In 1948, Lorna Kemper invited Betty Braun and a number of young women to the home of Mrs. Irving Bush. Mrs. Bush’s home was an impressive structure on the corner of 3rd and Grandriver streets. The purpose: to see if there was enough interest to form another General Federated Women’s Club, although there were already three in town.
“There was the Clinton Study Club, and one named the Marevare Club — I’m not sure of the spelling,” Betty said. “I can’t remember the name of the third one.”
Lorna’s motivation may have been to form a junior club, Betty said.
“A lot of the women went just to see the inside of the Bush home,” she said. “There was a big group of girls.”
There proved to be enough interest for a fourth GFW club, and the Junior Literary Club of Clinton was born. Betty, who was 21 years old at the time, is the only one of the charter members left of the club, whose number of members has declined to the point where the club has decided to disband.
“They are all gone, been gone, passed away,” she said of the young women who originally formed the club.
The women met twice a month at 8 o’clock at night in member’s homes for a program and social hour. The hostess of the first meeting was Doris Simmons Scroggs, who was also the first president. Jackie Sue Rose, her vice-president, succeeded Doris as president.
“People did get married and move away, but we didn’t used to have any trouble getting members,” Betty said, “but after COVID, we couldn’t get it started again.”
For the first couple of years, the rule was that all programs had to be presented by club members — no outside speakers. Every member was responsible for a program, which could be on any subject, Betty said — food, famous persons, travel destinations, historic events.
Several decades later, the club received a letter that they could no longer be called a junior club, Betty said, as most members were reaching their 40s. So they changed the name to the Lorna Kemper Club of Clinton, Mo., to honor their founder.
Born in 1895, Lorna Owen Kemper wrote obituaries for the Clinton Eye, and is also remembered for her collection of flamboyant hats.
Lorna was very active at the state and national level of General Federated Women’s Clubs, Betty said, which at the time was one of the biggest volunteer organizations in the country. Lorna was especially interested in supporting Missouri Girls’ Town in Kingdom City, a residential facility that provides care for abused and neglected girls. Betty remembers driving Lorna, who didn’t drive, to dedication ceremonies at Girls’ Town, which for many years was dependent on financial support from GFW club members and other private sources.
Members of the Lorna Kemper Club, whose motto is “Service, Study and Sociability,” also participated in local service projects.
“We visited nursing homes, took small bags of candy to residents and did volunteer work at the hospital,”Betty said. “We also filled shoe boxes with dolls and doll clothes to distribute at Christmas.”
The Lorna Kemper Club started the tradition of having a Christmas tree on the courthouse square, she said.
“We sold ornaments for $5, with the proceeds going to Girls’ Town,” she said.
The club also held social events and picnics, and printed out a small yearbook with a list of members, programs and rules. Membership was kept under 25, Betty said, as the group met in members’ homes before Covid. One rule: “You can only smoke during the social hour,” and as a courtesy, “you didn’t sit next to someone at the meeting who didn’t smoke,” Betty said.
After COVID, the club started meeting at the Methodist Church, but membership dropped. The other surviving charter member, Betty Brecht, moved to Springfield, but remained active in the club, hosting a meeting. Brecht passed away in 2017.
Now, the Lorna Kemper Club’s yearbooks and scrapbooks have been donated to the Henry County Museum, which archives local club records as a source of information for residents researching family history.
Betty, whose maiden name was Batschelett, has been a part of Henry County history for almost a century. Born in 1927 and raised on a farm in La Due, Mo., west of Clinton, when La Due had a stockyard, a hotel and a grain elevator, she attended Central Missouri State Teachers College in Warrensburg in 1944-1945. She recalled coming home every weekend on a bus that was so crowded, she had to stand up for the whole trip.
All the men had gone off to fight the war, she said, so there were none on campus, except for officers in the Navy V-12 College Training Program, who lived in Yeater Hall. In 1946, Betty married Walter Eugene Braun, who grew up on a farm in south Henry County. Known as Buddy, he had returned to Henry County after serving in the Army and seeing action in Europe. The couple were united in matrimony by the elder Rev. Ross Fulton in her parent’s farmhouse in La Due.
In 1965, when she was 38 years old, Betty was widowed, leaving her with two daughters and a 600-acre farm, which she still owns. Her sister, Darlene Woods, moved back to Clinton and joined the Lorna Kemper Club, but the younger generation of daughters had other interests, Betty said.
The Clinton Study Club may still be meeting, Betty said, but is no longer affiliated with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. The GFWC is an international women’s organization founded in 1890, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. The GFWC united and magnified the efforts of women’s service and study clubs in towns throughout the country. It is dedicated to community improvement and enriching the lives of others through volunteer service.
The Lorna Kemper Club was part of the Missouri GFWC’s 5th district, which includes clubs in Appleton City and Lake Ozark.
The Missouri GFWC has more than a 1,000 members, with club sizes varying from half a dozen to 62 in Ste. Genevieve.
Lorna Kemper, writer, community leader, wife, mother and hat lover, died in 1988 and is buried at Englewood Cemetery in Clinton. Her collection of hats now reside at the Henry County Museum. The Irving Bush House no longer stands at 3rd and Grandriver, having burned down after the family moved back to Texas.
