Working together to raise money for local charities since 1901, The Friday Club celebrates its 125th anniversary.

Nestled amongst the grander homes of the Captain’s Mile in Yarmouth Port, sits an unassuming Gothic Revival cottage. Its front door the same shade of deep blue found on the hydrangea bushes in the front yard. It’s a simple structure, unassuming and unbalanced owing to the square addition on the left-hand side. The ornamentation on the gable is less ostentatious than that of the neighboring houses, the white-on-white blending like bubbles on the crest of a wave. The women who gather inside the house appear much the same; humble, unpretentious, but with roots that go back generations. The cottage is home to The Friday Club, a women’s charitable organization that has served the town of Yarmouth and greater Cape Cod for more than a century.

The Friday Club is, through various threads, intricately woven into the larger tapestry of U.S. history. The Club will be celebrating its 125th anniversary next year, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the United States, and according to The Club’s current president Donna Murray, “There were a lot of our original members who were descendants of men who served in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.” 

The Club itself has humble beginnings in the vestry of the First Congregational Church of Yarmouth. In 1901 the pastor’s wife, Mrs. John Walker, established a new club for the women of the parish to use their domestic talents in service of the poor. Twelve women came together every Friday for lunch, then spent the afternoon sewing, baking, or fundraising for the needy of their community. By 1905, The Friday Club had outgrown the vestry and so began...