The Laura Dainty Pelham Memorial, ca. 1924

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THE "LAURA DAINTY PELHAM COTTAGE" AT BOWEN COUNTRY CLUB FOR HULL-HOUSE

A Laura Dainty Pelham Memorial

After the death of Mrs. Pelham on January 22, 1924, many of her friends expressed their desire to contribute towards a permanent memorial which should commemorate her gallant spirit, her varied activities, her outgoing friendliness.

It was finally decided to build a cottage at the Bowen Country Club which should bear her name --  The Laura Dainty Pelham Memorial Cottage. The Bowen Country Club, situated on seventy-two acres of wooded land lying between Sheridan Road and the Lake, a mile north of Waukegan, is the property of Hull-House Association. It is used every summer for children's outings, during the spring and autumn for conventions and social gatherings, and all the year for week end parties.

Mrs. Pelham constantly turned to the Club for rest and recreation and had spent a happy vacation there in company with the Hull-House Players only three weeks before her death. Largely due to her enthusiasm, the Hull-House organizations with which she was identified had made frequent gifts of all sorts of equipment to the Bowen Country Club and were planning this year to raise money for a new cottage. It therefore seems fitting to carry out this plan in her name.

The estimated cost of the cottage, housing twenty-five people, is $10,000. Of this sum $1,000 has already been pledged by the three Hull-House organizations which Mrs. Pelham had founded; another $1,500 by former and present Hull-House residents with whom she lived in such a fine comradeship.

A committee of old friends, some of them representing activities to which she generously gave her time and energy to the very end, hopes to complete the sum as quickly as possible, that the Laura Dainty Pelham Memorial Cottage may be built this summer. For this they ask the help of her many friends.