La Retama
Club History 1905-1914
The La Retama Club formed in
1905 because a group of young women who periodically attended their mother’s
literary club,
The Woman's Monday Club,
wanted an organization of their own. For this project the principals were
Lorine and Kathleen Jones, Alice Borden, and Lucille
Scott. The club’s charter
meeting, held in 1906, included the above four founders and a group of their
friends. Within the first year and a half, club members included Lorine
Jones, Kathleen Jones, Alice Borden, Lucille Scott, Julia Caldwell, Sarah
Caldwell, Genevieve Merriman, Marion Merriman, Maude Willacy, Laura Savage,
Nettie White, Emily Kerridge, Thelma Archer, Cecil Morris, Hortense O’Leary,
Maude French, Mary Carroll, Pearl Crawford, Mary Craig, Ada Wheeler, and Alma Westervelt. Some of the original
members are pictured below:
Maude French,
1902 |
Laura Savage,
1902 |
Julia Caldwell,
1910 |
Sarah Caldwell,
1903 |
Nettie White,
1902 |
-Mary Carroll Collection, Box 10.07
Ida
Durand Redmond, a Woman's Monday Club member, suggested the name “La Retama
Club.” La Retama is a native shrub with delicate yellow flowers (whose
principal common name is "Jerusalem thorn" (Parkinsonia aculeata). The club
took its signature green and yellow colors from this plant.
The club’s original purpose
was to afford young unmarried educated women a chance to participate in
literary discussion and to help their community. Within its first few
years, the club began studying
Parliamentary Law from The
Women's Manual of Parliamentary Law by Harriette R. Shattuck. (Boston: Lee
and Shepard, Publishers, 1895.) After losing the first president,
Lorine Jones, and
the second president, Nettie White, and others to marriage, the club soon
changed its rules to include married friends.
During the administration of
the third president,
Kathleen Jones,
from 1908 to 1909, the club undertook work on the first public library in
Corpus Christi. To raise money for the library fund, La Retama held a
peanut hunt,
ice cream and bake sale, and a book reception. In the summer of 1908, the
young women brought the
Chautauqua to
Corpus Christi and sold tickets door to door. The Chautauqua week was the
first time that Corpus Christi had an entire week of afternoon and night
performances.
The project proceeded briskly
in order to open the library doors during the presidency of Kathleen Jones.
Unfortunately, many unforeseen obstacles delayed the opening until December,
1909, while
Mary Carroll was president.
The La Retama members staffed and cleaned the library so that patrons could
use the ever-growing collection located in the
Lovenskiold Building (also
known as the Hatch and Robertson
Building). In 1914 Marie Blucher, the granddaughter of Corpus Christi
pioneer, Maria von Blucher, became the first paid librarian.
Taken at Hotel Green,
Gregory 1910
Pictured left to
right-standing: Laura Savage, Thelma Archer, Julia Caldwell, Amelia
Daimwood, Marion Merriman, Lettie Smith, Mary Carroll, Philippine
Rankin, Carrie Fitzsimmons, Gweniviere Merriman, Claude Caldwell, Mrs.
George Kenedy, Ada Wheeler, Attee Born, Mrs W.D. Hale,
Mande French,
Mary Craig
Sitting front row: Emily
Kerridge, Mattie Caldwell
Sitting second row:
Jeanette, Morris, Nettie Griffin, Laura Luther
-Mary Carroll
Collection B9, 10.07 |
Photograph on the Water Front pre-1920, of the Ladies Pavilion where La
Retama Club members held meetings and various functions.
-Photograph Collection 1 - Box 1,
1.01 |
Current
photograph of the waterfront site where the Ladies Pavilion was
previously located.
-Norma
Gonzalez/Public Libraries, 2004 |
The
Lovenskiold Building at the corner
of Mesquite and Peoples. This building was originally the Hatch and
Robertson building, and was bought by
Dr. Perry Lovenskiold in the early
1900's and contained
various offices and businesses.
-Corpus Christi Museum, McGregor Image File
058993-3, Buildings |
Current
photograph of site of the former
Lovenskiold Building
(previously the Hatch &
Robertson Building) on Mesquite and Peoples which previously housed the first
La Retama Library on the first floor in 1909.
-Norma S.
Gonzalez/Public Libraries, 2004 |
|