42 – Friends

Note: Richard "Dick" Knaus was my mother's younger brother, and Gladys Loose shared a room with her in Denver; my mother introduced the two, but that's another story...

Gladys Loose was raised in a small Nebraska town, moved to Denver after high school, then married a farmer, Dick Knaus. Newlywed and living on their farm in Boulder County, Colorado, one day she accompanied Dick on a visit to a nearby farm:

We went out to [their farm], to look at a piece of farm machinery that they had, and Jane and Bob R., I met them the first time, Dick knew them from high school... they were farming, and Jane said "Come on in, I'll make a pot of coffee and we can sit down and visit." 

Jane was always pretty outgoing I think, with all of us and with me, and [me] being kind of new, and so we went in and sat down, and she popped popcorn and made a pot of coffee and we just sat around and visited. I think they were already thinking about getting a [card] group started and they needed another couple.

Dick and I were the 4th ones. There was Pat and Dale F., Bob and Jane R., Barbara and LeRoy T., and then Dick and I were the fourth couple. But the three couples had wanted to get something going. [And so we met] the third Saturday of every month...

They expanded to 6 couples, adding Dwight and Jean W., and Howard and Lucille N. It was just a private supper club; they weren't all friends when it started, although some had attended the same school in Longmont; friendship grew over time. 

The Supper Club, 1950s

They were mostly newlyweds. A few of the men had served in the Armed Forces at the end of WWII. Longmont High School was a common thread: Barbara T., Dale F., Dwight W., Bob and Jane R., and Dick K. were all graduates, between 1944 and 1947. A few farmed (Bob R., Dick K., Dwight W.), one owned a welding shop, one worked in a furniture shop, a couple worked at IBM, though careers changed over time: e.g., Dwight went into teaching, and became a school principal. The women were mostly homemakers, but one did transcriptions at a hospital and another ran a preschool. All were raising children. 

The club was held at the homes of alternating members, on the 3rd Saturday of each month, with a break in the summer for farming. The hosting members would provide a main course, and the others would bring sides or dessert:

[My typical dish was] probably a roast, and mashed potatoes and gravy, and sometimes chicken. Pat always made a good ham and scalloped potatoes at Easter time, and you know, we didn't just do casseroles, we mainly did main dish meals, steak or roast or meat loaf or something basic like that, kind of old-fashioned cooking.

We'd set the dining room table for 12, everybody was able to do that usually, made a big table, and we'd use our fine China and our silverware and our better dishes.

We'd always dress up, and we'd give prizes all the time; there were 3 tables, 4 at each table, we'd move from one table to the next. The high and the low would get prizes and when we got home the kids would go "Well did you win anything Mom? What did you get?"

That was such a simple life back then; none of us had a whole lot of money to spend on extra [things]. So that was our entertainment, we looked forward to going to supper club; we didn't go to movies much at all.

Over time one couple divorced and a new couple replaced them; at least one other couple would occasionally sit in when someone couldn't make it. The card game of choice was Pinocle:

We tried Canasta, but we just kind of ended up doing Pinocle, it's kind of an old game I think, Pinocle. Rosemary and Bill A., when they moved here from Mississippi, he worked for IBM, they were going to teach us to play Bridge, and we tried it, and we ended up teaching them how to play Pinocle. Pinocle is more of a fun game, it's not all [serious], you can play and laugh and talk... and so we ended up teaching them to play Pinocle.

Gladys and Dick sold their farm and bought a new one outside Holyoke, on the eastern edge of Colorado, and moved there in 1981. Holyoke is almost a 3 hour drive from Longmont, but Gladys and Dick would host in Holyoke, and travel to Longmont for the other club nights.

We were out there just from 1981 to 1990, so that's 9 years... they would sleep over, and in fact LeRoy had a plane, and the Andersons, and they flew out one time and landed at the Holyoke airport.

They tried including their families in their club friendships:

You know it was just, we were like family almost, and our children you know... one time we had a picnic in the summer but the kids didn't really know one another, so we didn't continue having family picnics with the kids.

The club kept going until they started losing members to the various diseases of old age: Jane R. (2009), Jean and Dwight W. (2013, 2016), LeRoy and Barbara T. (2017, 2019), Dick Knaus (2018),  Dale and Pat F. (2021, 2023).  

Bob R. and I are the last two of the 12 that are still living, but Bob, his divorced daughter has been living with him and helping him. He's using a wheelchair now, and so he doesn't go out a great deal, but he farmed... not a big farmer but he did farm and so anyway, that was our entertainment, we just enjoyed eating together and sharing recipes. 

The Supper Club, 1990s

Gladys says the supper club lasted 63 years!

Sources

Knaus, Gladys Loose. 2023. Remembrances about the supper club.