Fonds 0523 - Busy Bee Lodge # 79 Rebekah Assembly of Alberta

The Busy Bee Lodge #79 Rebekah Assembly was chartered in Spirit River June 14, 1921, with 18 members including Sisters Alta Thompson, Alama Gallagher, Goldie Oke, Irena Rappel, Elsie Moravec, Dorothy Moravec, G.B. Mathews, Maude Oke, and Brothers J.F. Rappel, Agre Shaw, Mike Maloney, and Alex Innes. Later members included Helen Stoner, Erma Grimm, Gladys Moravec, Edyth Lowes, Hattie Rappel, and still later Gertrude Durkin, Bertha Stoner, Gladys Durkin, Frances Levins, Claribel Levins, Frances Moravec, Elsie Porterfield, Rosina Giles, Dalphine Debolt, Helen Pickering, Olga Eide, Florence Kosowan, Olga Batke, Ruth Kosabeck, Darlene Walsh, Nancy Skaley, Pearl Jarvis, Mary Hoover, Helen Lindsay, Edith Jarvis, and Leona Levins. In the 1960s the lodge kept growing in memberships. The group worked in support of student bursaries, eye screening for amblyopia, and United Nations Pilgrimage for Youth which was a speaking contest for students 16-18 which allowed the winners to go see the United Nations in action. For over fifty years there was a Rebekah Lodge active in Spirit River. Their activites included sending gifts and visiting members in hospital, raising money through raffles, bake sales, baby shows and catering to banquets and lunches. Through these efforts they established student bursaries, supported families in need, supported the Cancer Society, Salvation Army, Muscular Dystrophy, the Community Hall Kitchen fund, and canvassed forthe CNIB and the Arthritis Society. For entertainment, the group held card parties, and curling games. By the 1970s, the lodge was having difficulty recruiting new members. In the minutes of April 3, 1974, the group made motions to dispense with their assets including dishes and silverware, card tables, chairs and the piano. A disbursement of funds went as follows: $225 to Central Peace Hospital, $200 to Spiriti River Arena, a $50 plaque to the Spirit River High School, $100 to the Peace School of Hope, and $50 to the W.W. Cross Cancer Institute. A supper meeting was held June 1, 1974 and in November of the same year, their charter was lifted.