The sisterhood of the ‘After Five’ By FAYE WHITBECK, Staff Writer

~Purpose of the After Five Club, founded in 1961 by mothers of many

While mothers of the new millennium might long for a private escape where the noise and the stress of daily life are quieted, the mothers of yesterday sometimes felt detached from the world and a little starved for stimulation.

They may not have been trying to cram the duties of motherhood and housekeeping around full-time jobs, but moms of the 1960s and 70s raised children through uncommon and tumultuous times.

Many of them were meeting unique challenges not only because of the era, but also because of the number of kids they bore. Although the average size of American families began to decline after the 1950s, large households were not uncommon in the nearby decades.

Today’s mobile and frenzied society is far removed from a lifestyle where dad went to work and mom remained at home — stationed there to tend to children and perform countless duties for the family, which had been idealistically defined by a culture which delivered TV shows such as “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best.”

In 1961, one local group of mothers responded to the isolation by forming a club which provided a brief oasis — a haven, a temporary retreat. Membership required having five or more children, hence its name — the ‘After Five’ Club. Jessie Laurion and Arlene Enzmann were the founders and the first meeting was held in September at the home of Helen Weum.

They gathered in each other’s homes once a month for a planned program and to share the realities of motherhood. The worries, the exhaustion, the exile — were understood best by those who, in the words of former member Shirley Ettestad, “were swimming in the same soup.”

By today’s comparison, many dads of the 1960s were strangers to the details of their children’s lives. And although a change was going to come, a mother’s identity was still merged in a society which had deemed her importance to be mainly in the home. Did they envision the tide that was turning?

And if motherhood today is barely recognizable by those standards, life for children was vastly different as well. Families had a function all their own — not experienced on the fringes of other comings and goings, other responsibilities, other demands.

Childhoods of the 1960s saw cloth diapers, school lunch tokens and jars of white paste. Girls wore dresses everyday to school where air-raid drills and TB tine tests were still routine. The smell of purple-inked mimeographs wafted through the hallways.

The 4-H Club and scouting provided fun for a lot of kids, when they weren’t having their tonsils removed or rolling their hair on curlers in the evenings.

But the main difference, according to most of the After Five members, was that children played outside — from morning until sundown in the summer — and at the skating rinks and in snow forts on winter evenings.

There were no video games, cell phones or computers in the 1960s and 70s. Many TVs were still black and white, and record players twirled “45s” in the bedrooms of teenagers. Kids ate Moon Pies and Jiffy Pop in a pre-microwave era, and occasionally went to a drive-in stand where the whole family ate supper while sitting in the car.

The average family was poorer than today, and fewer teenagers drove their own cars. They rode the bus or their bikes to school; they walked. And perhaps — even in the age of the space program, counterculture, nuclear threat, Vietnam and Watergate — kids stayed innocent a little longer.

But along with peace signs, bell-bottomed pants, and platform shoes came frightening racial disharmony and civil rights issues as well as a revolution in the use of street drugs.

Families of the 60s lived through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy as well as the deaths of 58,000 American soldiers in the Vietnam War. The rapidly evolving women’s liberation movement would be confusing for many mothers, and would bring both benefits and consequences — personal freedoms and added burdens.

Life was simpler. But these were historically significant times for mothers whose children would come to be called the Baby Boomers.

Jessie Laurion

The club was their brain child, and After Five founders Arlene Enzmann and Jessie Laurion had each just delivered their fifth child at the local hospital when they hit on the idea.

“They kept you in about five days then, so we had plenty of time to visit,” Laurion told The Journal with a chuckle. “The thought came to me that we needed something to feel special,” she said, noting the stigma attached to producing large families. She and husband Ron had six children, the first born in 1953. They are Kathy, Mary Beth, Fred, Stuart, Steven, David and Tom.

“We had fun with the name of the club,” Laurion said, noting its cocktail-time title. The women didn’t want the group to be just a social gathering. “We thought it should offer helpful guidance.”

Indeed, over the course of the club’s history, presentations on law enforcement, legal matters, hair styling, mental and physical health, exercise and other topics were delivered by doctors, lawyers and many area experts. Laurion remembers encouraging late club member Bertha Soboleski to do a program on expert shirt ironing, because of Soboleski’s experience working for the local Chinese laundry. “Quite a few of our husbands had to wear white shirts — not drip dry,” Laurion said. “Now every time I iron a shirt, I think of her.”

The club, which capped membership at 20 mothers, once hosted a City Beach picnic for their 120 kids.

Enzmann, who now lives in Florida, also worked as a registered nurse as she mothered, and Laurion was a local piano teacher for many years. She completed her college degree in 1967, driving to Bemidji weekly along with fellow student and club member Marvel Blais.

Laurion remembers an especially tragic time when a club member committed suicide. “She walked into the river,” she said softly, noting that the club was losing connection with the woman who left behind a husband and eight young boys. “It was so terrible. People didn’t go for counseling then. ... We didn’t know, we all felt we could have helped her. It was kind of a milestone for us.”

But Laurion also remembers a time of great stability. Jobs were secure and everything was established ...,” she said. “The mill was doing really well. There were lots of children, they were everywhere.

“The landscape is almost deserted looking now,” Laurion said.

“And we had both sets of grandparents in town, as did many” she said, noting how unusual that is today.

Shirley Ettestad

Club member Shirley Ettestad and her husband, the late Knute Ettestad, had six children: Sherri, Kent, Sandra, Susan, Tony and Shawn. The eldest graduated in 1972, the youngest in 1993. Ettestad still lives in the home where the children grew up.

She also feels the shift in culture. “When you drive through residential areas, nobody’s pitching balls,” Ettestad said. “You don’t see families out and about.”

She remembers the camaraderie and the fun she enjoyed from attending After Five. “We all had the commonality of having big families,” Ettestad said. “We had an understanding of each other, what it was like to have households like that. We met in our homes but we weren’t focused on kids all the time.”

Her husband a carpenter, the family had a good-sized house, Ettestad said, adding that her kids all shared in the rituals of housekeeping. She said the 4-H program was big in their lives, giving them structure outside of school.

Ettestad also ran a gift shop in Ranier, but closed it after her husband died in 2003. Her memories of raising kids are warm. “I certainly enjoyed being a mother,” she said.

Marvel Blais

“It (the club) was an outing for me,” said Marvel Blais, who is the mother of five children: Dan, Dean, Skippy, Nancy and Jeanne. The first was born in 1949 and the last in 1961. Marvel and husband Bill Blais, who recently celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary, moved their family in 1964 to the home in which the couple still resides.

Blais said that dads usually stayed with the children while their mothers attended the club’s evening meetings.

“Normally, we were home all the time,” she said. “Most (members) were stay-at-home moms.

“They (the meetings) were all exciting — just to get out of the house.”

A small reunion of former After Five mothers was held recently at the Blais home.

Nell Klow

Nell Klow and husband John also live in the same house where they raised seven children. They are: John, Joan, Janine, Josephine, Jerry, Jim and Jeff. Klow remembers the Christmas cookie exchanges of the After Five Club, and the once-a-year picnics with husbands.

“We just got to be really good friends,” Klow said, noting that many are now widows.

“It was fun; we just had a great time. We never sat around and gossiped — we always had projects. One Easter, we made Easter hats. We always either had a speaker or event, and we had Halloween parties. It was just nice getting out.”

Helen Weum

The club may have been especially important for member Helen Weum who lost her husband Vernon in a 1958 accident. Pregnant at the time of his death, she became the sole parent to six children named Ronald, Pamela, Janice, Tracy, Bradley and Warren, born between 1948 and 1958.

It was in Weum’s home that the first meeting of the After Five Club was held in 1961. Weum laughed as she told The Journal that even though her sister, Jennie Skrien, was pregnant with her fifth child at the time, she couldn’t join the club until after that baby was born. Rules were rules.

She remembers many of the programs as impressive, including presentations by doctors and psychiatrists, but also on tips for cake decorating, flower arrangements, and landscaping by local Koochiching County agent Don Petman. Wife Corrine Petman was also a member.

And Weum recalled large gatherings in the summer, as well as a Christmas party that included all of the children. “There was only one of those,” she giggled.

“The club was fun, but it was also very helpful,” Weum said.

She said she believes it was a lot easier to raise kids in those days. “Things were slower, kids weren’t so scheduled.”

Delores Van Schoiack

Club members Nell Klow and Shirley Ettestad invited Delores Van Schoiack to join the mothers’ club after the large Van Schoiack family moved into their neighborhood near Ranier. The family was new to Borderland. Delores’ husband Larry, who died in 2002, had been hired as the manager of the local college bookstore.

Names of the couple’s six children are Harmony, June, Holly, Tom, Lori and Stacy.

For this mom, the club was also a pause from responsibilities. “It meant getting out of the house,” said Van Schoiack, who is also a seamstress.

She recalls that the local neighborhood always had signs of children. Their yard had a football field where everyday skirmishes took place, and kids swam from the docks along the shorelines of their homes.

“It was just a really fun time,” Van Schoiack said, adding that she and her adult children still talk about it. “They wish their children could have the same atmosphere,” she noted. But she didn’t minimize the political and social upheaval of the times.

“When I listen to Obama sometimes, I think, ‘Wow, we’re right back there again.’”

Van Schoiack has six grandchildren and three great-granddaughters. She sees the difficulty of today’s demand for college educations, yet the struggle in attaining jobs.

“Sometimes, I do think they (kids of the 1960-70s) had it much better — easier. It is such a fast world now. There’s so many problems. You really have to be on top of it to fit in.”

Jennie Skrien

Sister of Helen Weum, Jennie Skrien joined the new club in 1961 but had to wait until after the birth of her fifth child before attending. Born to Jennie, and Vernon, who died 21 years ago, the Skrien children are Gary, Dale, Linda, Richard and Douglas.

A member of After Five until it ended, Skrien remembers the club as an important part of her life. She began work outside the home when her last child went to school, employed as the secretary at Falls Elementary School, and then at the Holler School.

“Raising children then was simpler in some ways. You did not worry about your children like they do today,” Skrien said. “You did take them with you wherever you went.

“It just startles me, and it’s sad too — you never see children outside playing anymore.”

She remembers Dr. George Crow coming to a meeting that she hosted, with a program on family health. She also recalled a special event at a cabin on Dryweed Island, Rainy Lake. “Belonging to the club was so nice,” Skrien said. “... it was good to compare notes.

“We made friends — some are lifelong friends. You still feel close to them, when you see them ...”