Exhibit, video hail branch’s 93 years

By Judy Adams, Palo Alto/Peninsula Branch

A tolling bell honoring Armistice Day marked the exhibit opening: eleven rings signifying the eleventh day and eleventh month. A reading of Palo Alto’s Proclamation followed, declaring November 11, 2015, "Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Day."

Sixty-eight WILPF members from local branches, friends, and supporters attended the exhibit’s opening event November 12, the day after Armistice Day (now called Veterans Day). We then made a brief presentation of the founding and diverse activities of WILPF, followed by the premiere of a 30-minute video based on the first 15 oral histories of local WILPF members, done by branch member Judy Adams’ Women’s Peace Oral History Project in 1983 (eventually 90 women were interviewed from many several WILPF branches over a 10-year period).

We introduced our special honorees, longtime local branch members Millee Livingston, now of Auburn, CA (recent WILPF national treasurer and past president of our branch), and Margaret Stein (branch president during the Vietnam War – our most active, highest membership period - and frequent chair of human needs task forces for the branch).

Millee was one of our two featured speakers and described her involvement in our branch, and as a national WILPF officer, reminding us of our rich history, and inspiring us to keep up the work for peace.  Our other speaker was Leah Halper, who also gave a moving and inspiring talk, about what she learned from branch members she interviewed in the 1980s, and became close to when she was one of our younger, college-aged members.  She was an Anne Peabody Brown intern in WILPF. Clearly the generosity, dedication and sisterhood of these women changed her life.

After the talks, we gave certificates of appreciation to our speakers as well as to our long-time branch members, who stood to be honored, and who also received a copy of the City of Palo Alto’s proclamation honoring WILPF.

We started with refreshments provided by WILPF members, and ended with a rousing performance by the Raging Grannies of our and other local branches. After the event, guests were able to browse a literature table, (including copies of Judy Adam’s 1990 book of interviews from her WILPF/Women’s Oral History Project); view Raging Grannies’ Songbooks; sample Peace & Freedom issues, and other WILPF publications. Guests filled in membership brochures, and were encouraged to fill in event/exhibit evaluation forms.  Many attendees had viewed the exhibit before the event, and some after the event – with positive comments, and statements that they would return to spend more time viewing the event, and bring friends.

To give an additional view of our branch activities to supplement the exhibit, we are planning to add a scrapbook of other materials from our branch archives– fliers, letters, newsletters, and letters to the editor from the early days of the branch through the ‘80s – which patrons will be able to request from the library’s circulation desk.

In recognition of community interest in our exhibit, Rinconada Library in Palo Alto (1213 Newell Road, if you’re in our area), has extended our exhibit there beyond its original end-date of December 24, to January 23. After the exhibit at the library comes down, we hope to install it in a couple of other community locations, and Judy Adams plans to present her video (called “Listen to Women for a Change,” an apt WILPF slogan) to local university students, high schools, or church groups, and other venues. We will be donating more branch documents, and possibly more oral histories to the extensive collection already at the Stanford University’s Archive of Recorded Sound, which includes documents, photos, transcripts, and downloadable or streamable audios of the interviews. We encourage other branches to do the same – either to donate branch records to Swarthmore College Peace Library or a local university archive or local historical society –  and not let the stories of members or branch archives languish in basement or garage storage.  We need to get the word out about women’s power to stop war!

We are grateful for the funding support from WILPF’s mini-grant program that made this project possible. Lots of hard work went into the exhibit, but it was worth it from the pleasure we received seeing library patrons stop to look our exhibit, enjoy our video, and leave supportive and constructive comments on our evaluation forms.  We hope they will decide to join WILPF and our work for peace and freedom.

Centennial Exhibit Committee members are  Judy Adams, Cherrill Spencer, Cybele LuVuolo-Bhushan and Lois Salo.

Please contact our branch at our new e-mail: wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com if you’d like to talk about our experience, or if you want to start an oral history project for your branch, or call Judy Adams at 650-326-1235  

PHOTOS

Margaret Stein, former president and longtime treasurer, and her son Charles Stein attended the opening event Nov. 12. Credit: Becky Fischbach

Millee Livingston, left, and Leah Halper spoke of their years with WILPF. Credit: Becky Fischbach