SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) – I recently stopped by John and Betty Hendrick’s home after attending an auction in War Ridge at the start of this summer. While there they showed me an old photo of Summers County’s historic importance a friend had enlarged and framed for John.
The photo is of the Modern Woodmen Group in Summers County ca. 1910. The first row, from left to right, is L.C. Davis; Lomer Davis; Charley Davis; and Kinna Maddy. Second row, from left to right, is Jess Perdue; Charles W. Garten; Ose (?) Garten; Pearl Garrison; Floyd Belcher. Back row, from left to right, is Mr. Grant (organizer of the lodge at Marie); W.T. Maddy; Haron Michael; Elmer or Emer Davidson; Hubert Light; Oscar Hutchinson.
The reason this was given to John by John Maddy is that John had never seen this particular photograph. He has other photos of his grandfather, Lomer Davis but not any when he was this young, so it holds great sentimental value. It also has his Great Uncle Losee Davis in it.
The Modern Woodmen Group is a fraternal organization much like the Freemasons. The Odd Fellows, The Eastern Star (which was an all-female group back in the day) and many others. I have seen historical accounts of all of these and others in relation to Summers County.
They became increasingly popular during the 19th century in the United States. The Civil War led to a huge surge in their membership following the end of the war in 1865. This was such an unstable time in our history that affected everyone differently.
Belonging to these organizations brought about a strong sense of pride and created a place where the members felt grounded during the post-war ever-changing society. Belonging to one of these groups provided help and support in many aspects of your life.
In researching this piece I uncovered a newspaper article from the Independent Herald in Hinton from February 20, 1902. To begin with, it says they added 18 new members last week. Eighteen new members in Hinton, just think about how popular this group must have been then.
It further talks about the Hinton Group having an 80-strong membership. And says “The Modern Woodmen is the best and cheapest fraternal organization in the land today, has nearly 700 thousand members and it is only its nineteenth year, and has one billion, eighty five million dollars insurance in force. Net increase in membership for the year 1900 was 119,815.”
The mention of life insurance reminded me that while cleaning out my Grandma Jones’s estate I found a paper where my grandfather Gene had a life insurance policy through Modern Woodmen. If you will remember I also found a receipt where he had paid his dues to The Odd Fellows in the 1940’s.
My family had strong ties to many of these fraternal organizations, of which I have several mementos that belonged to them during their tenure while they were affiliated with them. For curiosity’s sake, I looked and Modern Woodmen still sells life insurance policies to this day after having been formed on January 5, 1883, in Lyons, Clinton, IA.
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