A Dark Afternoon

Elma Inge remembers gathering blankets in 1941, readying Glendale for a possible Japanese attack shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Bombs never dropped on the city, but it was just one of the many times that the Tuesday Afternoon Club was called upon to help the city during the group’s 100-year history.

The women’s club closed its doors Tuesday, bringing a quiet end to one of Glendale’s oldest and most charitable civic groups.

The club survived two world wars and countless earthquakes, but couldn’t overcome the generational shift that has allowed more women to join the work force over the years.

“Many women today don’t have much time to spare because they have two jobs--their work and their family. That’s just the way it is today,” said Inge, a club member for 57 years.

With few younger women wanting to join, the club’s membership grew older and its numbers began to decline, from a bustling roster that topped 900 in the 1940s to a little more than 70 today.

Club President Ruth Moore said it just became too difficult to hold the club together, plan functions and run its spacious facility at Central Avenue and Myrtle Street. Members say the facility is for sale for $2 million.

Saying goodbye has been difficult.

“It’s something I will grieve for as long as I will live,” said a teary-eyed Moore.

The organization was born out of a birthday party in 1898 thrown by the wives of some of Glendale’s most elite businessmen. The gatherings quickly became a regular event, and in 1904 it became an official women’s club, which met the second Tuesday of every month.

Local historians and members said the Tuesday Afternoon Club founded Glendale’s first library with 80 books, and helped form the city’s symphony orchestra. In 1911, club members pieced together the city’s float in the Rose Parade and later provided scores of Red Cross volunteers during World War II.

*

Since then, the club settled into a more philanthropic role, holding fund-raisers for cancer research, a home for single mothers and the city’s libraries. Through the years, the women also aided the Girl Scouts, the YMCA and YWCA, and donated money to more than 30 local charities.

“You read any history about Glendale and you know what name you always see? The Tuesday Afternoon Club,” said Ellen Perry, who writes a column for the Glendale News-Press and serves as Glendale’s unofficial historian. “It’s sad to realize that clubs like this are dying out because there really is nothing to replace them.”

In the early 1990s, when its waning membership became starkly apparent, the club changed its bylaws to allow husbands to join. Few did.

Theresa Sprunk, who has been a club member 38 years, said one of the thrills of her life came in 1963, when the club honored her for her work to raise money for cancer research and other charitable causes.

“I just can’t accept [the closing of the club],” said Sprunk. “It’s thrived for so long and has done so many things for Glendale.”