Quincy celebrates moms, fashion

Garden party provides 'unofficial' kickoff to Grant County centennial

QUINCY - Several Columbia Basin resident moms and daughters spent Saturday learning about the women who came before them and what they wore.

The historic Quincy 1904 Reiman-Simmons House turned its annual Mother's Day tea into a garden party Saturday afternoon.

Members of the Sagebrush Flats area group the SageHens put on a historic fashion show featuring the history of women from Grant County and fashions from 1899 to 1919.

SageHens member Beverly Mayer made the dresses for the show, save for an authentic bridal dress which was on display outside the tent where the party was held.

"We're a rural group of neighbors, there's 12 of us, and two of us are involved with the Grant County Centennial Commission," Mayer explained. "Our idea was to promote ladies dressing in historic costumes in 2009 for the county centennial. We do different things like this, our group."

The program included the fashions of period homesteaders, schoolteachers, professionals, musicians, restauranteurs, shop owners, civic personalities and suffragettes, with Mayer providing commentary about early day ladies.

"They are actual stories," Mayer said. "We used patterns, ideas, pictures and hats to reproduce (the dresses)."

The SageHens have been a group for more than 30 years.

Longtime area resident Faye Mayer, of Ephrata, was on hand for the tea party, and noted she had a familial connection right on the historical house site: Her parents were married in the old church the Quincy Valley Historical Society is in the process of restoring, which neighbors the Reiman-Simmons house.

Faye Mayer estimated her parents were married in the church in 1904. Her husband's parents arrived in the area in 1901.

"I have been in this area since 1933, since I moved from Plain, Wash., to go to high school," she said. "I'm interested in my heritage and history. And I know a lot of these ladies."

"This is the first one we've done as a lawn party," Quincy Valley Historical Society President Annie Rapp noted of the society's annual teas.

The SageHens approached the society about using the historical house as a venue for their fashion show, Rapp said.

Harriet Weber, Reiman-Simmons volunteer public events coordinator, believes similar events may take place, especially considering the historic house now has its first exhibit inside. The outdoor lawn party proved a good solution, she said.

Weber told the audience the tea party served as an "unofficial" kickoff of sorts for Grant County's centennial celebration in 2009.

"I think this is really significant," she said. "It's not an official centennial event, but it is one of the first events the county will see many of coming up in 2009."

Soap Lake filmmaker Kathy Kiefer was recording the event on hand, Weber noted, as part of efforts to get stories on film on a larger scale. The program will be produced on DVD for the public.

"They're hoping to actually do this more during the centennial year at various places," Weber said of the SageHen's fashion show. "So that's one thing I would like to get that word out (about), so they can do it again, after going to all this trouble."