by Melba Edwards
The weather here is so up and down that I really am a little upset with having to turn my heat on and off!
Around here we are getting ready for the town’s big 175th Birthday Celebration on July 29. We really need volunteers of all kinds to help make this a great day in Zanesville.
Before the celebration some other things are going on. Mark your calendars for May 14 and get your mother a card, flowers or candy as it is Mother’s Day.
Sunday, May 21, you will not want to miss Elvis at Lighted Gardens from 3 to 5 p.m.
Saturday, May 27, you can enter to run in the Zanesville Lions 5K Fun Run for all ages. It starts at 8 a.m. at the northeast corner parking lot at the Tower Life Center on Wayne Street.
In 1998, as I was preparing for Zanesville’s 150th birthday lodges in Zanesville, I came across an old souvenir cloth of 1913 on which an ad was placed for Lodge 11241 MWA. I wondered if that could be Modern Woodmen of America. In the back of my mind I had remembered in the writings I had seen this lodge name. Sure enough I opened the 1903 Biographical Memoirs of Wells County and in there it says that Grandpa Dr. J.L. McBride was a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. I was able to get a phone number of the lodge’s area representative Ted Brown who filled me in on what they could do to help fund our festival celebration.
We arranged to have Zanesville’s own Gospelaires and the “Flatland Posse” from Bluffton to prepare a fundraising concert at Norwell High School on March 14, 1998. Ted Brown did all the paperwork and arranged for Modern Woodmen to match any profits we could raise at that event. We netted $1,904.20 so they matched it with another $1,904.20. Needless to say I have kept in touch with this lodge for a long time.
When Kenny and I helped to establish Ouabache Friends at Ouabache State Park near Bluffton, our goal was to buy a statue for the CCC workers. I got in touch with Modern Woodmen and they again matched a fundraiser. The match helped make the buying of a $25,000 statue possible.
Again, I found the number and contacted a representative of Modern Woodmen and they have agreed to fund our fundraiser that will happen May 21 at Lighted Gardens just north of Ossian. You will enjoy “Memories of the King” portrayed by Brent Cooper who sings all your favorite Elvis Presley songs. He is a great performer who will entertain you from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, the 21st of May. Mark your calendars and bring the family. The tickets will be sold at the door starting at 2:30 p.m. Adults are $5, 6 to 16 are $1 and under 6 are free.
In other writings I found most of the Zanesville men belonged to a lodge of some kind. As we look into Zanesville history we find that the United Brethren here split because of a disagreement about belonging to lodges. Some felt that a lodge was a secret organization and went against church doctrine. That was in the late 1880’s and those who split went a little west on Broadway and built what is now the Zanesville United Brethren in Christ Church while the others stayed in the brick church that was the original United Brethren and is now the Tower Life Center. The new church did not believe in being a member of lodges. Those who stayed at the old “brick” were labeled “liberals.”
Ted Brown did check on the history of a Woodmen Lodge here in Zanesville and he found one here in 1903 which meant it would have been one of the early ones as they were first formed elsewhere in the late 1880’s.
We want to thank the MWA for helping us out this year.
