SI/Seattle Metropolitan, WA Celebrates 100 Years of Service
Congratulations to SI/Seattle Metropolitan, WA (Northwestern Region) on its 100th anniversary! Chartered as the Soroptimist Club of Seattle on October 14, 1925, this club was the tenth club in North America, and the twelfth club in the world.
Club organizer Stuart Morrow began the process of chartering the Seattle club in early June 1925, with weekly meetings held on Tuesdays at the Hotel Washington. The first newspaper notice was published on Monday, August 3, noting visitors including the president of the Washington Federation of Women’s Clubs and two visiting Soroptimists from the Washington, D.C. club, Harriet Locher and Marie Lawyer.
Morrow’s efforts secured 46 charter members for the club, including Bertha Knight Landes, then the president of the Seattle City Council. In March 1926, Landes would go on to win election as Seattle’s mayor, the first woman elected as mayor of a major American City. Landes became the second president of Soroptimist International of the Americas in 1930.
In correspondence between Morrow and Helana Gamble—a charter member of the first Soroptimist club and the organizer of Soroptimist clubs in California—Morrow noted the closing date for charter members and the election of officers was set for October 7. At its weekly meeting on September 15, members discussed and adopted the club’s bylaws. They were asked their opinion the following week on where the next Soroptimist club should be formed in Washington—Tacoma, Everett, or Spokane, which chartered in February 1926.
Officers and directors were elected on October 7, including President Gretchen Starr; First Vice President Leora Stewart; Secretary Eloise Flagg; Treasurer Clara Eastwood; and Board Directors Pauline Krenz, Ella McBride, Helen Ardelle, Frederica Phillips, MD, Idelle Conkling, and Bertha Knight Landes. The charter and installation ceremony took place on October 14.
Pictured top left: Bertha Landes, bottom right: Lois Beil Sandall
The club’s first civic project was recorded in December 1925, when it endowed a room at the Firland Sanatorium, a tuberculosis hospital, for four children. By 1927, members sought a more focused local initiative, which led to the launch of the Mother’s Home Foundation in 1929. Through this program, the club raised funds to purchase houses outright, then offered them to women with children—primarily widows or those separated from their husbands—who could buy the homes back from the club through small, interest-free monthly payments. By 1935, the club had successfully purchased four homes.
From these early beginnings, SI of Seattle Metropolitan—the club’s name beginning in 1958—has produced two federation presidents (Landes and 1944-196 President Lois Beil Sandall) and a century of service to the women and girls of the Seattle community. Congratulations to all the members of the club on this wonderful achievement!
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