CANOGA PARK : Civic Pride Lives On at Women’s Club

To those who knew her, Clara Rooksby was the kind of woman who, when something needed to be done, didn’t wait for somebody else to do it. She did it herself.

Back around 1914, the story goes, Rooksby, a teacher, set out on a crusade to obtain badly needed books for her students. Before long, she had collected enough volumes to open what became the area’s first library.

That same year, Rooksby and 15 other like-minded ladies also founded the Canoga Park Women’s Club, which this month celebrates its 80th anniversary. Over the past eight decades the organization has championed civic causes ranging from volunteering for the war effort to promoting literacy.

“Someone stated in an early issue of the Owensmouth Gazette that the women were never known to falter in any good work,” said Beth Shirley, unofficial historian of Canoga Park and a past president of the Women’s Club.

When the Women’s Club was established, Canoga Park was a fledgling prairie town known as Owensmouth, Sherman Way was still traversed by streetcars and “electric lights were still three years down the road,” Shirley said.

But the club’s roster was a Who’s Who of prominent area women who hailed from the present-day communities of Chatsworth, Northridge, Reseda and Calabasas. The list included Mrs. T.A. Hull, wife of the first minister; Mrs. John Burch, whose husband farmed 40 acres; Mrs. Waring, the banker’s wife, and Mrs. Wayne Bechtelheimer, whose husband was a pharmacist.

The women, who had high-minded ideals, pitched themselves straightaway into charitable endeavors, Shirley said.

During World War II, Women’s Club members volunteered to watch for enemy planes in a tower west of town after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1977, the club established Haven Hills, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing domestic violence and establishing the Valley’s first shelter for battered women.

Club members continue today to volunteer their time to such organizations as the Laubach Literary Tutoring Program, the Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation and the West Valley Food Pantry.

Rooksby died in 1967 at the age of 103, but she is not forgotten, said Shirley. “She was quite a lady. People in their 60s around here still remember her.”