When Illine Davila unlocks the doors of the Coconut Grove Woman’s Club on the day of an event, she pauses to greet an empty room.
“Good morning, ladies,” she says as she enters the 1921 clubhouse — a nod of recognition to the women who walked these floors more than a century ago.
Davila, the club’s current president, said she often finds herself thinking of the women who came before her.
“I believe some of them are here still,” Davila told the Spotlight.
One hundred and thirty-five years ago this month, six of Coconut Grove’s earliest settlers – all women – began meeting in a local school house.
The women organized themselves in February 1891 as the Housekeepers Club of Coconut Grove, determined to make a difference — initially by raising money for a new school house.
As the club’s membership grew, so did its aspirations.
Within a few short years, club members were working to protect the Everglades, support World War I soldiers, and establish the Coconut Grove Library.
The legacy those women left behind continues to guide the organization today, although the name has changed and the list of projects has been updated.
The women (and a few men) who belong to the Coconut Grove Woman’s Club today are working to combat human trafficking, feed the hungry, protect the environment, and advance the cultural life of the community they call home.
“The club keeps growing and we’re a force to be reckoned with,” said Carol White, who chairs the club’s Human Trafficking Awareness & Prevention committee.
READ MORE: A Coconut Grove church launches lessons in Black history
The Resurgence of the Woman’s Club
Earlier this month, the Woman’s Club opened its doors at the corner of South Bayshore Drive and McFarlane Road as it does every month for its general membership meeting. In poured women of all ages, backgrounds, and careers until the room was full.
“It was wall to wall,” Davila recalled. “You couldn’t stand in there. It was great.”
As the club celebrates its 135th anniversary this weekend with a sold-out gala, its membership ranks have grown to 185 members — the highest ever.
There’s a lot to celebrate this year, club members say, but that wasn’t always the case. Forty years ago, the club had trouble attracting and keeping members. The few who remained met mostly for potluck meals and social gatherings.
Local artist Cynthia Shelley remembers the time she knocked on the club’s door, seeking a place where she might “lend a hand” to her community.
She recalls walking up to the club’s historic coral rock building one day in 1984 and asking the woman at the door, “Are you in fact doing what I’ve heard you’re famous for?” — a reference to the club’s past work in the community.
“And she said, ‘No, not right now.’ So I said, ‘Thank you,’ and left.”
In her view, the Woman’s Club had lost its way.
Twenty-four years later, Shelley knocked on the club’s door again. This time she walked into a room of 100 or so active members. A “vortex” of women had embraced the club, she said, ready to build it back up. The club is now one of her proudest commitments.
“The club is overflowing with committees that are involved in community needs,” Shelley said. “It is thriving. It is the place to be.”
How the club went from local powerhouse to poorly attended potlucks may have something to do with shifting attitudes in the last half of the 20th century.
In 1957 when the club changed its name to the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove to appeal to younger generations, the word “white” was also added as a requirement for membership.
What had been an integrated club for all women, Black and white, so long as those members were of “high moral standards,” was now segregated.
That “white-only” provision did not last long, getting scratched in 1972. But the separation could not be undone. The same year the club embraced segregation, the Coconut Grove Negro Women’s Club was established.
The women of the Grove who had once stood together were estranged, and the effect of that separation remains today. Davila said bridging that divide is one of her main goals as club president.
“I still feel like there’s a bizarre wall that we have to bust,” she said.
The Coconut Grove Negro Women’s Club, still active today, links with WCCG on occasion, especially for their senior citizen Christmas party, but Davila’s “biggest want” is for this to be a more frequent and natural connection.
It’s a mission that she holds close to her heart, based in part on the experience of her mother — a Cuban immigrant hairdresser living in Hialeah — who felt less-than her wealthier clients in Miami Shores.
Davila says she often reflects on how those women showed up at her mother’s door when she was dying of cancer, cooking for her in her final months.
“That’s where my love of sisterhood and womanhood happened,” Davila said.
As the first Cuban-American to serve as president of the Woman’s Club, Davila wants her time in leadership to be defined by unity and engagement, for women of all ages, careers, and backgrounds.
“I have scientists, I have NASA astronauts, I have UM professors, architects, whatever you can think of,” she said.
For the first time in decades, club members say, women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are joining in large numbers.
“I would say our majority is not retired women anymore,” Shelley said.
“You need the next generation,” adds Jessica de Vreeze. When de Vreeze joined the club five years ago, she was in her 40s, which made her one of the youngest members.
Today, she is working to engage youth through the Juniorette Club of Coconut Grove, a sister club that she organized with her teenage daughter for girls 12-18 who want to learn about service.
The Woman’s Club also now includes men. Greg Breidenbach hosts the club’s popular bingo contests and serves as vice president — a first for the club.
Navigating male membership is a new facet to the organization, but one Davila embraces, especially given how many newcomers are moving into the Grove. The club offers them a chance to find connection.
“At the end of the day, people just want community, to take care of each other, and it’s grown, and people are happy and they want to come,” Davila said.
The club’s lively Facebook page helps to cement that connection, by celebrating the personal milestones of members, and the work of the club itself.
The emphasis on work — and purpose — is deliberate, members say.
“This was no knitting club and it still isn’t,” White said. “We’re out there working hard.”
The Woman’s Club was one of the first clubs of its kind to make human trafficking a priority. Those efforts began in 2018 with a speaker series designed to educate young girls, women and people of all kinds about the dangers and reality of human trafficking.
White, who chairs the club’s human trafficking committee, also leads self-defense workshops and helps lead seminars in schools, teaching kids how to identify and avoid trafficking.
The club’s seven other committees are working on their own projects, which include the Coconut Grove Theatre Festival and the Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry.
That commitment and purpose is what motivates archivist Diana Ramos, selected as volunteer of the year in 2014.
“It’s a space where I can go to and be around like-minded individuals that want to give of themselves,” she said.
It’s also part of the club’s legacy.
“It was created 135 years ago by women that didn’t have the right to vote, didn’t have the right to own property. They decided to get together and make a real impact, a positive impact in the society,” de Vreeze said.
“To be in such a club that has such a history, it’s really special.”
This story was originally published in the Coconut Grove Spotlight, a WLRN News partner.
