Iva Brady is one of the last survivors of the Medford World War I Veterans Auxiliary. Among the group's artifacts are a gavel, a bible and an altar cloth.
Photo by Jim Craven
By VICKI GUARINO
Getting rid of the money was the easy part.
The Medford World War I Veterans Auxiliary, down to three members, has turned over its treasury to the Veterans Affairs Domiciliary in White City. The $925.82 will be spent on computer equipment for residents enrolled in classes.
"Nothing to it," says auxiliary member Iva Brady, "We all agreed it will help more than one bunch of boys.
"We were lucky. We knew what we wanted to do, and we did it before something happened."
But the rest of the business of closing down one of Oregon's last World War I veterans groups is a sad, necessary and somewhat bewildering endeavor.
Age has taken its toll on the membership in Jackson County and elsewhere in Oregon and around the nation. As one of just a few surviving members of the Medford auxiliary, Brady, 91, wonders what to do with the auxiliary's remaining possessions.
She still has the organization's charter, which recognizes the group's formation in 1956, its Bible, altar cloth and gavel.
She also has a plaque commemorating years of service, and a letter thanking the women for their last gift to veterans.
"It's with tremendous pride and gratitude that we accepted your organization's final donation before closing of the local chapter," domiciliary administrator Anna Diehl wrote.
"I don't know what we do with those things," Brady says.
And as the auxiliary's last office secretary, Brady also has stashed away in her Medford apartment decades' worth of auxiliary record books. Meeting minutes, reports of auxiliary-hosted dances and other projects at the domiciliary all were duly noted with the notion of preserving the past, but not necessarily preparing for the future.
"You don't think about this darned thing stopping," says Brady, who kept many of the records. "You think you'll want to look back and you keep them."
There was a time when the auxiliary women did consult the records frequently. Those were the days when membership hovered near 100; when Brady and others mended clothes and kept a social services office for "the boys" at the domiciliary.
More to the point, those were the days when there simply were more members and everyone was younger and more active. These days, the veterans of the First World War are pushing 100. A couple in Oregon actually have pushed past the century mark.
Nationwide, only about 8,000 World War I veterans are living.
Like the veterans themselves, the groups they organized are dying of old age.
The auxiliary in Ashland and the local World War I veterans barracks disbanded some time back. Brady's husband, a member of that barracks, died more than 10 years ago.
Auxiliary Oregon District President Ethel Holstin, Grants Pass, says she's presiding over the dissolution of the Oregon groups. She knows she'll be the last state president because no one has been elected to replace her. Only three World War I auxiliaries have renewed their state memberships this year.
"Last year it was five," says Holstin.