Timmins Book Club

Wow, 70 years and still reading.
The idea of a book club has always fascinated me. Have not joined one but that is on my list of to do's along with a few other things.
Apparently, October 23, 1938 a group of women met in Northern Ontario, Timmins to be exact and met to discuss Origins of Peoples of Czecho-Slovakia by G. Brooker. And thus began a book club that is still meeting after all these years.
They probably gathered in one of the small wooden homes built for workers and their families by the mining companies; they were undoubtedly a the start of another harsh winter in the bush. Books and each others company were a civilizing comfort for these young mothers, teachers and nurse, isolated as they from the larger towns in the area.
The 16 members had paid their annual 50-cent dues at their opening meeting, October 3. They met twice in November and twice every month after that to the end of May; their modus operandi was for each one of them to buy, read and present a book to the others, and then make it available for them to read.
The December meetings were dedicated to 10 minute talks on Canadian authors such as Mazo de la Roche (she wrote the Jalna series- my mother read it. I took out the books from the book mobile for her.), Robert E. Knowles, and Robert Service. In January, a "Mr." Love came and schooled the women on interior decorating.
Records were kept by the members and have been handed down to the current membership of the what is now called the Timmins Book Club.
"They were very organized," says Evelyn Rymer, 88, the club's historian and keeper of the archives. "They had a constitution, minutes and meetings, all held in a very business-like way."
The club has evolved over the years but is s till women-only affair. Instead of busy mothers, its nine current members are mostly retired nurses and teachers; the only member still working is the club secretary, Doreen Yakubuski, an English teacher and librarian.
What a wonderful history and to have survived a world war and immigration of some members back south is inspiring.