LibGuides: Considering the Past: Topics in M.C. History: Granddaughter's Club

Granddaughter's Club

The Granddaughters' Club at Meredith College was founded in 1922 by the Alumnae Association‘s Executive Secretary Mae Grimmer (Class of 1914). The club was formed for students who were daughters of Meredith alumnae; the “grandmother” implied by the name was Meredith College, the Alma Mater. As time passed, the club would welcome the actual granddaughters of alumnae and those with any relative who attended Meredith. Starting out as largely a social organization, often bringing together mothers and daughters on campus for breakfasts or teas, gradually the focus of the organization shifted. In the 1940s to the early 1960s, the club was associated with the Needlework Guild of Raleigh, providing clothes for needy children. In its later years, the “Granddaughters” worked closely with the Alumnae Association during Orientation and Reunion Weekends. The club was renamed the Mae Grimmer Granddaughter’s Club in 1979 to honor its founder. The Club was apparently discontinued following the 2010-2011 academic year.

Granddaughters' Club

In the first year after the club was formed, the name was not yet formalized. In the 1923 Oak Leaves, the club was called "The Granddaughters."

Photograph from the 1923 yearbook of the group called

The Granddaughters' Club members are dressed in fashionable clothes and berets of the 1930s.

The Granddaughters' Club (1949)

The Hut was a student-run landmark on campus for many years, a cabin for meetings, informal gatherings, and dates. Here the Granddaughters' Club used the building for a get-together in 1950.

In 1950, the Club, mothers and daughters met in the Hut, an informal student-run campus landmark.

The Granddaughters' Club posed for on the steps on Johnson Hall in the fall of 1952. This photograph appeared on the cover of the alumnae magazine, commemorating the new academic year.

The Granddaughters' Club posed for the cover photo of the alumnae magazine in the fall of 1952.

The Granddaughters' Club (1954.)

Club members often posed with their mothers, themselves alumnae of Meredith College. These are the 1964 members.

Mothers and daughters photographed on the Jones Hall steps ion 1964.

Meredith College students and alumnae shared a meal, probably on the day of the annual alumnae meeting in 1966.

Meredith College mothers and daughters pose on Class Day (1967)

Meredith Colllege mothers and daughters pose on Class Day in 967)

The Granddaughters' Club (1972)

Granddaughter's Club (1994)

In 2004, the Granddaughters' Club was a much smaller organization from its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s when the first generations of "daughters" attended Meredith.