The
Origins of the Kiwanis Club of Puyallup
By
Hans Zeiger
In
1942, W.R. Sandy prepared a book called “Birth and Infancy of the Kiwanis Club
of Puyallup,” which is the main source of the information I am going to
present. I want to start by reading Sandy’s account of the Club’s origins:
“During
the fall of 1921, the Kiwanis Spirit lit upon Puyallup. Although we were supposed to be in an ‘after
war depression,’ however, things were rather ‘rosy, the town receptive. So the
spirit abided.
“The
Commercial Club was about the only club in the city at that time: and there was
some fear on the part of a few that a Kiwanis Club might work against the best
of the Commercial Club. But those fears were soon allayed; and the Kiwanis Club
has proved a help to the Commercial Club rather than a hindrance. The Tacoma
Club was our Mother Club, or sponsor. Several personal visits were made and
preliminary meetings held. The first preliminary meeting was held in ‘Paul’s
Pantry’ at the Pacific Northwest Cannery.”
Paul’s
Pantry referred to the cannery’s dining hall, and Paul, of course, was William
Paulhamus, the father of the Puyallup Fair and the father of the berry industry
in the Puyallup Valley, and his Pacific Northwest Cannery had been responsible,
among other things, for canning all of the blackberry jam for the U.S. Army
during World War I.
So
it was there in Paul’s Pantry that “Several explanatory and ‘booster’ talks
were made by Tacoma Kiwanians.” The most powerful of these speeches was given
by Rev. Clarence Weyer, who was the pastor of the Tacoma First Presbyterian
Church. It was evidently the speech that moved the group of prospective
Kiwanians to take the next steps (Sandy, 33). They elected a man named W.C. Robb
as the Secretary for the prospective club.
Robb
was an ice cream entrepreneur who was taking advantage of advancing technology
in home refrigeration. He would incorporate his ice cream business the
following year as the Puyallup Ice Cream Company (The Soda Fountain, March
1922, 88). He also opened a cold storage and creamery plant in Buckley
(Creamery and Milk Plant Monthly, March 1922, 56).
Robb
called the next meeting at the Commercial Club on September 23, 1921 at noon to
hear from Walter Meier from the Seattle Kiwanis Club. According to Sandy,
“Fifty names were required in order to form a new club. Fifty-six names were
secured, however, only fifty four became charter members. Initiation fee at
that time was $20.
“Before
charter presentation, officers must be elected. Consequently on Tuesday
evening, September 27, an election was held.”
It
was held at the Commercial Club, and Morton G. Leicester was elected president,
T.J. Allen as vice president, P.M. Snider as treasurer, and William Gambill as
secretary.
Let
me say a few words about the founding officers of the Club, really the
visionaries of the Kiwanis institution in Puyallup. I already mentioned W.C.
Robb, the charter secretary. Morton G. Leicester was the founding president. He
was not only the predecessor of Klaus Snyder and everyone else who’s filled the
president’s office, but he was also the predecessor of Jerry Korum as
Puyallup’s Ford dealer. W.R. Sandy described Mort Leicester as “active,
energetic, and affable.”
Vice
President T.J. Allen was a berry farmer. Treasurer P.M. Snider (not to be
confused with a later Snyder) had come from Oroville in 1913 to work at Citizen
State Bank (Commercial West, November 8, 1913, 36) and rose through the offices
there.
William
G. Gambill was the Club’s first secretary. As the Superintendent of the
Puyallup School District, Gambill was named by the Washington Education Journal
in 1921 as one of the “three leading educators of the state” (National School
Digest, April 1922, 491). “His middle name is ‘Ginger,’” the article said.
“Outstanding characteristics are cordiality, enthusiasm, fairness, democracy.
He seems like ‘dad’ to the boys and girls. Everybody likes him.” Gambill was
principal of Puyallup High School until he replaced Edmund B. Walker as
superintendent in 1920 (Patterson’s American Educational Directory, 1919).
Gambill
was known to everyone in the Club just as Bill. Bill Gambill prepared the
weekly meeting Bulletins and meeting minutes for the first year of the Club,
which I got to read in preparation for this talk. Gambill would represent the
Club at the international Kiwanis convention in Toronto in the summer of 1922
(Sandy, 11). Shortly after that, however, Gambill left Puyallup to take a job
in Colorado (Sandy, 9).
The
founding board of directors included Bill Gambill, W.C. Robb, J.W. Gardiner
from Gardiner Motor Company, Jack Lacy from Sundown Lumber Company, real estate
agent John Mills, confectioner Harold Thomas, and the publisher of the Puyallup
Valley Tribune Robert Montgomery.
Two
of these men were leading promoters and true believers in Puyallup. John Mills
led the Puyallup Chamber of Commerce at one time, and later in the 1920s he wrote
a 32-page promotional booklet to encourage people to move to Puyallup. The
title was Puyallup Valley, between
Seattle and Tacoma, a Modest Statement of Facts Concerning a Wonderful Country.
Robert
Montgomery was the other promoter and the most famous of the founding board
members. He published the town’s newspaper, wrote its editorials, and more than
any other person informed the community’s opinions about itself and the world
beyond. He was a conservative Democrat who served for awhile in the state legislature.
He and his wife Agnes, who was as busy and influential as he was, lived in the
John Meeker house at 5th and Pioneer.
A
few other charter members of the club are worth mentioning:
Streetor
Beall, Sr. – Beall’s drug store
William
H. Elvins – Elvin’s clothing
Mike
Martin – Martin’s confectionary
The
charter presentation banquet was held at the Civic Auditorium, which was the
onion-dome building downtown, on October 13, 1921. Two hundred fifty people
were there, and the cost of $1 per plate paid for chicken patties, fruit salad,
French peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, celery, rolls, ice cream, cake, and
coffee. Bill Gambill welcomed everyone, a young paint salesman and president of
the Commercial Club with a long future in Kiwanis named Burr Gregory sang a
solo with Agnes Montgomery on the piano, the crowd joined in Kiwanis songs, and
District Governor C.H. Riddell presented the Club Charter to President Mort
Leicester. George Osborne, mayor of Puyallup, was the featured speaker. Osborne
was a charter member of the Club as well as the longtime secretary of the
Western Washington Fair Association (Issaquah Press, May 31, 1928, 2). Several
other members of the club were asked to make speeches, and I suppose the
audience had a longer attention span in those days than we do.
The
first few meetings were held at Paul’s Pantry, but eventually the Club settled
on the Chamber of Commerce conference room as its meeting space, meeting there
every Friday at noon until 1940. Mrs. Eva Buehner was the Club’s luncheon cook
from 1921 until 1933, assisted by Nellie Floberg (Sandy, 7).
The
first ever lunch speaker at a Club meeting on October 21, 1921 was an
ex-communist Russian immigrant named Schwartz who talked about the dangers of
the Soviet Union.
At
the meeting on November 18, a businessman from Tacoma named Edwin Rogers spoke
about his younger days living in Puyallup, his memories of the first Puyallup
Fair, and his thoughts on employer-employee relations. Rogers was the son of
the late Governor John Rogers (Sandy, 6).
At that same meeting, November 18, the first non-charter member
was admitted to the Club, Dr. Charles Aylen. Aylen grew up in North Dakota and
studied medicine at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, earning his
doctorate just as Canada entered the World War in 1914. He joined the Canadian
Army as a physician in the medical corps. While serving in a British military
hospital, he fell in love with a young nurse named Beatrice. They ended up in
Puyallup in 1919, where Dr. Aylen began his practice.
Several
other men joined the Club within the first few months, including Shirley Berry
and Warner Karshner – like Aylen, leading doctors in town. Aylen and Berry were
partners, and Karshner was one of the best known physicians in the state and
serving as State Senator at the time. All three of them were hard at work on plans
for the Puyallup Valley General Hospital which was set to open the following
summer.
Dr.
Karshner tended to be the center of attention in any organization he joined,
and this club was no exception. When he was in charge of the program on March
22, 1922, he staged a medical procedure and surgery. First he brought up all
the Club members who were doctors, then had a couple of other members bring in
a patient on a stretcher wrapped in sheets, who was said to have a serious
condition. Dr. Aylen had an X-ray machine on hand and produced an X-ray showing
that there were all kinds of things – scissors, knives, clamps, and other
medical waste – inside of the patient. “With the various doctors as helpers,
and Dr. Cullen as Nurse in his white rig, socks rolled down, and wig on, Dr.
Karshner proceeded to operate. With a large saw and a long-bladed butcher
knife, and amid groans, rasping saw-noises he threw out articles in every
direction.” Well, of course, it was all an act—the X-ray was pre-fabricated,
the surgery was faked, and the patient was none other than the Club secretary
and school district superintendent Bill Gambill.
All
of this may have inspired someone to write the words to the “Kiwanis Song,”
which shows up in the June 30, 1922 bulletin, set to the tune of Yankee Doodle:
There was a man who had the Flu
And was feeling rummy
He had a pain right down his back,
And a big one in his tummy.
He hurried to a wise MD
Doc Karshner was his name,
Doc said, “I’ll just saw off your
leg,
And win a little fame.”
Then they called Doc Aylen
He rushed up in his fliver,
Gave him a quart of Castor Oil
And said, “It’s just your liver.”
But still the man did not improve,
They phoned for Doctor Sandy,
‘A spinal readjustment now,
Will make him fine and dandy:’
When they found out this did not
help
Montgomery came right away,
He pulled his arm, he cracked his
neck
And poked his ‘vertebray’
Doc Cullen then was summoned quick,
The man was sinking low,
Doc said, ‘These little pills I
give,
Will make him well I know.’
At last they were in deep despair,
They sent for Doctor Barry,
He felt his pulse and sadly said,
‘He has not long to tarry.’
And so he went from bad to worse,
He suffered awful pain,
The only Doc to fit his case
Was the Reverend Doctor Lane.
The
initial committees of the club included the Education Committee, chaired by Bob
Montgomery; Intercity Relations, chaired by Mayor Osborne; and the Agriculture
Committee, chaired by John Mills. There was also an informal committee known as
the “Razz Bunch.” According to Sandy, “If any Committee failed to function or if
any one ‘slowed-up’, neglected or failed in any thing, this ‘Razz Bunch’ got
after them. Paul Wrigley was General of the Bunch, Harold Thomas a Lieutenant,
assisted by Dr. Ben West, Al Becker and some others. I do not believe the
Committee had any legal standing, but it sure did function for a year or two.”
I’ll
note a couple of the highlights in that first year of the club:
First
was the fundraising and construction of the wading pool in Pioneer Park. Sandy
writes, “The excavation was started the first week in June 1922 and the Pool
was completed by the middle of June….Charley Phillips and Jack Lacy was the
Committee in charge of the construction. The entire cost of the pool was
$446.75. Through the excellent planning of the above named committee and their
ability to secure co-operation on part of the members of the club and many
other citizens of the Community, the pool cost the Club only $97.50.
“Donations
were received from people not members of the Kiwanis Club. For instance, the
American Wood Pipe Company of Tacoma donated $22.22 worth of pipe; several team
owners worked with their teams, namely, Joe Richards, Bill Alberts, George
Mason, M. Holdridge, V. Cornell, G.L. Cline, and R. Thomas. On the lumber and
hardware, Patterson Mill made a fine donation; Dr. Corliss donated the sand and
gravel; Steve Gray donated $45.00 in labor; Bill Friese donated $50 worth of
cement; Mr. Sawsett donated $11.85; the Inter-County Improvement Company gave
the use of their concrete mixer; twenty-five members of the Club made cash
donations in addition to the work that many of them contributed.
“The pool [is] about 150 feet in circumference and 18 inches deep; this pool still stands in the park and gave good service for many years.” That was written 20 years after the pool went in. Now, 90 years later, it’s even more impressive that the results of the Kiwanis Club’s first big project remain, though in remodeled form.
Another
highlight was the grand opening of the Puyallup Valley General Hospital at
Fourth and Meridian on August 19, 1922. Almost of all of the doctors who worked
at that hospital were members of the Club, and the community rallied around
their newest institution. Here’s how Bill Gambill advertised the event in the
weekly bulletin, which would substitute for the weekly Kiwanis meeting. The
opening promised “more thrills than you have ever had in your life before in
the same length of time. We certainly cannot afford to miss this greatest
meeting of the year. The dinner will be served somewhere in Puyallup’s fine new
hospital at 12:15 promptly. The program is being arranged by Dr. Karshner.
Anybody who knows ‘Warner,’ can’t afford to miss this program. I understand
that the menu is being arranged by the doctors of the hospital staff. No doubt
it will be some menu.”
And
indeed, it was.
The
menu included: Tonsil Cocktail (oysters), White Knee Joints, Pickled Ears,
Appendix Salad, Fillet of Sole with Salivary Dressing, Scrambled Feathered
Brains, Stewed Kidney Pie, Soft Corns, Cauliflower Wart.
And
for dessert: Sanguinary Pudding, Caked Liver, and Polychrome Feezeum
According
to Sandy, “The food was served in bed-pans, urinals, pots, pus-cups, etc. Tea
was served from a bed-chamber vessel…Of course the vessels were new and had
never been used; however, the whole layout nauseated and sickened some so that
they did not enjoy the meal.”
The
club agreed to adopt the first baby born in the new hospital by presenting him
or her with a Silver trophy and a $10 savings account. A race ensued between
Dr. Karshner and another doctor to be the first to deliver a baby in the new
hospital. Dr. Karshner won, and the parents decided to make his middle name
“Kiwanis.” Rufus Kiwanis Biggs was born on August 17, 1922 at 9:00pm. Dr.
Karshner sweetened the prize by giving the parents a 50 percent discount on the
cost of delivery.
Looking
back at those old meeting minutes from nine decades ago, you start to see the
culture of this club forming. I’ll close with this poem/friendly reminder by
Dr. Fred Cullen at the last meeting of the year 90 years ago this week:
Doc. Berry needs the patients, Joe
Radek needs the dough,
And Burk needs the customers to make
his business grow.
Ed Moyles needs a motor car that
will climb the hills.
Your secretary needs the patients
and funds to pay his bills.
John Mills needs landbuyers and
Karshner needs more that need the knife.
And we all need Lane to show us our
faults in life.
P.M. Snider needs the savings and
Montgomery needs the news,
But the need that is most urgent,
the treasurer needs the dues.
