Wonder Women: The Woman’s Club of Fort Worth Celebrates 100 Years

It’s 2 p.m. on a somewhat muggy afternoon on the South Side of Fort Worth as I prepare to take my first steps into 100 years of history at The Woman’s Club of Fort Worth. To say this nonprofit has come a long way since its inception in 1923 would be an understatement. Plus, this landmark birthday is an important milestone, not just for the club, but also for the City of Fort Worth. The campus for this historic club sits right across the street from THR Harris Methodist Hospital on 1316 Pennsylvania Avenue. A large iron fence surrounds this 2.2-acre property that has a garden entrance near what is now a busy street. Large trees adorn the white structures that were once homes to some of Fort Worth’s most prominent people. But we don’t need to ask the walls if they can talk, instead, we have a group of women who are aware of this institution’s legacy and history to do it for us.

Upon my arrival, I am warmly greeted by Jody Kneer Smith, The Woman’s Club president near the back entrance of the William G. Newby Memorial Building. This amazing structure was built around 1910 and donated to The Woman’s Club in 1923 by Etta O. Newby.

Today, this is the WCFW‘s permanent home. Before this structure was donated to the organization, many of the women’s clubs throughout Fort Worth would meet in spaces like churches and open halls, with no permanent area to call their own. Plus, before 1923, Fort Worth was host to several women’s clubs that had not yet been placed under the umbrella organization it is now.

After the initial club was formed in 1923, it had 500 members and 11 clubs. Today, the WCFW has nearly 1,800 members with 37 clubs that span from arts & crafts to women’s Shakespeare.

My next introduction is with Michelle Cyrus, a member of The Woman’s Club centennial celebration committee and former WCFW president. Cyrus’ roots to this institution run in the family with her mother, Margaret Wilson, taking on the role of The Woman’s Club president from 1988-90. “I just think it’s so neat to see both of our pictures on the wall,” Cyrus says reminiscently as she looks at the pictures of former presidents hanging on the east wall in the foyer. They are the only set of family members to have their faces immortalized on the same wall.

We begin our journey through the past taking the time to visit almost every room in the various houses and additions that make up WCFW campus. Cyrus and Smith act as my enthusiastic tour guides, stopping every so often to observe and appreciate the museum-quality paintings, and donated antiquities that sit on display like real ivory statuettes in glass cases and grand pianos in the darkened corners of haunted rooms. I was even given the rare glimpse, for a man, of the famous powder room where the chandelier once owned by Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day, hangs.

“As you can imagine in the early 1890s ladies were not going to college like they are now, but they were very anxious to know what was going on the world and to know the history of the world,” Cyrus says. That is until a lady by the name of Dr. Ellen Lawson Dabbs attended the Chicago World’s Fair in 1891. Cyrus says Dabbs noticed that there were programs for ladies at the fair and decided to start her programs at the next Texas State Fair. “She had a whole building of things that would interest women, and this is where The Woman’s Club kind of came from,” Cyrus explained.

The next step in this club’s evolution began when prominent businesswoman and WCFW founder Anna Shelton got involved. According to Cyrus, her vision was to unite all the separate women’s clubs in Fort Worth under one umbrella.

“She was a member of the Sorosis Club, and she asked the members to send out invitations to all of the other members of the individual clubs that were meeting in the city of Fort Worth to see if we could all meet together and discuss forming one overall woman’s club,” Cyrus says.

The response from the other clubs was a positive one and on Jan. 13, 1923, for the first time, all the splintered women’s clubs in Fort Worth were then united as one. Shelton was voted in as chairwoman.

The next step was finding a permanent space to meet. That same year, Etta O. Newby donated the residence that is now the William G. Newby Memorial Building on Pennsylvania Avenue to the organization in memory of her late husband. 

Other notable members of the WCFW over the years include:

• Mary Daggett Lake, historian and botanist who started the club's noted Texana library
• Hazel Vaughn Leigh, boys' club leader and president of the '93 Club in 1975-76
• Blanche McVeigh, renowned printmaker and chair of the Art Department in 1936-39
• Jennie Scott Scheuber, director of the Carnegie Library of Fort Worth and charter member of the Fort Worth Federation of Women's Clubs

“Here we are today, 100 years later, and everything we have was given to us by those women who started this 100 years ago,” Smith says.

The other structures that make up the rest of the WCFW campus were bought over the course of many years and have their own unique backstories.

Four former residences built between 1903-11, all originally part of the Quality Hill neighborhood, comprise the main buildings. In addition to the Newby Building, other notable structures include:

• Florence Shulman Hall, built before 1910 and purchased by the club in 1924.
• Anna Shelton Hall, built in 1925-26 by Fort Worth architects Sanguinet, Staats, and Hedrick, and named in honor of the club's first president.
• Ida Saunders Hall, built in 1903, purchased by the club in 1929, and designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966.
• Margaret Meacham Hall, a Quality Hill residence built around 1904, was converted for use as a nursing school in the 1920s and a funeral home from 1929-54. It was acquired by The Woman's Club with the assistance of the Amon G. Carter Foundation in 1954 and designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1967.

The landscape architecture firm of Hare & Hare, which the Fort Worth park board secured to develop the city parks master plan, designed the club's grounds in 1926 as a gift to the Fort Worth Garden Club.

In 1976, a Texas Historical Marker was placed in the courtyard outside Ida Saunders Hall. The Woman's Club received the Tarrant County Historic Preservation Council's Pinnacle Award in 1989. In 1990, the club's complex was designated as a city of Fort Worth landmark, received a Fort Worth Beautiful Award, and was rezoned as a cultural and historic district. On May 3, 2012, the prestigious Daughters of the American Revolution Historic Preservation Award was presented to The Woman's Club of Fort Worth by Mary Isham Keith Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution of Fort Worth.

For many, like Cyrus, The Woman’s Club is their heritage with generations of the family having been members before them. Cyrus said her mother was a charter member, and her grandmother, aunt, and two cousins were all members.

“I basically grew up here,” she says.  “So, this is home, and I am very proud of it … of everything, it stands for.”

Smith had a different introduction. She wasn’t a native Fort Worthian and didn’t have the network that Cyrus had when she moved to town in her 20s. A few new friends sponsored her to get into the club.

“Today, every person I know was either a member of the Junior Woman’s Club or a club member of some sort. And I know a ton of people in this town,” Smith says. “This has been my sisterhood basically. My husband is in awe of me because I have so many friends and acquaintances. We all feel as if we have a purpose here to do something good for the community. This is why we are here to build that sense of belonging.”