Woman's Monday Club Scrapbook

Page 25

CORPUS CHRISTI TIMES, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 1949

By  MAURINE  EASTUS

Times  Women’s  Editor

            The warmth, friendliness and traditions of Christmas were combined as Mrs. Sam Rankin, one of Corpus Christi’s oldest native daughters, entertained with the annual Christmas dinner for the Woman’s Monday Club last night in the Terrace Room of the Robert Driscoll Hotel.

            The Monday Club was organized in 1897.  None of the chapter members remain on the rolls, but there are numerous members from the early years, and now daughters of members are carrying on the tradition of a club which helped pattern the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs.

            Someone laughingly remarked last night “Everything the Monday Club does grows to be a tradition.”  The daughters carrying on for their mothers is one of these traditions.  Mrs. French Smith, this year’s president, is the daughter of Mrs. A. M. French, who lacks only from February 14, the club’s birthday, until July, being a charter member.  She was unable to be present.

            For Mrs. Rankin’s dinner party last night, the Terrace Room had been arranged as both dining room and drawing room.  As the hostess greeted her guests, she was wearing two corsages, one an orchid on her shoulder, and the other a coronet of orchid blooms and silver ribbons fastened at the back of her head, above the combs with which she draws her silver hair back quite smooth.  Both corsages were gifts, and Mrs. Rankin couldn’t decide which, so she wore both.

            On a coffee table in front of one of the wide divans there was a large bouquet of red carnations.  These were a gift from Mrs. Frank Lewis, in memory of her mother, Mrs. W. W. Jones, who was long a member of the Monday club.  Mr. and Mrs. George Craven, nephew and niece of the hostess, had sent a large potted poinsettia, backed up with fragrant pine needles.

            Mrs. Rankin asked Mrs. R. R. Banner to say the invocation.  Then the hostess led her guests in “Salute to the Flag.”  This, and many of the dinner appointments were reflections of the hostess’ own idea and personality.  The turkey dinner menu was strictly in the Southern tradition, climaxed with cherries jubilee.  As the lights went out, leaving first only the myriads of colored lights on the row of little white Christmas trees that centered the dinner table, and then only the flaming silver compotes, the Christmasy setting was at its height.  “No one will ever be able to give a Christmas party as pretty as Lillie’s,” someone whispered.

Mrs. Rankin was Lillie Mussett.  She was born in Corpus Christi on May 8, 1871.  Her father was Elias Tyree Mussett, Jr., a native of Crawford County, Arkansas, who came here at the age of four years.  His father, answering the call of General Taylor, had mustered with the militia and joined the Army here in 1984.  Her mother, Harriett E. McLaughlin, a native of Maine, had been brought to Texas as a child, by wagon train, when Moses Houston, father of General Sam Houston, started his westward move.

            Lillie Mussett was one of nine children.  Three are left, Mrs. Rankin, Mrs. E.B. Hull of Beeville, and Mrs. Jessie Griffin of Bryan.

            Sam Rankin, a native of Anderson County, Kentucky, came to Corpus Christ because an estate here had been left to his mother.  He was a Yale graduate.  He liked Texas, and stayed.  He and Miss Mussett were married on Feb. 20, 1890, at the old First Presbyterian Church here.  As a bride, Mrs. Rankin went to a home located in the 700 block of Mesquite, just back of where the Ritz theatre now stands.  The family later built a home “in the country,” about where Leopard Street now makes its halfway mark.

            The old Mussett property was located in the Rose Hill Cemetery area.  In fact, after Elias Tyree Mussett, Sr., died in 1873 and Mrs. Mussett’s death in 1898, part of the property was sold for the cemetery.

            Mrs. Rankin is a member of the Corpus Christi Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of which she was the second regent; of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and of the Colonial Dames of the 17^th Century.  While she was DAR regent, in 1932, the Gold Star Tree Court of Honor for the war dead of Nueces County, was established on the bluff.  It’s dedication was a beautiful ceremony, she recalls, with the late Mayor Roy Miller speaking and a military band from San Antonio playing.  It still is Mrs. Rankin’s hope that memorial services will be held traditionally sometime at the Gold Star Tree Court.

            Just as close to her heart is another project, the old Bay View Cemetery, which she explains was started by Colonel Kinney, founder of the town.  She has fought valiantly any efforts to do away with that cemetery.

            These patriotic efforts come next to her church with Mrs. Rankin.  “I am proud to be a member of the First Presbyterian Church,” she asserts solemnly, recalling that she was 13 years old when she joined that congregation, that Mr. Rankin was many years an elder in the church, and that it has through the years meant much to her family.

            Mrs. Rankin has two daughters, Mrs. Anne Deer and Mrs. Sam Hornish.  Both were her guests at the club dinner last night.  She lives with Mrs. Hornish at 915 Furman, and when school is not in session at the University of Texas with her only grandaughter, Miss Harriett Hornish.  Mr. Rankin died in 1908.

            Mrs. Rankin joined the Monday Club in 1914.  However, she recalls that the first meeting was held in 1897 in the home of Mrs. G. R. Scott, and many of the charter members were her dear friends.

            As a trio, Mrs. Hornish, Miss Mary Clemmer and Perry Horine, with Mrs. Katherine Allen at the piano, sang Christmas carols as dinner guests retired from the dining room to the living room for after-dinner-coffee.

            Later, the guest sang carols, too, including “Joy to the World,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” and other favorites.  The musicians also gave solo selections, and duets, then there was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” to announce the gift exchange.

            Even this had a touch of tradition and long friendships.  Wild strawberry preserves, which Mrs. L. L. Wagner and her sister, Mrs. Nina Oldham made last summer after gathering the berries from their New York state farm, her gift to Mrs. John C. North.  Mrs. D. I. Van Ness had chosen a miniature easel and oil painting for Mrs. H. H. Watson, who paints and whose home is filled with paintings.  No gift could cost more than one dollar, but this wasn’t what counted.