Information Sheet

 

 

R         Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  Wentworth Lodge No. 732 (Wentworth,

711         Mo.). 

                        Records, 1914-1972.

                                    Eleven volumes and one folder.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

These are the records of the Odd Fellows lodge in Wentworth, Newton County, Missouri.  The records consist of minutes of meetings, cash books, membership records, reports to the Grand Lodge of Missouri, and miscellaneous papers.

 

Wentworth is a small town in northeastern Newton County, near the boundary with Law­rence County.  The town began as a mining camp near the village of Talmage.  The site was along the Pierce City—Girard, Kansas line of the Frisco railroad.  Wentworth gained its own post office in 1890; the town was incorporated in 1894.  The Odd Fellows lodge at Wentworth was chartered in 1903; the Daughters of Rebekah organized shortly thereafter.   The Lodge owned its own hall, described as a 2-story, concrete building, 30’ x 70’, valued at $3000.  The Odd Fellows and Re­bekahs, along with the American Legion after 1915, shared the lodge building.

 

Among the early leaders of the lodge (known as “Noble Grands”) were J. E. Griffin, R. K. Lynn, J. L. Harmon, J. A. Merrill, Jr., W. R. Rice, Ernest Seward, Elbert Ford, U. P. Moody, Claude May, G. A. Brown, and A. B. Carver.   Active membership peaked at about seventy indi­viduals in 1918.  Membership remained steady through the 1920s, but fell to only fifteen members by June 1938.  By 1957, the last year for which records are available, only five to ten members attended meetings.

 

The records of the Wentworth Lodge consist of minute books, membership records, cash books, and reports to the Grand Lodge of Missouri.  The minutes begin on 13 February 1915.  There is a break in the minutes from 21 July 1923 through 1 January 1948, after which the minutes are complete through 25 July 1957.  Meetings generally concerned the admittance and transfers of members, work in the various degrees of the order, keeping up the Odd Fellows’ Hall, elections of officers, payments of sick benefits, and “talks for the good of the order.”

 

Membership records include registers of members and officers.  The “Question Book,” 1915-1958, includes personal information about members such as age, occupation, and residence.  Statistical information on the post and its members may be found in Volume 6: Abstracts of Semi-Annual Reports.

 

 

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