History of Community Services League Part 1

Originally written by Dorace Wilson, with updates by Caitlin Eckard. 

It all started in 1916, when twenty young women living in Independence formed a Bible class, at the urging of Miss Helen Sea. At about the same time they were inspired by the enthusiastic evangelist, William Ashton "Billy" Sunday who was holding a series of meetings in Kansas City, but "after a few weeks study," the record states "these girls awoke to the fact that they were not profiting by what they learned and 'faith without works' was vain, so they decided to go out and seek those who were sick and in need, and do what they could to give them relief." 

Billy Sunday Tabernacle postcard

In order to do this work, they raised funds by holding "silver teas", inviting friends to attend afternoon or evening functions where they were asked to make financial donations in return for cookies and tea. They carried on by themselves until January 1917, when they faced the reality that the work of relieving the ill and needy was increasing beyond their ability to handle it alone. 

A meeting sponsored by the original group of young women was held at Independence City Hall and from a book containing minutes of this first meeting, it is noted that the name "Junior League" was chosen. Later, as this name conflicted with a national organization, the name was changed to Junior Service League. At this same time, the sponsors recognized both the need for an actual study of community needs and the need to have some trained leadership. They themselves put together the funds to hire an executive secretary, Mrs. J. H. "May" Bryan. 

A trained group organizer, Mrs. Bryan made a survey of community needs and found there were no organized charities, no public health service and no recreational facilities in the entire community. No material is available to show exactly how this survey was made; however, there must have been some branch of associated charities as the record states that this Junior Service League, being without funds, referred all cases of need to the associated charities for their relief. The Junior Service League itself determined on a program of welfare, relief and community service which, according to an early undated report to the Independence Council stated "we requested that the Associated Charities use us in their work, so they turned over their entire list of dependent families .... These we attempted to visit and discover the causes and cure for the conditions we found. We sent a committee to the Girl's Home and offered our services to the management in teaching the girls wholesome recreation and vocational training. We have investigated the working conditions in some of our factories and places of employment and found many helpful things could be done by intelligent, concentrated welfare work." 

In July 1917, a community meeting was called to discuss merging the Associated Charities (an untraceable reference) with the Junior Service League. A committee was appointed to draw up a constitution and by-laws, and outline a plan of procedure. At another meeting at City Hall on October 19, 1917, this merger was effected and the name Community Welfare League, as well as the constitution and by-laws were adopted. Five officers--President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Financial Secretary and Recording Secretary--were elected. One old record states that the merger was of the old Junior Service League, the Associated Charities Association and the City Welfare Society. According to notes by Sue Gentry written August 3, 1972, Mrs. Fred T. Haddock, then Miss Helen Sea was elected president. Miss Bess Wallace, who was to become Mrs. Harry S Truman and the nation's First Lady was the second vice president. The first monthly report of activities for August 1918 made by Mrs. Bryan, shows 126 visits, 123 phone calls, relief furnished for nine and employment found for nine. The Independence City Council took first official note of the organization in November 19, 1918, by creating a city welfare board and complying with the recommendations of the League by appointing on the first board Mrs. Robert L. Yeager, Dr. Frederick M. Smith and Mize Peters. 

The roster of active members at the beginning  and for the first year listed the following: Mrs. Fred Haddock, Mrs. George Wallace, Elizabeth Woodson, Georgia Browning, Mrs. Whitten Hudnall, Virginia Clements, Mrs. Manley Houchens, Lucile Hatten, Mary Temple Shaw, Virginia Wilkinson, Mrs. Edgar Hinde, Mrs. Lewis Winkler, Mrs. Frank Wallace, Bess Wallace, Mrs. John Hutchinson, Mrs. Melville Pallette, Mrs. Charles Ford, Allie Mae Robinson, Marguerite Echard, Adaline Bell, Mrs. Frank Gudgell, Mrs. Howard Hill, Mrs. Richard Hill, Mrs. Elmer Twyman, Mary Gentry, Mrs. Milton Stewart, Elizabeth Child and Mrs. John Sea. Associate members were listed as: Miss Matilda Brown, Mrs. Nathan Scarritt, Mrs. John Davis, Caroline Southern, Maude Compton, Mrs. Stanley Gregg, Allie Hardin, Mrs. John Hinde, Mrs. G. W. Wallace, Mrs. Samuel Woodson, Mrs. J. G. Paxton, Mrs. Settle, Mrs. Roland Procter, Mrs. Mercer and Mrs. Charles Brady. 

Formation of the Community Welfare League

Referring to records of the times, there seemed to be no opposition to the formation of Community Welfare League and its place within the city welfare structure. Perhaps this was due to the prominence of the sponsoring group and to the confidence of the community in the Executive Secretary Mrs. Bryan. She had been outstanding in local and state church organizations for twenty years prior to her appointment with CWL. Approval is also shown by the fact that the City invested $1,000 per year, the County Court put in $370 per month and the City Welfare Board sponsored financial drives for additional funds. Newspaper comment was favorable throughout the entire organizational period and, even though the community was and is considered very conservative, the effecting of this merger and establishment of this organization was largely influenced by the place the sponsors held in the community. 

Continuing to quote from an unsigned article published approximately thirty years after its formation describing the League, 

The twenty young ladies who composed the original group were referred to in a newspaper article as 'twenty Independence young college women who had made a year's study of conditions among indigent poor and unfortunate.’ They belonged for the most part to families of "old settlers," for whom the streets of Independence are named, and who are still prominent in civic affairs. Perhaps the best known of the original group is Bess Wallace Truman. Although the wife of the President of the United States, she is still a member of the Board of Directors of CWL.

Mrs. Bryan. who, after the first few months, was Director and to whom credit must go for the continuity of this organization, has had wide organizational experience. We also found a statement that she, after becoming Secretary, attended an eight-month school of Public Health and Social Service at Kansas City Junior College in 1918. 

Mrs. Bryan's report for 1918 not only shows the activity of a first year effort to get organized and inability to set systems for keeping records but shows her fluid style of writing and personal conviction in describing the conditions she found while surveying Independence neighborhoods: 

I am happy indeed to have the privilege of making the First Annual report of the Community Welfare League. The STATISTICAL report in your hand indicates in a poor way, a meager way, some items of our daily work: The report is also a very inaccurate summary of the calls upon our time and thought. The telephone calls 2000 plus recorded, everyone had something to do with the work, and the many that were not recorded also made their demand upon our time and resources. 

The records of visits need a word of explanation: 1325, and many more that were not noted, means that I went to see somebody or somebody came to see me about something in our line of business. 

Our Employment items should be considered. Here again figures are wholly inadequate, 170 people seeking workers is a matter of little consequence for folks usually manage to get their work done some way or other, but the other item involves much more. The 162 persons seeking some way to keep the GRIM WOLF from the door were in every instance persons out of the common walks of life, handicapped by one thing and another, age, youth, defects of one sort or another that rendered them unfit to fill the regular places in the work a day world and finding places where these will fit becomes one of the large duties of the welfare work. We must bear in mind, however, that we are not an employment agency and are not set for the purpose of supplying employers with good servants. 

In justice to ourselves and those interested it is only fair to state regarding the entire report before you, that our work was so unstable during the greater part of the year, that we had much difficulty in keeping records at all. We were too busy investigating conditions to enable us to make certain that the work we proposed to do was really needed and that we could not in justice be dubbed a fifth wheel and that our records suffered. 

So from our records we are not able to make a fair report of those things we really have done. 

WE expect to establish a system of records that will give us the ability to make a daily, weekly and monthly report without undue effort or loss of time from the more essential business of INVESTIGATION, RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION. 

Fine tools do not produce good workman, but a workman is known by his tools and his chips; OUR tools must be always spiritual and our chips that intangible thing Human progress that eye may not see nor hand touch. So however splendid our system of records may become, our reports will never become entirely satisfactory, to those of us who would like to tell of our accomplishments, and the really splendid things that we may do, we can never know in full or tell in facts and figures, this is as it was intended and as it should be. 

With these explanations out of the way I shall begin my first Annual report, 

First, there IS a Community Welfare League. It has a constitution and by laws, duly elected officers, committees appointed, working and otherwise, and a small group of really truly members, 

This and this alone constitutes a report of great magnitude and significance. 

One year ago the bravest man among us did not so much as Prophesy a COMMUNITY WELFARE LEAGUE. 

A year ago we were thinking SOCIAL SERVICE, in terms of FRIENDLY VISITING, and volunteering for any kind of work our community happened to be calling for and our name was The JUNIOR SERVICE LEAGUE. 

We feel that it is a matter for just pride that in these days and hours, when all the Earth was tom with strife, and striken with awful grief, and our own plans and ambitions were toppling in ruins about us; Our hearts should have desired and our minds conceived this beautiful thing COMMUNITY WELFARE. 

We rejoice, today, that it is an accomplished fact and take pride in the breadth of vision that laid such broad foundations for the Welfare work for Independence. We believe that God has blessed the work because of the splendid successes that have come to us. This has been the year of our beginning and now we must tum from our very interesting past to face the future. We are now on trial before our towns people, trial, as to our ability to do the things where unto we have set our hand and seal. 

We have said that poverty dire and hurtful is a curable disease. We have said there are imposters abroad in our midst, preying upon the kindness and credulity of our good people to the hurt of themselves and the undoing of our virtuous poor, and we have insisted that with adequate investigation this could be changed. We have charged that Independence is woefully negligent of the recreational needs of its people, that we need public parks, play grounds, swimming pools, public baths and community houses. That as the County seat of the greatest country in the grandest of all the Commonwealth it is a grave duty that we owe to our own self respect, to provide these things. Nothing but the best should be our slogan. 

NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

Report of Partial Survey 

Our facilities for sanitation are not at all adequate, no place in town to bathe a mangy child. 

No machinery to compel the adequate care of a child or house. 

We have people in Independence who have lived in houses without floors, and paid exorbitant rents; sick folks bedridden for two years in such a place. 

We have foul houses filled with disease year after year and we are unable to destroy the houses or prevent their use. But we stand before the people saying these things must be changed. We know now that a very urgent need for our people, the widows and deserted families, is a day home for the children so the mother, who must become a wage earner, can be assured of the care and training of her little children. 

The annual report for 1919 calls that year "a pioneer year" for the League since it was the first year that there were funds to be used and people came seeking aid instead of League representatives having to hunt them out. The report continues: 

It has been a year of steady growth and progress. We have grown in favor with the Community, which includes all the various agencies which have cooperated and contributed to our work. Our progress has been steadily upward and has been due to the consistent adherence to well-established fundamental principles of social welfare work, and to the faithful untiring work of its active membership, and interested friends. Prompt relief to immediate needs stood first among our principles, following the Scriptural injunction 'I was hungry and ye fed me, 1 was naked and ye clothed me, sick and in prison and ye visited me. ' One hundred sixty-five families embracing 530 individuals received our ministrations which included immediate relief in the way of clothing, fuel, food, friendly visitation, advice, medical care, hospital care, dental service, investigation and the enlistment of religious influences. 

The League's program has included the prevention of dependence. On this we have laid our largest stress .... We feel that the efficiency of our work is to be measured, not by the large amount of money distributed for necessities, but by service rendered to eliminate the necessity for material gifts. 

Two years ago the Junior Service League was composed of twenty young women, no more. The active membership of the Community Welfare League at present is 52 while the sustaining membership runs into hundreds. Our Rainbow membership is the backbone of our financial support. The cooperation of existing agencies is fully demonstrated in the organizational memberships that have come to us this year. The following is a partial list of our organizational membership: Christian Church, 201h Century S.S.Class, Pricilla S.S. Class, Good Samaritan S.S. Class, Noland Parent Teachers Assn., Benton Parent Teachers Ass., Columbia Parent Teachers Assn., Bryant Parent Teachers Assn., W.C.T.U., Masonic Lodge, U.D.C., and D.A.R. 

Our four District Committees, composed of a member from each church in each district, and the Mutual Aid Committee, which is composed of three members of each Parent Teachers Assn., made a Welfare Committee of 52 persons. 

Our Confidential Exchange has been established and installed in our office. This alone should be of sufficient interest to every individual and organization doing charity work to enlist their cooperation in working out the ideals of Community Welfare. 

The annual report continues.

All hospitals are open to patients referred by CWL at no expense to the League. The County court has given the relief recommended by the agency in every case plus setting up a special appropriation for a special fund to be placed at the disposal of the League. The City Council has been gracious and generous and the Police Department stands ready with men and/or ambulance as required. The County Home, or "Poor Farm" and the Girls Home have open doors for all referrals and the McCune Home for boys has given assurance of cooperation. 

In addition the Moose Lodge has declared its intention to work with CWL and the Masonic Lodge continues to provide free office space in the building at Main and Kansas Streets where the League first opened its offices. Phone service is furnished free by the telephone company. 

Jackson County Poor Farm

According to the report, the latest mark of confidence shown was the offer to Community Welfare League from the Old Court House Association which held title to the Old Court House for the League to use the historic building across the street from the Masonic Building on Kansas Street as its headquarters. 

Several hundred people in the community were behind the restoration plan, but it soon became apparent that several thousand dollars in cash and organized leadership would be needed. 

According to an article by Sue Gentry in the Independence Examiner, September 26, 1952, a citizens' gratitude fund had been raised for the boys during World War I, and a sum of $300 remained after the war. All persons who had contributed were contacted by the League directors and asked if the money might be transferred to the restoration project. This was granted and the restoration fund was started.

New HQ and Restoring the 1827 Log Cabin Courthouse

Minutes of the meeting of District Committees of CWL, dated April 26, 1920, contained notes concerning a fund drive, headed by Logan Jones, Finance Chairman of the Cosmopolitan Club. As organized, the drive to refurbish the Old Court House would cover "outside towns" as well as the Independence area. Standard Oil in Sugar Creek would provide the band for Saturday, and the Cosmopolitan Club would again bring up the proposition of making financial contributions at their upcoming banquet.

It is obvious that the restoration project became a community project, Sue Gentry reports in her article. An auction sale, supported by merchants and manufacturers who donated articles, netted $600, and an automobile raffle in 1920 added another substantial sum to the project fund. 

1827 Log Cabin Courthouse before restoration.

A copy of the letter, dated May 27, 1920, from Miss Margaret Woodson, written on Community Welfare League stationery but signed by her as Old Court House Association secretary to the Missouri Valley Historical Society in Kansas City, asking for their assistance in the project, gives a description of the condition of the Court House building and spells out the plans of the League to make it suitable for its use. 

The building is the oldest county courthouse west of the Mississippi River and has been neglected, even forgotten for many years. Four years ago the County Court gave this building to a group of Independence citizens known as the Old Court House Committee. This group of people took action to secure the permanent location in Independence for the old house. The coming of the War interfered with the reconstruction of the building, and it stood neglected until the Community Welfare League undertook to furnish a greatly needed home for their organization and at the same time preserve a relic of great historical value. Through the cooperation of the Cosmopolitan Club of Independence we have collected about $1,000, $500 of which was obtained in a May Day Drive, the rest being the gift of the County Court. This has been used for the excavation of the basement and the laying of a good rock foundation. It is estimated that we will require $2,500 more if we are to be able to complete the building in accordance with the architect's plans. He proposes to leave the walls of hewn oak logs intact, the cracks being chinked with white cement and the logs themselves being painted white. The roof of which only a portion of it remains is to be restored as nearly as possible and every effort is being put forth to secure hand hewn clapboards which are included in the specifications of the court house as it was constructed in 1827. (The complete specifications of the building may be found in Vol. I, County Court Records, of Sept .23, 1827.) The roof clapboards together with the shutters at the windows will be painted green which upon the white background will produce a very pleasing effect. At both ends of the house are to be built stone chimneys following the exact shape and size of the original ones. To beautify the structure which has for so long been an eye sore, there is to be added a colonial porch across the front and a cupola on the roof of similar architecture in which is to be hung the old bell which played a part in the early history of our county. These two additions to the house have been very carefully worked out so as to harmonize with the rest of the structure and to retain the original building in its entirety. 

The interior is to be worked out in the same period of architecture having two large rooms with large colonial fireplaces, and a small central room for the private office of the Community Welfare League, which is in direct charge of the restoration. We are desirous of securing a committee from some group of people in Kansas City who are interested in interior decorating to help us plan and procure furnishings that will be in keeping with the rest of the building. One of the rooms will be used as a repository for historical documents and articles of historic and educational value, and the building as a whole will be considered a County Community House. 

We are asking your help in securing the remainder of the funds necessary for the carrying out of the plans as above outlined, because we know that such an organization as yours is vitally interested in the preservation of the fast vanishing landmarks of the past. We should be delighted to have the opportunity of showing to any of your representatives the building itself and our plans for its restoration. A perspective of the finished building appeared in the Kansas City Star on May 9 but we are unable to enclose a picture of it as we have not yet secured the cut. 

Any assistance which you can give us will be greatly appreciated. 

Sincerely yours, 

(Miss) Margaret Woodson 

Sec. Old Court House Assn. 

In reply correspondence was sent to Miss Woodson from Nettie Thompson Grove, Secretary of the Missouri Valley Historical Society, to inform her that a larger committee had been formed from the Missouri Valley Historical Society to "take this matter (restoring the County Courthouse) with the Bar Association and the Court." The letter also included an invitation for Miss Woodson, Mrs. Bryan and Mr. Hickman to come to the Historical Society meeting on the following Saturday. 

As future correspondence indicated, the meeting(s) took place and the Missouri Valley Historical Society took an active part in helping the Community Welfare League work on financing and furnishing the 1827 Court House. 

Correspondence dated November 5, 1920, from Miss Woodson to Mrs. Nettie Grove states: 

We are sending you the financial statement of the receipts and the expenses incurred in the restoration of the Old Court House up to date. We are keeping the detailed accounts here but they are, of course, open in inspection at any time. 

The committee wishes to state that we have gone as far as we can with the work. We are today completing the chinking and cementing of the interior and will put in the windows and doors in order to comply with the terms of the insurance policies we are carrying on the building, then we will close up the house until your committee has consummated its plan. 

I have made a report to the effect that you are waiting for the return of Mrs. White, whom you believed would handle the financial side of the matter with great ease and that you feel great confidence on the outcome. We are very relieved, for we have reached our limit. 

There is also information in Sue Gentry's article stating that the Independence Pioneers Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution agreed to raise the balance of the fund to finish the building. Perhaps it was a combination of both groups giving funds that accomplished the final restoration, but in any event the Gentry report says the cost was $4,800 to make the Old Court House suitable for Community Welfare League occupancy. 

On December 5, 1921, the following resolution was entered in the record: 

Resolved that Samuel H. Woodson, C. I. Allis and John A Sea be and they are hereby appointed as trustees for and in behalf of the Community Welfare League for and in its name to take and hold the rights, titles and interest of the said Welfare League of in and to Old Court House building and its appurtenances in trust for said league with full power to receive and accept any lease, deed conveyance or any transfer whatever for use of said league to successors and assignment and with full power in said trustees to transfer and assign any right title interest or claim of league of in or to said Old Court House Building or any lease there of to any trustee or trustees that may be appointed by the Daughters of the Revolution with such reservations and conditions there in as will fully protect said Community Welfare League in its use and occupation of said building and appurtenances so as said league may desire to use the same for community work; with a further reservation that said building and appurtenances shall never be transferred to or passed to any secret society, religious body, sect or organization whatsoever. 

According to Sue Gentry's previously quoted article in The Examiner, Community Welfare League moved into the reconstructed quarters during Christmas week 1920. There was no furnace in the building, although the basement had been excavated, making the first days in the quarters very trying, Mrs. Bryan recalled. The furnace was later added and, with the help of other organizations and individuals, improvements and authentic furnishings were made through the years. 

It was not until 1932 that the room on the south, used as office for the executive secretary, was added to the Courthouse structure. The addition, of the same log construction, was historically important because it once served children of the Rock Creek School District as their schoolhouse. Before the attachment to the Courthouse it had been used as the kitchen part of a home which stood at 400 W. Lexington. Realizing its importance as an early day Jackson County school, the owner offered it to the Welfare League officials who secured Mayor Roger Sermon's permission to move it to the Courthouse site. 

Community Need Increases

The work of the League, helping those in need from the community, was increasing. The 1921 Fifth Annual Statistical Report stated 2,518 calls were made to the office with requests for information and help. Actual visits numbered 2,058 for "the purpose of confidentiality discussing the ways and means of help given and to be given, about 2862 telephone calls were recorded and 823 visits were made by Mrs. Bryan and others." 

The basic philosophy of Community Welfare League help was shown in the statement "213 families representing 708 individuals have applied to us for aid which we endeavored to give each in the way best fitted to the needs of their cases. Our investigation has never stood in the way of immediate relief. If food, fuel or medical attention was required we supplied it and then endeavored to correct the necessity of such aid. " 

Work was found for 187 unemployed persons and in this way helped a number of families help themselves. Thirty-two we placed permanently. We have had 256 conferences with individuals and 52 conferences with organizations to thrash out certain points regarding cases and individuals which need to be handled skillfully.

Through medical service to get people in a working condition we had 2 dental cases which we sent to the Kansas City western Dental college. 56 cases were reported to the Doctor for examination and treatment, 13 were referred to the nurse for treatment and care. Our hospital care has been without expense to the League, it was obtained through the generosity of the hospital boards or through the services of the Red Cross.

Unlimited service was given to 71 families which comprised from two to eight or ten people, where investigation, interest and advice have been of inestimable value. In these cases the material relief would not have helped. 

We have placed 13 children, deserted by their parents or where the parents were separated and the homes broken up. They were placed in good reliable homes or institutions where they will be given the advantage of a good education and the necessary training. A little seven year old girl, one of three children deserted by the father and the mother dead, was left on our hands for a home. A short notice was put in the Independence Examiner and a notice in the Kansas City Times. We had not less than thirty telephone calls were received for her, a number of letters and six people in the office at the same time, each ready to take her home with them at once. 

By soliciting legal aid, we have taken two cases of non supporting husbands to court, prevented unjust divorce cases, and in one case succeeded in getting evidence which led to getting two thirds of the man salary to be given to the wife and children for support. This was done under the direction of the Welfare Board, which commissioned us as their agent December 12, 1921. 

We feel that Organized Welfare work is doing much to lessen the number of 'floaters'; careful investigation is made in every case of begging that is brought to our notice, "and we always try to supply real needs. 

We desire this year to organize the county either by townships or school districts in such a manner each unit will be able to care for its own relief work and give some support to the office in Independence in the matter of investigation and records. We would ask that a committee to formulate a plan where by this may be accomplished may be appointed very soon. We would recommend that the League hold monthly meetings during the coming year for the definite purpose of keeping informed of the work in general and hearing speakers from other organizations to secure information along Welfare lines in general. 

We need a day nursery in Independence for the care of children in homes where mothers must go out to earn and we would recommend that an effort be made this year to supply this need. 

Community Welfare League Nursery

As early ledger books show, the Welfare League served as a clearing house for placement of children in foster homes for care and possible adoption and even took a statement from an Independence woman, helping her to file her will. CWL Board members still in attendance at the office following a meeting served as witnesses to insure the legality of the document. 

In another matter, correspondence shows a report to the manager of Standard Oil Company, Sugar Creek, of the heavy gambling that was taking place at that facility with men losing their entire wages "shooting craps", leaving their families "in terrible straits." 

The Manager of Standard Oil returned a letter to Mrs. Bryan, dated February 25, 1920, thanking her for sending the information and promising to look into the matter and "do what we can to create a better condition." He closes with the statement, 

We shall be glad to cooperate with your League at any time in correcting specific cases of this kind whenever they are called to our attention. We have frequently found that a friendly warning on our part to an employee is productive of good results. 

Another contact with Standard Oil was not so successful. In 1920, a contact was made by Mrs. Bryan, asking G. H. Moffett, manager of the plant, to sell soda to Community Welfare League at the same price that it was offered to employees for their home use. On November 8, Mr. Moffett, replied that the Chicago office had ruled it would be impossible to sell this product as requested to anyone outside refinery employees even though he personally realized the League "is a worthy charitable institution."