Built nearly flush against the sidewalk at 1531 J St., the Eureka Woman’s Club sits on what Second Vice President Murline Georgeson describes as “a postage stamp-sized lot.” The ladies who paid her late father-in-law architect Franklin Georgeson to design and build the Craftsman-style hall from old growth redwood in 1916 were not interested in wasting space. While the lot they’d purchased awaited construction, they leased it for a farmer to graze his cow for $1.50 per month. Raising money has since grown more challenging.
Feeding people (no longer livestock) has become a go-to fundraising method for the community service club, which has its roots in the Monday Club in 1901. When COVID-19 shut down rentals for events in 2020, a major revenue generator, club members masked up to run First Friday Food nights, cooking takeout meals to pay for upkeep of the historic building. Gradually, they were able to donate to World Kitchen’s efforts in Ukraine, among other organizations, including local nonprofits like Food for People.
More recently, the club has used its First Friday Food events to raise cash for the kitchen itself, which was only added in the 1950s and hasn’t been updated since the 1970s, Ways and Means Director Carole Crossley estimates. On Saturday, May 17, at 6 p.m., the Eureka Woman’s Club is upping the ante with a four-course Chinese dinner by (Journal contributor) Wendy Chan and chef Louise Zuleger, and dancing to live music from Young and Lovely for a $75 ticket price. “It’s a gamble,” Crossley admits.
The club’s mission of “working toward the betterment of our community,” says Crossley, includes raising money for everything from domestic violence-related services to fighting food insecurity. When a member learned how many children in Humboldt suffering from housing insecurity didn’t have access to milk, she says, the club began the Milk Fund, delivering to St. Vincent De Paul’s free dining facility, among others. The 65 women and men who make up the club’s ranks, she says, determine where the money goes. Its website shows the range of those choices, with dozens of listed recipients from youth music programs and local libraries to hospice services and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Personal connections to the Eureka Woman’s Club also drew Crossley to join and work toward preserving the building. “I had my first piano recital on the Steinway [piano] on the stage when I was 7 years old,” she says. Her sister’s wedding reception was held at the hall, too. “We’re losing a lot of old buildings and it just would be a tragedy if this one went into disrepair.”
A recent renovation made the bathrooms ADA compliant and the hope is to make the kitchen similarly accessible to those using wheelchairs, as well as making the space more efficient, both for in-house fundraisers and event rentals. The restoration of the club’s original upstairs kitchen and dining room are a long-term dream for now.
Murline Georgeson says her prolific father-in-law’s work dots the North Coast, including the old Creamery Building in Arcata, a number of private homes and churches and the Minor Theatre. The cost of the Woman’s Club building was cheap, she says. “We’re talking a couple of thousand dollars back then.”
Georgeson says she joined the club in 2016 after her husband died. She held his memorial service at the Eureka Woman’s Club and recalls looking around at the local landmark his father had designed. “I said, ‘You know, this building is worth saving.'”
Chan is no stranger to cooking for crowds, having prepared vats of chili sauce at the Jefferson Community Center and to-go dinners with the Elk’s Emblem Club. But Saturday’s four-course meal will be a sit-down event, with students from St. Bernard’s Academy’s S Club serving guests at their tables. The appetizer course of shrimp rolls, vegetable sushi and mini pork buns will be followed by Zuleger’s Asian salad with crispy noodles and almonds, a callback to the one at the former Gonsea restaurant. The main course will feature Chan’s char siu-style chicken thigh with plum sauce, fresh noodles with scallion and ginger sauce, and a vegetable stir-fry. Dessert will be a fresh berry roll cake, of which she expects to bake a half dozen or so. Maybe more, just in case.
While the whole volunteer staff will be on deck for the event, a small but thankfully experienced crew of volunteers from the club will be deboning chicken, shelling shrimp and chopping vegetables, including Suzie Owsley, who introduced Chan and Zuleger to the club through a couple of cooking projects. The social aspect of working in the kitchen with friends is part of what drew Chan to join. “If I can cook to help raise money, that’s my thing,” she says. Besides, she notes, “When I saw the kitchen, I said, ‘Well, it really needs to update.'”
Zuleger, who runs Louise Zuleger Confections and is pastry chef at Venecia on the Arcata Plaza, has also cooked as a volunteer at St. Vincent De Paul’s free dining facility. She says she was interested in the club’s community service and use of the kitchen for fundraising. Saturday will be her third time cooking at the Eureka Woman’s Club and she says she looks forward to bellying up to the counters with her friends.
“It’s so much more enjoyment raising money for a good cause,” says Zuleger. “Working for money is nice, too, but people getting benefit out of your work — that’s really worthwhile.”
Tickets for the Eureka Woman’s Club Dinner and Dance are available at eurekawomansclub.org, or by calling (707) 845-7243.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky @JFumikoCahill.
This article appears in ‘Fire Teaches Us Many Lessons’.
