History of Annandale Improvement Club
Presentation to the Annandale History
Club, April 6, 2009
Jill Bishop and Rose Mary Nelson
Jill Bishop is co-president of the Annandale Improvement Club and Rose Mary Nelson is a long-time member. Sandy Otto, librarian for the past 32-plus years was introduced. Sandy is an Annandale Improvement Club member as were her mother, sister and aunt.
Rose Mary and Jill presented the history of the club. The Annandale Improvement Society was established in 1898 by seventeen women, wives of prominent men in Annandale. On August 9, 1898, the charter members of the Improvement Society signed the list as follows:
| Mrs. H. K. Kelly | Mrs. Charles Mathews |
| Mrs. L. Cofield | Mrs. A. M. Ridgway |
| Mrs. M. P. Satterlee | Mrs. Cotton |
| Mrs. Roy Cofield | Mrs. Nyberg |
| Mrs. J. F. Lee | Mrs. J. J. Rennie |
| Mrs. Lee Ritchie | Mrs. W. McDonald |
| Mrs. Larson | Mrs. Chas. Dally |
| Mrs. Huntington | Mrs. Frank Rogers |
| Mrs. S. H. McGuire |
The minutes of early Improvement Club meetings were published in The Annandale Advocate and the club has all the minutes back to 1898. The name of the organization changed to Annandale Improvement Club and Library Association in 1899 and to Annandale Improvement Club in the 1930s. The club and the library grew rapidly. At one time there were 144 Improvement Club members, including men. There are 100 women members of the Annandale Improvement Club in 2009.
The Annandale Improvement Club is well documented on the Annandale Online website. Topics include Mission, Officers, Program, History (including past presidents 1898 to present), By-Laws and Policies, Library, and Press, and the history of the former schoolhouse used as a library for 82 years (1922-2004). The former library is now the Snooty Fox Gallery and Gifts.
The mission of the Annandale Improvement Club includes support of the library, beautification of the city, and service to the community. Jill presented an Annandale Improvement Club history timeline which included highlights from each decade.
The Annandale Town Hall was dedicated in 1898, and the Improvement Club's first project in 1899 was to purchase a piano for the Town Hall's second floor meeting room. The Annandale Improvement Club and Library Association opened a library in the Town Hall with 317 books.
The library was the main focus of the club. The library and the Improvement Club were one in the same. The City of Annandale offered to help with the library if it became a public library, but in 1910 the club's first vote to become a public library failed. Soon after it passed and dues were 25 cents for club members and one dollar for non-members.
In 1969 the Annandale Library became part of the Great River Regional Library, a system of six counties and 32 branch libraries headquartered in St. Cloud. The GRRL buys the books, catalogs them, sends them out and pays the librarian. Annandale library patrons have full access to materials in other branch libraries with borrowing privileges in libraries across the country.
In 2001 a $250,000 grant from the Harper Foundation was offered by Annandale Improvement Club member, Kathy Harper Wenngatz, if another $250,000 could be raised by the citizens of Annandale. The Annandale Improvement Club was instrumental in the fund drive, construction, and decorating of the new library building which opened in 2004. The Annandale Friends of the Library was organized in 2003 for community support for the library. The Annandale Improvement Club now focuses their support on library technology and as individual members of the Friends of the Library. In 1997 the Improvement Club provided funds for public internet in the library and provides the computers.
The following is a partial list of Annandale librarians:
Notable programs sponsored by the Improvement Club have been author Mary Higgins Clark in 1967, columnist George Grimm, meteorologists Mike Fairborn and Belinda Jenson, and in May 2009, author Lorna Landvik.
The club purchased six paintings by Lotus Williams and has funded many improvements to the old library included the book drop, entrance improvements, heating system and internet access.
Flowers were always a part of the Annandale Improvement Club's beautification projects. The club maintained a round flower bed in town square in memory of WWI veterans until 1966 when the 1898 town hall and fire barn were torn down, displacing the memorial flower garden. There is a Lotus Williams painting of this veterans memorial flower garden at the library. The Lions Club now has a veterans memorial including a flower garden in Veterans Park on Highway 55. The Improvement Club also planted flowers in the park starting in 1905 and at the train depot starting in the 1920s. In recent years the Improvement Club ties corn stalks around poles downtown for fall decoration.
The flower baskets which hang from the canopies on Oak Street and other plantings around the city are planned, planted and weeded by Annandale's Beautification Committee consisting of mostly Improvement Club members. A budget is presented to the city, and the cost of the plants is shared by the club and the city. Watering, previously done by the club, is now done by the city. Betty Hawkinson planted and weeded all of the flowers in the city for eleven years before the current Beautification Committee took over.
Club members bring donations to their monthly meetings for various projects such as food shelf, teddy bears for Camp Amanda, donations for a women's shelter, and mittens and hats for Bendix Elementary School. Some of the projects supported over the years include decoration of the lower level of the pavilion, the elevator mural, medical clinic, Community Chest, Community Band, Queens Committee, books and items sent to troops during WWII and the Iraq War, park benches, Bloodmobile, pre-school testing, and July 4th events. They also have funded many improvements to the library.
In the early years the Annandale Improvement Club sponsored lunches, dinners, entertainments and movies. They held three-day industrial fairs in 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911, and 1912. Paper drives were sponsored in the 1940s. Main street June flower sales were a major fundraiser from 1959 to 1978. (Jill and Rose Mary displayed Ada Dawson's 1960 original oil painting of the Improvement Club's flower stands in front of the former Dayton's Furniture Store. This painting is at the library.) Other fund raising projects over the years included the sale of wreaths, tote bags, and several versions of cookbooks (cookbooks were 50 cents in 1960). The club has also sponsored numerous June home tours and boat tours of Lake Sylvia every few years since 1956. In 2004 the club sold prints by artist J. D. Speltz of 1903 downtown Annandale.
The Improvement Club has enjoyed many day trips over the years. Some of the places they have visited are Stillwater Prison, Orchestra Hall, Minnesota History Center, Guthrie Theater, Old Log Theater, Charles Lindberg's home, and the Arboretum.
In 1999 Jill Bishop launched Annandale Online, the local community website, with extensive information about the Improvement Club.
Jill and Rose Mary brought many items they found in the Improvement Club storage room for display at the meeting. These included cookbooks, fancy aprons (some made by Minnie Cheney, Sandy Otto's mother), newspaper articles, minutes books, posters for Industrial Fairs, photos of some of the original members and a copy of a book, East Side, West Side, that the club considered banning from the library in the 1940s. Jill was curious and found a copy online and lent it to a History Club member to determine the reason for the proposed censorship.
In 2009 the 100 members of the Annandale Improvement Club meet monthly at Reichel's Event Center for a luncheon and program. A member directory was created in 2004 as as a resource for members to get to know and reach out to each other. The Annandale Improvement Club has been making valuable contributions to Annandale for 111 years.
Notes by Secretary
Annandale History Club