Ninetieth Anniversary of the
Woman's Club of Chevy Chase, Maryland
by Sara Phang
The Woman's Club of Chevy Chase (WCCC) celebrates its ninetieth
anniversary this October. Founded October 13, 1913, the WCCC's goal is
to promote the welfare of the community and the state of Maryland. The
WCCC is a member of the Montgomery County Federation of Women's Clubs,
part of the Maryland Federation and the General Federation of Woman's
Clubs, a nondenominational, nonpartisan, international volunteer service
organization. The WCCC both focuses on improving and benefiting the community
of Chevy Chase and raising awareness of important social issues.
For over fifty years the WCCC has occupied the present
Clubhouse, a gracious white-painted brick Cape Cod residence on Connecticut
Avenue at Dunlop Street, near the Chevy Chase Library and Fire Department.
The clubhouse property was acquired in 1937 and opened October 17, 1938.
The Clubhouse is both the location of club meetings and social activities
and serves as a meeting space for community service organizations at no
charge.
History and Purpose
The general purpose of the Maryland Federation of Women's Clubs, of which
the WCCC is a member, is to benefit the communities of Maryland by supporting
the arts, preserving natural resources and local communities, promoting
education, encouraging healthy lifestyles,
promoting civic involvement, and working towards world peace and understanding.
The WCCC was founded on October 13, 1913, by three young
homemakers in Chevy Chase, Mrs. Ada Burkhart, Milly Bielaski and Norah
Beattie (known as the "three busy B's") with a charter membership
of twelve.
At first club activity was local; the first efforts of
the club members raised money to provide much-needed window shades, pencils,
paper and other supplies for a local school.
The club expanded to include literary, artistic, and other
community service activities. Club members originally met in each other's
homes and at the Chevy Chase Methodist Church and Chevy Chase
Circle Presbyterian Church.
The activities of the WCCC also engaged the most memorable
events and issues of those times. During World War II the WCCC sold war
bonds and stamps and was honored with an aircraft dedicated in its name.
Members also knitted, sewed, and rolled surgical dressings for wounded
soldiers, and even took turns as aircraft spotters, raising the alarm
when a Mitsubishi Japanese-made aircraft was sighted over Washington,
D.C. To everyone's relief, the plane belonged to a private American owner!
In 1943 the WCCC began its Operation Santa Claus Christmas
Eve gifts for WAVES who were patients at Bethesda Naval Hospital; extended
to all military patients, this tradition is now in its 60th year.
In peacetime, the WCCC continued its volunteer activities,
supporting public television and education, developing a large-print cookbook
still being distributed worldwide, and aiding local health programs. For
its 75th anniversary, the Club received recognition from the White House
in 1988; the Governor of Maryland in 1988 proclaimed October of that year
as Woman's Club of Chevy Chase Month.
Local Organizations Benefited
The club, of course, also works to benefit the local community. The club
provides yearly academic, art, and music scholarships for students through
the Montgomery County Education Loan Fund. Volunteers tutor young children
at Chevy Chase Elementary School.
The WCCC has benefited such local community service organizations
as the B-CC Rescue Squad, Bethesda Cares, Suburban Hospital's Lifeline
Unit, and Youth Services of YMCA Bethesda. Scholarships benefit, among
others, students in the University of Maryland Department of Music, and
mature students returning to school at Montgomery College.
Antiques Show
Early in September the club hosted its 43rd Chevy Chase Antiques Show
in the Clubhouse, featuring English and American colonial and nineteenth-century
furniture, silver, glassware, ceramics, ornaments, carpets, and art works.
As you approach the entrance to the Clubhouse, the elegant Colonial exterior
of the building, surrounded by green ivy and shrubbery, prepares you for
the gracious furnishings of a bygone world.
The show was held September 5-7, 2003, with a special fundraising
gala preview and treasure hunt. Attendees brought in their attic treasures
for appraisal on Friday, hoping to discover the true worth of
family homely heirlooms. On Saturday the show featured dealers' talks
about their collections.
The show featured the collections of antiques dealers located
in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states, and as far afield as Michigan.
Organizations supported by the proceeds included Bethesda Fellowship House,
which provides adult day care; the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; Crossway
Community in Kensington; Montgomery Hospice Foundation; and The National
Center for Children and Families, among others.
Connoisseurs of fine antique furniture, glass and china,
silver, and jewelry were in their element at this show.
Among the most unusual collections were those of Charles
Edwin Puckett of Akron, Ohio, a specialist in ancient Roman and medieval
artifacts and manuscripts as well as 18th and 19th century maps and prints.
For sale were ancient Roman glass and bronze bracelets and rings, ancient
Greek and Roman coins, and early Christian crosses, as well as illuminated
manuscript pages from medieval Europe.
Winning the prize for "most unusual" would be
the collection of nineteenth-century canes or walking sticks at To the
Point, a shop run by Ray Van Orden of Richmond, VA. Van Orden said that
he first began to collect these sticks when he broke his own hip 27 years
ago and had to use a cane. However, in the nineteenth century, a walking
stick was a must-have accessory for the fashionable gentleman (or lady)
whether or not he or she needed one.
Furthermore, Van Orden's walking sticks were more than
they seemed. They had useful implements hidden in the handle or body:
individual canes featured corkscrews, pens, a slide rule, a container
for matches or toothpicks, binoculars, and of course daggers and swords.
The sword cane was an accessory for a Victorian James Bond, who could
whip out his hidden sword to defend himself from an assailant.
Van Orden's collection even featured a walking stick that
concealed earplugs for an artillery officer to use when he fired his cannon
- and if his hearing was damaged anyway, another walking stick contained
an old-fashioned trumpet hearing aid built into the handle.
