The women of Westminster, including faculty and staff, housemothers, wives of faculty, and women in the community who were interested in working with Westminster, met informally during the 1920s. What started as a small social group that brought women in the community together grew into a formal club, The Westminster Dames. In February 1928, a more formal structure was adopted, and the group began having regular meetings, working on campus projects, and even raising money for scholarships and other campus needs.
In Westminster College: An Informal History by Dr. William E. Parrish, it is noted that the Westminster Dames hosted the annual Dad’s Day Dinner, which happened each fall. Although the Dames had mixed feelings about the work done during these dinners (Parrish, 176), the Westminster Dames also worked to host events for faculty and staff, like holiday parties, as well as events for families and students, like family weekends, dances and Mother’s Day events.
While the Dames did a lot of party planning and cooking for events, they were also concerned with the educational pursuits of students, as well as the Dames themselves. Dame meetings also featured guest lectures, book readings, and student guests from both Westminster and William Woods discussing their courses, the research they were doing, as well as areas of special interest. For example, at their October 4, 1966 meeting, the Dames hosted then Political Science faculty member, Dr. James Pacy, who showed slides of Vietnam and lectured about the political situation in the area. The Westminster Dames also collected money for scholarships through donations, club dues, and community events like city-wide rummage sales.
While the Dames are no longer a group on campus, they were incredibly popular in their day, with the group featuring more than 50 women when it was at its largest.
This information was found in Dr. Parrish’s text, Westminster College: An Informal History, and through items in the Westminster College Archives, in Reeves Library.
