings of this organization is the willingness of members to serve in many capacities. This cooperative spirit is essential to the well-being of College Club and one upon which we all depend.

In 1892, College Club members promoted an ongoing interest in the arts, education, social welfare, civic improvement and philanthropic endeavors among college alumnae. We follow in the footsteps of our founders as we continue those efforts today. The secret of accomplishing any task and engaging in new endeavors is as simple as getting started. It would seem appropriate as we complete this abbreviated history of College Club to remember the words of Longfellow, when he stated in his Psalm of Life:

Let us then be up and doing
With a heart for any fate
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor, and to wait.