CRESTVIEW — To a list of entities turning 100 years old — the city, the county, Baker School and the Okaloosa County School Board — add the Woman’s Club of Crestview.
BACKGROUND
In the fall of 1916, an organizational meeting was held at the home of Mrs. William Jasper Rice at the urging of her daughter, Carey Rice, principal and one of two teachers at Crestview Community School.
At the time, there were no civic organizations to provide charitable deeds to the new town.
“Miss Carey Rice understood the value of leadership by women to aid in civic programs,” Betty Curenton and Claudia Patten stated in their book, “Crestview: the Forkland.”
“The purpose of the club, then called the Woman’s Home Club, was to improve the homes and the civic conditions of the community,” a Woman’s Club of Crestview history states.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
No sooner was the first official meeting held in 1917, under Mrs. L.E. Bowers' presidency, than the women plunged into doing good deeds for the community.
Early accomplishments included:
●Knitting clothing for World War I doughboys
●Sponsoring Chautauqua lectures in Crestview to support adult education
●Planting live oaks interspersed with oleander down the center of Main Street, making it a two-lane road
●Sponsoring the city’s first Memorial Day observances and selling poppies to benefit war widows and orphans
●Starting the city’s first health clinic and a county hookworm clinic, with club members aiding the county health nurse
●Starting a lending library, leading to the women helping to organize the Okaloosa Public Library and ultimately, the Robert L.F. Sikes Public Library in Twin Hills Park
●Starting a community music study program
●Establishing a scholarship for Crestview School students
●Promoting the community’s first mosquito control program
●Renting buses and covering expenses to send the Okaloosa School Band — now the Crestview High School band — to a state music festival in DeFuniak Springs
Members adopted the Woman’s Club of Crestview name in 1920, joined the General Federation of Woman’s Clubs in 1921, and moved into a log clubhouse, a Works Progress Administration project that doubled as a community center, in 1931.
WAR YEARS
The club temporarily disbanded in 1941 to allow the school additional classroom space, but members remained no less active in the community.
With World War II's onset, their clubhouse became the local U.S.O. with the women as its sponsor. Woman’s Club members volunteered at the U.S.O. and the Red Cross.
In 1940, a club project to secure a lunchroom for Crestview School became a reality. When CHS moved in 1955 from its former location — the corner of U.S. Highway 90 and State Road 85 — to today’s Richbourg E.S.E. School, the Woman’s Club obtained the lunchroom building.
The club moved it to its present, Woodlawn Drive location, where it serves monthly, second-Sunday, home-cooked dinners for the community.
Crestview women continue to plan and promote events and programs that beautify the city, improve its livability and educate its residents, just as their predecessors did a hundred years ago.
A lack of civic organizations led Crestview women to tackle community improvements, a role they still fulfill. These women's accomplishments include:
1918-1924: Improving adult education through local Chautauqua lectures
1919: Beautifying Main Street with trees and oleanders
1922: Sponsoring Crestview’s first public health clinic
1929: Promoting the town’s first mosquito control project
1939: Securing a lunchroom for Crestview School
1941: Sponsoring the wartime U.S.O. in Crestview, which used the Woman’s Club clubhouse
1947: Securing a traffic light for the dangerous intersection of today’s State Road 85 and U.S. Highway 90
1960: Sponsoring the organization of the Okaloosa Public Library, now the Crestview Public Library
1978: Securing the S.R. 85 railroad overpass. Woman’s Club President Ernestine Barker became the first motorist to drive over the bridge.
WANT TO GO?
What: Woman’s Club Centennial Old-Fashioned Dinner
When: March 5, seatings at 5 and 7 p.m.
Where: GFWC Woman’s Club of Crestview, 150 Woodlawn Drive
Notes: Regional southern fare served to celebrate Crestview's 100th birthday. Tickets, $10 each, are available from any Woman’s Club member, or call 683-9117. Seating is limited; reservations recommended.
WOMAN'S CLUB COMMUNITY PROJECTS; WANT TO GO?
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Woman's Club of Crestview celebrates 100 years