Washtenaw Golf Club Recipe Book From 1986

Anyone who lived in the 1970s and 1980s will recognize the comb-bound, fundraiser cookbook. Churches published them. So did PTAs, scout troops, homeowners associations, and various other non-profits.

The organization collected recipes from its members and sent them out to a printer for publishing. Recipes usually included credit for the contributor and perhaps some information on the dish’s origin, and if it was served on a particular family occasion.

Fundraising cookbooks followed a standard format, with sections for appetizers, salads, main dishes, casseroles, deserts and so forth, separated by pages with stock photos of food. The printing company would beef up the size of the book with boilerplate text, such as cooking time charts for different sorts of meats and vegetables, terms used in cooking, nutritional information, suggestions for spices to use with various basic foods, foot quantity scaling, and ingredient substitutions.

The books also typically included advertising from local businesses.

Once printed, they were sold at community events, school fairs and local shops. Part of the appeal was, no doubt, that the recipes included the names of people you knew. Did you want to try the recipe that Susan Smith brought to potlucks to such acclaim? There it was.

These cookbooks are apparently currently in vogue as historical documents, as they offer insights into foods available, cooking trends, regional food differences, community organizations and the business sponsors.

This particular cookbook was published by the Washtenaw Country Club’s Women’s Association in 1986.

Beginning under the leadership of Lynn Whitmore, the WCC Women’s Association was instrumental in the forming of the Detroit District Women’s Golf Association.

The cookbook has a bit of the history of the Women’s Association in the introduction:

Een though some of the men folks won’t care to admit it, the Women of Washtenaw did a great deal for them. One year when the club needed improvements and cash was scarce, the gals set out on a find-raising program. bridge parties, fashion shows, a big raffle and super-duper rummage sales were held. A lot of the monies raised went for improvement in the men’s locker room.

The Women’s Association also funded much of the club’s junior golf program, paid for screening of the porch in the early days, and raised money for the First and Second World War efforts.

Recipes, with one of the stock photo pages.

A page from the Washtenaw Country Club Cookbook with a long explanation of the origins of the dish.

The book has several advertisers, including the Ann Arbor Howard Johnson’s, Russo Foods and Produce, Atchinson Ford, Precision Tune, PJ’s Flower Shop, General Plating, Inc., Sesi Lincoln Mercury, Wagner Stark memorial Chapel, and Cueter Investments. Several of these are still in existence.

There is nothing in the cookbook to indicate for what cause the Washtenaw Women’s Association was raising money to support. Youth golf? Club improvements? The women’s association itself? There are some hints that it might have funded the 1986 Women’s Invitational.

Regardless, the Women’s Association cookbook fundraiser made me reflect on the importance of women’s golf throughout Washtenaw Country Club’s history.

Of the two citizens of Ypsilanti who brought golf to the area in 1898, one was a woman: Cora (Cornwell) Henry. Cora, along with a friend, I Newton Swift had discovered the sport while on vacation at Martha’s Vinyard. After introducing it to a friend, Daniel Quirk, they convinced a local farmer to let them lay out a three-hole course on the land that would become Washtenaw Golf Club.

When the club moved to incorporate in 1899, of the first hundred members, eleven were women. That had to be a large proportion for a time when many such clubs were men only (and continued to be men only well into the late 20th Century.

As noted before, the Washtenaw Womens’ Golf Association was instrumental in the creation of the Detroit District Women’s Golf Association, which regulated the women’s game and managed competitions. The Detroit District in general later became the Golf Association of Michigan.

Shockingly for the time, the first mixed foursomes matches at Washtenaw took place in 1922. Four men refused to participate. They were perhaps afraid of being beaten. The event went on nonetheless.

A women’s championship was held at Washtenaw in 1927.

One of the LPGA’s legendary thirteen founders, Shirley Spork, practiced at Washtenaw while a student at Eastern Michigan University.

Given its history as a (relatively) women friendly club, I have long thought that if I owned or managed Washtenaw, I would make an effort to attract some of the state’s women’s championships — a Michigan Women’s Amateur, Mid-Amateur or Senior Amateur. While the course as presently configured is likely not long enough for today’s men’s championships, I think Washtenaw is ideal for a women’s.