by Karalee German
The year 2022 is bringing many things – a fresh start, hope for better times – but in Pass-A-Grille, it is also bringing a celebration and commemoration that the Pass-a-Grille Woman’s Club has been around for 100 years.
In October of 1922 a few women gathered for a “Pound Party,” bringing gifts of necessity for a neighbor who had lost everything in a fire. The good time that day transformed into a club of 20 or so charter members who took as their object “to provide social and cultural interest for members, to promote civic betterment and to foster community welfare.” One hundred years later that is still the operational and inspirational goal of the PAGWC.
Over the decades the kinds of cultural events for members and the community groups that have received donations from the PAGWC have been as varied as the backgrounds and interests of the members who chaired the various projects.
Membership went from the initial 20 to as high as 303 at the club’s 35th anniversary. In the 1940s one member was PAG resident Elizabeth Watson, wife of Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant Thomas Watson. A current member, still attending events is the club’s second centenarian, classical pianist Lucile Ellins, who was 4 years old when the club began.
After 18 years of successful home tours, which had stopped during re-construction of Pass-A-Grille Way, the first centennial event open to the public is a cultural happening new to this club– “Gardens by the Sea” dock and garden tour on the island of Vina del Mar. Scheduled for Sunday, April 3, 1-5pm rain or shine, the tour will have on view 11 gardens graciously offered at the homes of Anita Adams and Greg Archambault, Stephen Best, Valerie and Vincent Catalano, Wayne Dewey, Eileen Edwards, Gregory Greene, Larry and Alieda Maron, Jim and Barbara Ottinger, Carmen Reller, Dan and Deb Rothenberger, and Chris Stewart.
During the garden tour, a party in Vina Del Mar Park will feature pork slider and salad plates for $10, and there will be presentations by the Pinellas Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, the Garden Club of St Petersburg, Inc., the Florida West Coast Orchid Society, the UofF Master Gardener Volunteer Program, and April Brader, Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Tickets for this event, $15 in advance, are available at www.eventbrite.com/e/269860308447 or at Patchington on the Bayway. Day of the event tickets may be purchased for $20 at the park on Vina Del Mar, across from 291 S Isle Dr., St. Pete Beach.
