Bridge Brings Connecticut Women Together for 60 Years

They were four young women living in Brooklyn, Conn.--two married, none with children yet--looking for a way to kill time in that bucolic northeast Connecticut town.

One day, Mary Kelly Rivais’ mother suggested she call some girlfriends to learn to play bridge. That next Thursday night, the women met for a few hands. They tried whist, the simpler forerunner of bridge, but that was boring. Bridge made them think, so they switched over.

That was 1941. American involvement in World War II was still a few weeks off. A spanking new Buick ran you less than $1,000. Those wealthy enough to afford it had watched the first televised baseball game just a few months earlier. Rationing was months away when the ladies who bridge began meeting to play their game.

And through that war, and another one, and a war no one thought to call a war but a conflict, and presidents who looked like old men, and presidents who looked too young to be president, the ladies who bridge have been meeting religiously, every two weeks, for 60 years.

To play badly, as it turns out.

“This is a nice group of ladies from a small town,” said Maria Fitze of Plainfield, Conn., whose mother is Evalin Berris, a charter member. “They never really got good at bridge, though. In fact, they’re horrible.”

But it doesn’t matter. Bridge--the women say it’s the “social variety”--is pretty much beside the point. In a changing world, it’s nice to have the same faces to look at every two weeks. Mostly, they meet to talk and sample each other’s cooking.

Early on, in the way of women of the time, they gave their group a name, the A.M. Club, and they had one rule: They’d meet and have fun, and they would keep gossip to a minimum. News was fine. Gossip was not. As they added friends, the newcomers were often most impressed with that rule. The conversation was quick and interesting, but rarely did it degrade into gossip.

Meeting time was set for 8 p.m., late enough that children could be put down for the night and they’d had time to run a vacuum through the house once more. The games went into the next morning, and then they’d have a post-midnight supper. Hence, the “A.M. Club.”

This month, the women got together at a restaurant for their 60th anniversary. Of the remaining 14 members, only Irene Kaziliunas couldn’t make it. She had a funeral to attend.

They laughed and looked at old pictures and toasted their longevity through wedding and baby showers, bad weather and deaths--both of spouses and of members. With memberships in the Killingly Historical Society and Brooklyn Grange No. 43, the families of members who’ve died always include the A.M. Club in obituaries.

“Now we should call it the I.F. Club--’If’ we make it,”’ said Helen Sigfridson, who at 93 is the oldest member and one of the club’s best bridge players.

A few things have changed over the years. The women meet during the day now and are home for an early supper. They still rotate the meetings alphabetically, but “home” to some is assisted-living centers. Some need two hands to count their great-grandchildren.

“Were we ever that young?” asked Kathryn Rukstela, laughing. “Now, we go to bed at 8 p.m.”

In bygone days, husbands knew to make themselves scarce as the women rotated meetings at each other’s homes. For a while, the husbands tried to play poker on A.M. nights, but that didn’t last. They would complain about the noise the women made, but that didn’t last, either. Mostly, said Alice Schulz, “they stayed put wherever we put them,” and their teasing was mostly in fun, which could be silenced with one statement:

“I told my husband that these meetings were cheaper than psychiatrists,” Schulz said.

Seated at a table, laughing, the women aren’t much different from the long-haired beauties who tried to outdo each other with their desserts. But when they get up to pose for a picture, some push walkers and others touch backs of chairs to maneuver. They huddle together for a picture, and when they’re told to lean in, they immediately link arms and smile brightly.

“We don’t forget how to play,” Gallup said. “But we forget who dealt. We talk about having a pad of paper to keep track of who dealt and who bid what. Who’s to know how much longer we can do this? I don’t like to think about it.”

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Susan Campbell is a reporter for the Hartford Courant, a Tribune Co. newspaper.