When the Woman’s Club was founded, there was a small meeting held in the home of Mrs. Washburn on September 14, 1923.
Five officers were nominated and elected. At that meeting there were seven women who became active members.
At one of their meetings held in December, 1923, Mayor Richards came and talked to them on a very important subject of how this is the very thing their Club must work on.
They all agreed that Seal Beach being a very small city had borne a very unclean name. They said that Sunday dancing and a great deal of bootlegging had always drawn a disreputable class here in search of recreation. So they planned some way to at least have Sunday dancing prohibited.
A committee was appointed to interview the City Attorney as to the proper way to go about this. After seeing him and by his suggestion, a petition was drawn up and presented to the City Council.
The trustees agreed with the Club and directed the City Attorney to draft an ordinance prohibiting all Sunday dancing.
As most of the dancing was held in buildings owned by The Bayside Land Co., and as the Woman’s Club were at this time holding their Club meetings in the Sun Parlor located above the dance pavilion while they were waiting for the M. E. Church to finish its Auditorium, the permission to meet there was revoked by the Land Company.
But the Auditorium was soon finished and became their meeting place for the time being.
This has been the first real big thing the Club undertook and on Dec. 26, 1923, they were not real sure that this will become an actual accomplishment as officials of the Bayside Land Co., including, Isaac Lothian, P. A. Stanton and Jacob Transue felt that the City Trustees should not stop Sunday dancing in the City.
It was quoted as said, “they are going to fight us to a finish and if they can’t run this town as it has been run for the last 7 or 8 years, they will close it up tighter than an abandoned mining camp.”
The officials of the Bayside Land company in Seal Beach issued an order closing all amusements including the Derby roller coaster and its concessions in its holdings on the next Sunday in the Joy Zone attempting to force the issue and bring about a compromise that dancing be permitted.
The ordinance was drawn up and after being introduced and read at a regular meeting of the Board of Trustees on Jan. 3, 1924 and again was read and adopted at a meeting held Jan. 17, 1924, it became a real ordinance regulating public dance halls.
Joyce Ekberg, who was born in Seal Beach in 1927, was president of the Junior Woman’s Club in 1961 almost 30 years later.
She says her mother told her the Woman’s Club was trying to improve the community. She told her there were so called Tango Parlors with gambling and speakeasys in the bathhouses on the Joy Zone. Philip Stanton ran the town the way he saw fit.
It was a battle between the residents and the tourists who came. The tourists are much better behaved now while visiting Seal Beach but they love to hear about the wild days.
Seal Beach Kicks a Off-Month Long 95th Founder’s Day Celebration With A Dinner Dance which has won the approval of the Woman’s Club of Seal Beach.
The city will celebrate with a night of fine food and dancing at 6 p.m. on Saturday, October 2, . at the Old Ranch Country Club, 3901 Lampson Avenue, Seal Beach.
The Emperors, Southern California’s premier classic rock band, will provide live music, playing hit favorites from The Beatles, The Who, Doobie Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Styx, Lynard Skynard and many of their own original songs.
Everyone is invited, from our friends in Leisure World to our neighbors in Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Surfside, Sunset Beach, Huntington Beach and other Southern California cities. Feel free to come in your favorite casual outfit or join in the historical fun by wearing attire from your favorite era from the teens to the eighties.
The night’s festivities also include a live and silent auction. The proceeds will help repair the J.H. McGaugh Community pool.
Tickets available now so reserve your table today! $75 (advance sales only)
Contact: 562 598-9044 or 562 598-9294
The 95th Seal Beach Founders Celebration will continue throughout October 2010 with a tennis mixer, a golf tournament and dinner, a sidewalk sale, a parade and festival, a concert by the pier, and a historical slide show. Dates and details will be provided in future announcements or you can visit sealbeachfoundersday.com.
