The Monopoly-style Game of International Falls, featured in a story in Wednesday’s edition, was created around the mid-1990s as a fundraiser for the former Margaret Corell Club, said former member Carole Johnson of the Falls.
She said the club, a women’s organization dedicated to community service, offered scholarships to female graduates of Falls High School wishing to attend Rainy River Community College.
Johnson said it was one of the last federated women’s clubs in the Falls. Once there were at least 10 in Koochiching County. Now there are none.
Borderland clubs also included the Rainy Lake Women’s Club, started in Ranier; and the Aquilo League, mostly active in the Falls.
“It was a good way to network with women, in terms of common concerns,” Johnson said. “And it’s still happening on particular issues. The Violence Against Women Act is still not complete, for example. There’s still an incredible loophole for Native American women.”
More than 3,000 women’s clubs are still active state-wide, through the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Minnesota, and nationally. Members are dedicated to volunteer service, community improvement, and various causes.
Johnson is committee chairwoman of legislative and public policy for non-profit women’s clubs in Minnesota’s northeast district. Those in Grand Rapids, Hibbing and Virginia represent the Arrowhead region.
A congressional act in 1891 allowed President Benjamin Harrison to set aside forest reserves, and in 1899 the Minnesota Federation of Women’s Clubs successfully campaigned to establish a forest reserve in Cass Lake, according to www.fs.usda.gov/detail/chippewa.
Well-known club members have included former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith. The General Federation of Women’s Clubs, founded in 1890, is based in Washington, D.C. Its motto: “Unity In Diversity.”
