VERSAILLES — A few of the members of the now 100-year-old Country Book Club have brought books to share, and they've put them on the kitchen island at Margaret Jeffiers's home. Take your pick from The Fog by Michelle Richmond, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Wish You Well by David Balducci.
It's like a small lending library on the counter, complete with an implied recommendation by someone you know and trust, one of the 18 women who have been part of this club for a while now because it's that kind of club, long-standing, the kind you either move reluctantly away from or leave when the Lord calls you home.
It's also a book club where a book is not going to be discussed and where, explains member Barbara Snyder, "you don't have to read one and you don't have to bring one."
Of course, there was that one time when someone did put the risqué Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis in the mix and some ladies were so horrified by it, that the members collectively burned it. Or so the story goes.
That story makes the members alternately gasp and giggle. Ann Wilson's husband, Bobby, is the one who likes to tell that story about the burning. Still, no one here is sure if Bobby can be trusted on that because, technically he is not a member since men are not allowed except at the club Christmas party.
Ann became a member 44 years ago because she married Bobby and all the Wilson women, except one of Ann's sisters-in-law, made it into the club shortly after becoming a member of the clan.
That said, no one here likes to think that any women of this club could ever burn a book.
Because, in soul if not in body, this is the same bunch who, over the course of 100 years of existence, know why they exist. They exist to learn, to revere books, to support each other, to laugh and to tell each other about their lives. Not always in that order, but always with those priorities.
Even to the point of embarrassment. Seems once a member recommended a book highly but did take pains to paper-clip a few pages together because they were, says Ann Wilson, "so bad that she didn't think anyone else ought to read them."
The paper clips stopped no one, the members all like to remember, laughing.
The Country Book Club started life in 1909 as the Keene Book Club. It was a way to let the isolated country women who lived between Keene and Harrodsburg get together and exchange magazines. That they brought their children and a nice lunch along suggests they knew they were cheating the system some, grabbing what time they could, to improve themselves but not forget their motherly duties along the way.
From the beginning, though, they had fashioned themselves a motto: " Virtue in Our Lives Ennobles Thought."
It's still the motto.
And they still have virtue and thought every chance they get. At Margaret Jeffiers' house during the regular October meeting, after the apple honey walnut cake and coffee, roll is called and each member must offer up a current event for the rest of the group to consider. If you have no current event, there is a 50 cent fine, the better to fill the coffers so that when the time comes to buy summer books for the city reading program, there will be plenty of cash.
The treasury now holds $35.05.
Still, there are current events — personal journeys and tidbits of news from your own homefront count — to impart. Kae Koski tells about the Marula tree in South Africa which bears fruit that is slightly alcoholic. She tells how all the animals in the vicinity descend upon it all at once and wait for the elephants to bump the tree so the fruit falls and everybody parties, then waddles home a little soused.
It's good knowledge, more or less, and a nice warm-up to Betsy Poole's presentation on the Kentucky governor's mansion, wherein the club learns about many things including the relative merits of gubernatorial daughter Sally Meigs' singing voice and about Mrs. Poole's first date with her first husband at the inauguration of Gov. Happy Chandler, when she was a high school band member.
To say the afternoon was lovely is understatement.
Ask the members why they continue the 100-year-old monthly book club tradition, the room falls quiet at first.
Then Mary Withers, the president of the club, says, "I think they wanted friendship and warmth like we all do."
Patsy Mansfield says she imagines "they wanted to inspire themselves intellectually." And, she added, she would very much like to know what they would think if they could see what they started.
Most of the women are from Woodford County, but not everyone. Fran James says she traveled all over with her husband, who works for IBM and had been a part of a musical group in Alabama. She had hated to leave when they were moved again.
"But this group has the same feeling, even if you're not from here, it's very special."
The book club has never been in danger of dying, says Ann Wilson, though the members do tend to age. Once, recently, the troops began to dwindle lower than the constitutionally prescribed 18 members and it was decided that "we needed some new members who could drive," she says with a smile.
And so new invitations were sent out.
Janet Rowe feigns indignation at that, then laughs and says, "and I used to wonder what you had to do to get into this club."
Then she kindly turns and asks Ann Wilson if she needs a ride home.
