Helping Women in Need
Women’s Club president Carol Brashears sitting in front of a portrait of club founder Mrs. Emmett Gans.
For more than a century, the Women’s Club in Hagerstown has been helping women from all types of backgrounds
By Crystal Schelle
It is fitting that a woman purchased the land at 31 South Potomac Street back in 1837. Susan Hughes paid $288 for the land on the hill overlooking the streets below and built the majestic house a year later. In 1931, the Women’s Club purchased the buildings and, after a restoration, moved into them.
Today, the building still stands on the same land Hughes purchased and for almost 100 years the club has been helping women from all types of backgrounds in Hagerstown. But even a Grand Dame needs a little facelift every century or so.
This year, the building has undergone a few nips and tucks to ensure that the organization can continue offering a haven for women who are in need of a safe space. And the Women’s Club marches on, toward its second century, with its mission to help women.
The Beginning
Women’s Club board president Carol Brashears said during World War I, a group of prominent Hagerstown women formed the Forward Club, which helped with relief projects.
“We actually have a little evidence that they were also suffragists,” she said. “We have a couple of tidbits that really suggested they were part of the movement.”
Those forward-thinking women supported the Women’s Suffrage. The early members even made sure there was language to say they were independent.
“Basically, it says we have been emancipated, and we do not want to be domesticated again,” Brashears said. “Those women were so clever in their wording.”
Formal Club members emphasized that they wanted to help the war efforts and their “Boys in France.”
Following the end of World War I in 1919, a group of women wanted to continue helping others. In 1921, Mrs. Emmett Gans founded what is now known as the Women’s Club and served as its first president.
To become an organization, Brashears said, the women had to go before the all-male chamber of commerce, which told them they had “to acquire the services of a woman who would help them organize, so they got in contact with this lady, Mrs. Marion B. Wilson.”
The club still has the flurry of telegrams asking for her help. “Women’s clubs were a very popular trend at that time throughout the country, so they acquired her services,” Brashears said.
Wilson did assist the women in setting up their organization over a luncheon, which cost $1 each. “I’m tickled to death that we still have all the telegrams,” Brashears said.
The first rosters of the Women’s Club included some of Hagerstown’s most influential women, one of whom was Daisy Derby Whipple, who founded the Humane Society of Washington County in 1921.
Those accepted into the Women’s Club were any woman over 18 years of age “who is in sympathy with the purpose of this organization is eligible for membership,” Brashears quoted from the early charter.
The house on South Potomac Street was originally purchased by Susan Hughes and is now the home of the Women’s Club.
Restoring a Beauty
Significant renovations had to be made to the building before the club officially moved in. Brashears said the women took out a $40,000 loan, which today equals nearly $700,000.
The renovations took between six and eight months. Brashears said that the original home was an L-shaped house, but construction of the area where the stage and dining room are now was added. A commercial kitchen was added and bedrooms were added to the second floor.
The bedrooms were a practical means to an end. “They wanted to rent rooms to women, to have a steady stream of income for the upkeep of the house,” Brashears said.
The Women’s Club was rented to single, childless professional women who often worked in one of the businesses in Hagerstown. Some of the women would catch the trolley to get to and from work. And, Brashears said, they would take their meals at the club. The club even boasted on-site laundry where women could “press their blouses” read one advertisement.
When the Depression hit, the Women’s Club started the Ways and Means Committee. Brashears said the women were divided into 18 groups whose job was to come up with $100 a month to help keep the club going.
“We continued ever since with activities, events, renting rooms to women,” she said. “And that’s never changed.”
The Future
As Brashears said, the Women’s Club has continued to help women. Today, the house has 14 bedrooms. Twelve are upstairs, and two are efficiency apartments with shared bathrooms. There are also three shared baths and a communal kitchen.
Four years ago, the Women’s Club entered into what Brashears calls “a relationship” with Brooke’s House, a residential addiction treatment center for women near Downsville Pike. Now, she said, four of the rooms are reserved for those who graduate from Brooke’s House as they transition to sober living.
“We’ve found, as many of the other rooms have opened up, many of the Brooke’s House women have asked to stay here,” Brashears said.
Joyce Siwarski, a board member, said many of the women who rent from them have jobs and have the means to support themselves. The rent is set not on a sliding scale but on what is in the room.
The rent, which is an average of $260 a month, includes utilities, Wi-Fi, kitchen privileges, laundry facilities, and trash removal. And Siwarski said the club also cleans the common areas.
The idea is to make the areas feel comfortable for their renters.
“We want to make them feel welcome,” Brashears said. “We want to make them feel safe and secure.”
The Building
The Women’s Club building has faithfully served its women, but the group has had to reinvest money to keep it here for another century. Like many older homes, members of the club realized that the building needed work.
Brashears said two years ago they received a grant to replace a handicap-accessible door off the back of the large room with the stage. Then, she said, they noticed that the walls were bowed requiring a structural engineer.
“They found that the beams supporting the building were compromised and cracked so that we could no longer have a function in here,” she said while sitting in the large room.
The whole area of the building had to be rebuilt, she said, in order for it to be safe and functional. They were in the middle of a big gala, to celebrate the Women’s Club’s 100th anniversary and found themselves without the use of the section of the building.
Brashears said they started renovation in September 2022 and opened again in May 2023. The cost was $515,000.
“We had a number of very generous local businesses who helped us complete this; we would not have been able to complete this restoration and renovation without the help of our business community,” Siwarski said.
It is the women members—around 250 today—whose dedication to the community and their women has kept the Women’s Club relevant today.
“We have an incredible membership,” Siwarski said. “When we ask our membership for anything, people step up.”
Women’s Club Advisors
Wells Fargo Advisors
Douglas A. Fiery Funeral Home
Younger Toyota
Smith Elliot Kearns and Company (SEK)
The Holzapfel Group at Stanley Morgan
Augustoberfest Charitable Foundation
John M. Waltersdorf Family Foundation
Fletcher Foundation, Inc.
CNB Bank
Fridinger and Ritchie Plumbing and Heating
The John R. Hershey Jr. and Anna L. Hershey Family Foundation, Inc
Fulton Family
Blue Ridge Risk Partners
God’s Grace Fund
Gaye McGovern Insurance Agency
Hamilton Family Foundation
R. Bruce Carson Jewelers
Middletown Valley Bank
Ewing Oil, Blackie and Ginny Bowen
Sheehy Hagerstown
Callas Charitable Ttust
Mary K. Bowman Foundation
Alexander Charities
Washington County Gaming Commission