Around Town: A club that's come a long way

Around Town: A club that's come a long way
January 11, 2012


Almost 100 years ago, in October of 1912, a group of local women led by Elizabeth Knight founded the La Cañada Thursday Club.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a proud past president of the Thursday Club and am enjoying with the other members the celebration of this centennial year.

The club has evolved into a social, cultural and philanthropic organization that has had a great impact on the local community. Over the years, the club has given hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to local high school students, provided care packages to members of the military service, and given financial support to numerous local charities.

There will be some special events and outreach to the community this year. In commemoration of the club’s 100th anniversary, a Centennial Garden will be dedicated in October.

The club also has a website (www.lacanadathursdayclub.org) and many of the ladies now use iPhones.

There’s a Facebook page, but I don’t remember if the club is on Twitter.

It’s all part of the run up to the Centennial year, which officially begins in October.

In that spirit, the Thursday Club’s Community Relations Committee has announced on the club website the following invitation to the entire community: Please come to tea, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., on Thursday, Feb. 2. The clubhouse is at 4440 Woodleigh Lane.

The tea will feature Hermine Hilton, also known as America’s Memory Motivator. Hilton is the author of “The Executive Memory Guide,” and advises people on how to improve their memory.

Hilton is one of a long line of memory motivators, beginning with Cicero, an early expert on memorization techniques. Long before the printing press, the ancient Greek and Roman orators recited long speeches, verbatim and without notes. They developed memory methods, including a technique where a person links a subject to a specific place or “loci.” Specific words, or portions of an oratory, were mentally linked to a room in a house or an item of furniture. When one house was mentally used up, the orator linked portions of the speech to a second house. Thus the phrases, “in the first place” and “in the second place.”

The tea will also feature the locally famous Thursday Club brew, and tea sandwiches made by club members. I hope they have egg salad.

Club founder Elizabeth Knight would be proud. In her autobiography, she wrote, “We moved to La Cañada in 1887 and found nothing much but sage brush.... Digging out grease roots for fuel seemed to be the main industry for a livelihood at that time.”

We’ve come a long way from digging out the grease roots.

For more information, contact the La Cañada Thursday Club at P.O. Box 282, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91012; (818) 790-1166.

ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Email her at anitasusan.brenner@yahoo.com and follow her on Twitter @anitabrenner.

Around Town: A club that's come a long way
Around Town: A club that's come a long way