The Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
June 8, 2023
By Pat Edwards

Much of the Lorane news centers around the activities and events sponsored by and/or held at the Lorane Grange, but there is another organization that has remained active and constant for well over 100 years. The Lorane Rebekah Lodge is a beautiful, old, white 2-story building which stands sentinel on the hill next to the Lorane Church. The building was first erected in 1898, and used mainly by the Lorane International Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) #122, and later, by its associated lodge for women, the Rebekah Lodge #219. Both organizations were joined by many of the original families who settled in Lorane… the Crow(e)s, Wingards, Mitchells, Fosters, Hawleys, Foleys, Zumwalts, Farmans, McCullochs, Lees, Colemans, Addisons, Russells, Doaks, Inmans, and so many more.

When the new hall was built, a barn was also added to stable the members’ horses while they attended the meetings. They also built a house adjacent to the hall which was used as a rental in later years. The upper part of the hall was used for meetings and the lower section was rented to various businesses and organizations. The Lorane Social Club occupied the building in approximately 1900, and in 1910, George Ozment used the ground floor as a grocery store. Other owners continued in the grocery business at that site along with a barber shop and the post office. At one time the members discussed renting the space for a roller skating rink, but apparently the idea never reached reality.

According to the I.O.O.F. minutes, in 1900, the Lodge purchased 83½ yards of carpeting for the meeting hall for the price of $66.80.

On April 28, 1906, the Lodge members approved a motion to send a relief fund in the amount of $15.10 to the brother Odd Fellows in San Francisco, California, following the devastating earthquake in that area.

In 1910, rent from the store on the lower level of the Lodge was $60 per year.

The Pride of Lorane Rebekah Lodge #129 was established in the community of Lorane on February 20, 1903. It began with a membership of 17 ladies. There is no official record for membership between the years of 1907 and 1917, when the first charter was surrendered, but on January 9, 1918, Mrs. Oral (Verona) Crowe wrote to her sister-in-law Della—Mrs. Elmer Crowe—telling about the Rebekah organization in Lorane.

The charter was again established on January 28, 1942, as Lorane Rebekah Lodge #252.

During the beginning of the new charter, Rebekah Lodge #252 had difficulty in meeting regularly due to the problems associated with World War II. Gasoline and tires were scarce, and so were members. Some meetings were held in private homes with only five members as a quorum present to hold the charter.

The post war years were prosperous and the membership grew to a high of 91 in the late 1940s. As the timber supply decreased and the mills shut down, however, the population of Lorane also decreased and the membership declined. In 1986, the Lorane Rebekah membership stood at 47 and is much smaller today.

The Lorane I.O.O.F. Lodge for many years sponsored an annual community Smelt Feed. The high school gymnasium was usually the site of the feed, and the “domestic science room”—or home economics room—in the nearby school was used to prepare the feast. In the early 1930s, Wayne and Maybell Robinson remember these smelt feeds with somewhat mixed feelings. They were a popular event for the community, but because the school’s home economics room had no ventilating fan, the grease from the deep fat frying process coated everything in the room—stove, tables, walls, ceiling, curtains, etc. Because the Robinsons were not only the principal and teachers at the school but also the custodians, it was their job to clean the school after the feed in preparation for the next day’s classes. The job took a good share of the night to complete. The smelt feed was later held in the lower level of the I.O.O.F. Hall after the post office was moved to the Foster Store at the bottom of the hill.

The Lorane Odd Fellows charter was dropped in March 15, 1986. Since then, the Rebekahs have remained active and have taken over the use of the hall for their meetings and activities, sharing it with their youth counterparts, Theta Rho and Boy Scouts, in recent years.

In addition, the hall was used to host weekly Senior lunches and the Meals on Wheels program for several years, and in the 1980s, on Halloween nights, it was transformed into a popular haunted house.

The groups who meet at the lodge sponsor community roadside clean-up projects around Lorane and free childcare for parents who want a night out to Christmas shop, but their biggest  project that has continued through the years is the care and maintenance of the Lorane I.O.O.F. and Rebekah Cemetery located on south Territorial Road.

~~~~~~~~

On June 16, 2023, at 6:00 p.m., the Lorane Rebekahs are revisiting the past. They have opted not to resurrect the old smelt feeds, but instead are sponsoring today’s equivalent of the popular “Dime-a-Dip” dinners that were so well-attended in earlier years… only, now, in 2023, this event has become a “Quarter-a-Dip” Dinner. The lodge members will provide a delicious dinner for 25 cents a dip/scoop and during the meal, a truck box is to be raffled off.

The Lorane Grange will also be holding their Bingo and Dessert Night for the last time until next fall on June 24, at 7:00 p.m.

How wonderful it is that these and other organizations in Lorane continue to provide our community with the ability to bond as neighbors and friends. We are a diverse group of individuals, but we also take pride in the fact that we can put our individual differences aside and celebrate and appreciate the things that are important to all of us.

Thank you to each of you who work so hard to keep that tradition going in our community!