PAYSON JUNIOR CULTUS CLUB: A GOOD 80 YEARS: The Glue

Pictured: A pocket size 1943-1944 Junior Cultus Club year book and calendar is pictured also. Recorded in Junior Cultus Club Scrapbook #1: 1940-1954

Letters, photos, and newspaper clippings are attached to pages with tape or glue, and bound again inside scrapbooks that date back to 1940, the year the Payson Junior Cultus Club formed.  For generations, the chartered club provided a space for women to socialize more formally. But as the club’s scrapbooks hint, a greater purpose was shared by its members. These women took an active role in improving Payson City for some eighty years.

An orange construction-paper cover binds together a booklet, handmade and small enough to fit inside a pocket. Dated 1940-41, it opens with a typewritten motto, “To promote the highest development of its members through any avenue of study and activities that may seem profitable.” The Officers list names Josephine Christensen as President, Beulah Berge as Vice President, and Secretary & Treasurer Ruth Fuller. The Program Committee involved Lois Cowan, Mildred Olson, Leta Wilson, Ruth Fuller, and Donna Peterson. These ladies were joined in membership by Lois Cowan, Donna Ludlow, Helen Mountford, Carol Harding, Barbara Johansen, Roma Simmons, Lucille Healy, Madge Schaerrer, Gertrude McCoy, Verl Lambert, Florence Dalton, Erma Shuler, and Irene Dall.

A more professionally printed yearbook and calendar was published by the 1943-1944 club year. 

The Junior Cultus Club’s early timeframe encompassed the United States’ involvement in World War II and several pages into the Junior Cultus Club Scrapbook #1: 1940-1954 reflect this period.

“Ray Moore, recently returned from Europe, where he was stationed with a prisoner of war division, was the guest speaker,” states a newspaper clipping highlighting a March 28 club meeting. This meeting was held at Mrs. Ruth Fuller’s home, with fourteen members and special guests, Mrs. Blaine Allan, Mrs. Reid Peery and Mrs. Darrell Hill, present. Emaline Bluth would host the next meeting in April, with Mayor Floyd Harmer scheduled as guest speaker. This news clipping was pasted below a photograph depicting the club’s custom-made parade float for the 1945 homecoming celebration in Payson. It promoted peace.

Democracy and citizenship were important to these women. Nearly a dozen newspaper clippings, their publication unidentified, highlight the club’s “1944 Summer Project.” The articles are headlined on repeat: WOMEN SHOULD VOTE.

“A wide interest and active participation in politics by the women of America is one of the best safeguards we have against the overthrow of democracy,” reads one short article penned by a Junior Cultus Club Member.

“While our husbands and sons are engaged in a terrible war to preserve our freedom (which includes the right to select our own leaders by the use of the ballot) it seems highly inconsistent that some of our women think so lightly of what their men are now fighting for that they won’t even take the trouble to go to the polls and vote.”

Another begins, “In less than two months time the people of America will go to the polls to elect leaders for our nation. We have been stressing the need for women to vote in these weekly articles. So that all of the things that have been realized, it will be necessary for every woman to see to it that she is properly registered.”

Building parade floats and civic involvement traits, the Junior Cultus Club also, over the years, oversaw clinics, raised funds, and hosted events focused on inclusion for adults and children throughout the community.

The overarching Junior Cultus Club theme, bound in historical scrapbooks, alludes to the women’s organization having been the glue that helped bind Payson and its people together for a good eighty years.