The Jacobstown Community Club will mark its diamond anniversary with a potluck supper and special program at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, at the Community House on the corner of Main and Center Streets in Mount Carroll. The club's members are families whose roots are anchored to some of the first families that settled in Carroll County a few miles west of Mount Carroll. Theya re bound together by tradition, history and a neighborhood, but even more importantly, by deep friendships, working and caring for one another.

The club was organized on Nov. 5, 1929. Its first meeting was a Hard Times Halloween Party, held in the home of Lawrence and Grace Getz, at 11576 Jacobstown Rd., where their son LeRoy and his wife Hazel now live. The party was originally planned for Nov. 1, but was rescheduled when heavy rains turned dirt roads into muck, making them impassable.

Throughout her life, Grace Getz tried to preserve the history of Jacobstown, a small settlement on the banks of Straddle Creek next to the farm where she and her husband raised their family. Primarily a farming area located in the west half of Section 4 in Mount Carroll Township, the community of Jacobstown, originally known as Jacobsville, was halfway between Mount Carroll and Savanna where the Galena-Dixon Road, also known as the Lewistown Trail, crossed the creek.

Benjamin Jacobs owned the land in 1853 where a Grist mill, store, blacksmith shop and weaving shop thrived. Some lead mining had started in Woodland Township, just north of the little community, and rumor had it that a railroad would come through the area which was expected to result in great economic growth and furnish transportation to the mining operations. Seeing a bright future for the community, Jacobs had the area surveyed in 1855, articles of incorporation drawn up, and 6.82 acres divided into 38 lots. Property values skyrocketed and the 40 acres of land that made up the town and surrounding area was valued at $10,000.

But hopes for the Jacobstown were short lived when the railroad decided a route farther south would be more practical. Property values dropped, streets and lots were never completed and the mills dwindled as Straddle Creek became shallow. Many families moved away but others remained to farm the land and some of their descendants still live there today. They are the same families that eventually formed the Jacobstown Community Club just weeks after the stock market crashed in 1929.

"They had fallen on hard times and needed each other's support," LeRoy Getz said. Most of the families in the area had small children, no phones and no money and they needed each other's friendship as well as a social outlet, he said. Della (Mrs. Wilbert) Law, who passed away lasat year at age 105, was elected president of the club during that first meeting. Grace Getz was elected vice president and Ralph Getz served as the first secretary and treasurer.

Approximately 20 families were charter members, including Jacob Getz, who is the oldest surviving member of the group at age 89. The club has continued to meet on the second Friday evening of each month for 75 years. The first meetings wer eheld in members homes. LeRoy Getz, who is now 66, remembers going to those meetings when he was a kid. Sometimes there would be 50 to 60 people attending and often the homes were not big enough.

The men always congregated in the kitchen and the women in the dining room and living room. The officers tried to position themselves in an archway or doorway between the men and women so everyone could hear during the business meeting and program. But sometimes people could only listen and not see what was going on he said. The children were shuffled outside when the weather was warm and upstairs when it was bad. And sometimes they would get in trouble playing "hide and go seek" or jumpign on beds, Getz recalled.

"It was always crowded and everytime they came to our house my dad would jack up the house with an extra post int he basement," he said, chuckling at the memory. Before the meeting, families went to town and borrowed chairs from Fay Chrristian, who ran the funeral home, and lined them up as tight as possible in their homes to accomodate everyone. "Some of the men never got very far from the cookstove and the poor hostess had to work around them," he said.

The last time the club met in one of the homes, Don and Eva Law were the hosts. Getz doesn't remember the year, but he recalls it was in August and there were so many people present they agreed none of the members could handle that size crowd. They moved the meeting to he old Legion Hall and then to the parish house, both in Savanna, for several years before deciding to go to the Community House in Mount Carroll where it is still held today. But some things have not changed.

"The men always go in and sit on the left side and the women sit on the right," said Janell Hartman, whose grandparents, Henry and Edna Branner, were charter members. Getz said the only reason for the segregation was that the men had more in common and were anxious to talk things over with one another and it was the same way with the women. In those days there was more a separation of duties between men and women than there is today. But the men are always very gentlemanly, Hartman said. They alays allow the women and children to go through the buffet line and sit down to eat first.

Other traditions continue as well. The meetings normally start at 8 p.m., probably because most of the members are farmers, and some still milk cows. They don'tget in from chores and cleaned up and ready to go until late. The business meeting begins with roll call. Each person present answers a question relating to the time of year, or the program. The program follows the business meeting and then the potluck meal is served. Members take turns hosting the meeting and traditionally provide a gib pot of chicken and noodles, which is what Grace Getz served at the club's first meeting. The rest of the members bring a variety of dishes to share.

Like Getz, Hartman has attended the Jacobstown Community Club meetings all her life. The daughter of Harlan and Donetta Brunner, she is now a third grade techer in Mount Carroll with small children of her own. As a child, she enjoyed sitting and eating with the other kids and playing board games at the meetings. She also has fond memories of the chicken dinners held in October in conjunction with another community club and working all day with all of the members to pack lunches for the REA (now Jo Carroll Electric) annual meeting.

The club members made and packed the lunches for many years to earn money to treat themselves to an oyster supper once a year. Hartman said she can't make it to every meeting now, but she still enjoys attending when she can. She still loves getting together with her mother to make noodles before one of them hosts a meeting. She remembers making noodles with her grandmother as well and now her children are beginning to help. Its these traditions and a sense of belonging that draws her back to club gatherings.

Hartman said that sense of belonging also helped her mother, Donetta Brunner, adjust to living so far away from her family in Pennsylvania after she was married and moved to Carroll County. Brunner is currently secretary of the Jacobstown Club. Her husband, harlan is vice president. Paul Getz is president.

All past and present members are invited to come to the 75th anniversary meeting this weekend and answer the roll call with a memory of the by gone days in the club. For many, those memories, the traditions and the sense of belonging are the ties that bind the hearts of the members to the neighborhood known as Jacobstown and a club that's more like an extended family.
It contains a great deal of historical information about the Jacobstown area as well as the county. Much of it has been contributed by Alice Horner whose mother, Florence L. Downing Horner, was the sister of Grace getz. Their grandfather was Samuel Preston, one of the first settlers to come to Carroll County. Preston, Horner and Getz all kept extensive records of their lives, the history of their families and the county.