l I ORGANISATIONS

Stanhope Women’s Institute

In the 55 years of its existence, this organisation has seen more changes in our environment and life-style than have taken place in the 214 years of settlement. During these 55 years, horse-and-buggy, wagon and sleigh have given way to the car, truck and snowmobile; and the “wash-boar ” or “mud-bat ” roads have been paved, the last bastion of clay to fall to the paver being Stanhope Lane. On the farm, tractor has replaced horse; and on the water, sail has given way to gasoline- and diesel-powered fishing boats and pleasure craft. And the change from agriculture to tourism in Stanhope continued to accelerate.

The Stanhope W.I. was organised in 1928, under the supervision of Miss Schurman and Miss Saunders, with 22 members. Mrs. Rupert Ross was the first President, with Mrs. Aeneas MacDonald as Vice- President, and Miss Dora Doyle, the Stanhope school teacher at that time, as Secretary-Treasurer. Regrettably, our early minute books from 1928 to 1943 have been lost, so we are unable to list the charter members; we thus have no records until 1944. An incomplete list of Presidents and Secretaries will be found in the appendix. Early members included Mesdames James MacLauchlan, Thomas McCabe, Isaac Lawson, Ray Carr, Percy Douglas, Joe Robison, Lloyd Shaw, Louis Marshall, Thomas Horgan, George MacMillan and Bert Misener.

In those first days the membership was in the high 20s. Every- body belonged — there was nowhere else to go, especially in the winter. And from the early roll-calls, it would seem that all the families in the district were represented. Every new bride, and each school teacher, was given a year’s free membership, and husbands and fathers acted as auctioneers at meetings, and the kids came along too. Nowadays, the brides are working' in town, the teachers are no longer members ex-officio, a husband at a meeting IS indwd a “Rara avis”, and

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