Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Women’s Club Shares Decades of Milestones : Seniors: The Happy Birthday Girls still gather to celebrate and gossip. Twenty-year members are still considered relative newcomers.

Back in the late 1950s, when neighborhoods seemed more neighborly, Kathy Raikes learned that one of her neighbors had no living family to remember her birthday. So, Raikes baked a cake and together with a few other women in this small community west of Palmdale went to the birthday celebrant’s home to surprise her with gifts and sing “Happy Birthday.”

In the Leona Valley, the tradition started by these women not only continues, it has evolved into a club. Four times a year the Happy Birthday Girls meet to mark the birthdays of members, celebrate the events in their lives and catch up on gossip.

“It’s an update of our lives,” said Gloria Bryant O’Brien, one of about 15 members of the group who met Thursday at Jackie’s Country Kitchen in Leona Valley. “It’s just so neat when we meet. It lifts your spirits so incredibly.”

At this gathering, nine members were honored for recently having birthdays. There were also congratulations for Jenny Heydorn, a retired schoolteacher who just passed a driver’s test to retain her license. She is 91.

As with all Happy Birthday Girls get-togethers, births, deaths and other information was exchanged in an energetic flurry.

Who has done what, where, when, how? How many grandchildren have you had? How many great-grandchildren have you had? These are the typical questions, O’Brien said. “Then somebody is usually asking for the bill and we’re out the door.”

But not before the entertainment section of the program. At the most recent lunch, one of the women recited an essay entitled, “Hugging: The Perfect Cure for Whatever Ails You.”

The entire group includes about 20 women who are “approaching their 70s” or beyond, O’Brien said. Twenty-year members are still considered relative newcomers.

Although it remains a rural area, the Leona Valley has changed since many of the members grew up here. O’Brien said the regular gatherings help them stay focused on who and what is important in their lives. Some women who have moved out of the Leona Valley schedule their vacations to visit for the gatherings.

Raikes, who now lives in Tucson, has not been able to make it back for a meeting for several years, but she stays in touch by mail.

“The years in between don’t make any difference,” said O’Brien. “It’s just like you saw everybody yesterday.”