When small town Granges, fire departments or churches want to earn money for equipment or supplies, many have food stands at events, barbecues, auctions or suppers. For many years these activities have helped groups “stay alive” and provided services with camaraderie and fellowship among workers, not to mention the deep satisfaction of hard, honest work and a job well done.

The ladies in the picture worked hard alongside their husbands. If they were alive now, they would be harvesting garden produce and crops on their farms and beginning the process of canning, preserving, pickling and drying fruit for use this winter.

They probably had their own chickens and pigs and could get milk and dairy products from a neighboring farmer. Animal slaughtering, trapping and hunting provided their meat. Just think, they accomplished all this without the “Ball Blue Book” (which I have used).

I can just remember some of these ladies, many died nearly 50 years ago when I was just beginning “my career” waiting on tables at the church suppers and was barely 10 years old.

Flora Houghtaling, Minnie Douglas, Pearl Knight and Grace Martin worked at church suppers, at the Grange Hall, and at auctions (in the picture) where they sold hamburgers and lemonade to raise money in the 1930s. Their kitchen was hardly modern. Not many women worked outside the home, but they worked hard at home and in their community.

We “young children” were in awe of the older ladies manning the kitchen and dining room at church in what seemed to be an enormous task of preparing food for a supper, serving it and then cleaning the room afterwards and washing all those dishes (real ones) by hand. Now, the second, third and fourth generations continue to do this work in the fire department, auxiliary and the churches.

Women, from the Town of Victory, who worked at many events in the past, have the last names of: Adle, Bacon, Bailey, Bessy, Bird, Blanchard, Blinn, Bowen, Bradley, Burghdurf, Butts, Camp, Chapman, Coleman, Cooper, Coppernoll, Corey, Coulling, Cramer, Crossman, Daratt, Dates, Douglas, Dunbar, Elmer, Finck, Gilbert, Hager, Hall, Hamilton, Haws, Hiserodt, Hornburg, Houghtaling, Hubbard, Howell, Jones, Knapp, Knight, Littlefield, Manroe, Maroney, Martin, McBride, Mills, O'Bryan, Parsons, Patchen, Pittroff, Porter, Prudom, Raiti, Ranney, Reynolds, Rice, Richardson, Rorabeck, Sayre, Slack, Smith, Soule, Spurr, Stahlnecker, Timerson, Thompson, Van Patten, Van Wie, Wendover, Wetherby, White, Wood and York.

I'm sure there are many more, and I'm sorry if I left someone out. Some of these names are among the oldest in the town; many have been around for nearly 200 years, and many now are lost to the ages.

Thanks ladies for your contribution to our heritage.

The fire department will have a dinner coming up in the fall. More information on that will be provided next month. Suppers at the Methodist Church will be held Sept. 13 and Oct. 11.

Beverly Sayles is the Victory town historian. She may be reached at beverlycs65@gamil.com