ROCK ISLAND

Mrs. A. H. McCandless, a leading literary woman of Rock Island , made the following statement relative to the work done by the women's clubs in that city:

"You probably know, as I should have told you in the beginning, that ours is noticeably not a club city, and I fear that it will not make a strong showing. I have thought much about the reason why there are so few clubs here and I cannot solve it. It certainly is not for lack of culture and intellectual people, for Rock Island abounds in these. It just seems as though the club germ has never taken hold to a great extent. You see, I find myself inventing excuses instead of subject matter."

Notwithstanding the above statement, which may be accepted in a general way, she gives the names of several interesting clubs, literary and musical, a German club, the Kings' Daughters, who are doing good work, and Daughters of the American Revolution, who have already left an indelible impression of their existence in a fine monument which marks the site of old Fort Armstrong, one of the outposts of civilization in this locality for so many years. The monument was erected and paid for by the Rock Island chapter of this organization, and not by the state.

While the passing years are changing into the slow growing centuries, the traveler crossing the continent by either of the two great transcontinental routes that intersect at this point, the railway that thunders along its path from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Mississippi, sweeping on from the land of northern pines to the groves of rustling palms, will see standing in simple and unobstrusive grandeur, this monument, the gift of Rock Island's women to their city and their state.

 

Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois

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