DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Lubbock Women's Club. Now, some stories start with a single spark. This one starts with several — several women's organizations, each doing their own good work around Lubbock, until sometime in 1944 they looked around and said, more or less, why are we all pulling in different directions when we could be pulling together?
So they started meeting. Coordinating. Comparing notes on how to make their community better.
And then, in February of 1945, it got official. Twenty-two groups signed on as charter members of the Lubbock Women's Club. Twenty-two.
That's not a club, that's a coalition. Now, in those early days they made do — meeting in members' homes, over at Texas Technological College, wherever they could find a room big enough to hold their ambitions. But a growing organization has a way of outgrowing borrowed space.
So in 1949, the club did something that tends to signal you mean business: they bought a building. The building they chose had a little history of its own. It had been built back in 1941 by a contractor named J.J.
McLoen — a two-story, brick veneer structure with a full-façade porch and Doric columns. The kind of building that carries itself with some dignity. It had served as the Plains Funeral Home before the club acquired it, which means this place had seen Lubbock through some of its most solemn moments before it was handed over to something altogether more forward-looking.
The club made it their own, added on as they grew, held their own functions inside those walls, opened the doors for other events, and kept right on serving their neighbors and their community — which was the whole point from the very beginning, back in 1944 when those women first decided to sit down together. Twenty-two groups. One building with Doric columns.
Decades of showing up for Lubbock. That's not a tall tale — that's just what organized women with a shared purpose tend to do.
What the marker says
Starting in 1944, several women’s organizations met to coordinate their community improvement efforts. In February 1945, 22 groups became charter members of the Lubbock Women’s Club. After meeting at members’ homes, Texas Technological College and other sites, the club bought the former Plains Funeral Home building as their headquarters in 1949. Built in 1941 by contractor J.J. McLoen, the two-story, brick veneer building has a full-façade porch and Doric columns. The club has made additions as it has grown, holding its own functions, hosting other events and serving its neighbors and community. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2013