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Many people have never heard of the Grange, so the first question I get is "Grange - What's that?" Well, I can tell you what the Grange is to me, but if you follow the links provided here & follow the GrangeNet Web Ring, you'll get a better picture of what the Grange is, how it started, & what some of it's members are like.
Grange is a community service organization. It started out as an agricultural organization, uniting farmers all over the country & giving them a voice in government. At one time it was a very powerful political group (you might even remember that Charles Ingalls was a member in "Little House on the Prairie".) While it's interests have expanded, it is still a strong supporter of agricultural issues. Nowadays, it has increased it's concerns to deaf awareness and environmental issues.
An interesting fact about the Grange is that it is totally supported by it's membership. It does not rely on outside funds at all. In fact, through community activities and fund raisers, it tends to be one of the more generous supporters of charities.
On a personal level, the Grange is like my family (not just because many of my family belongs to Grange.) Because when you join Grange, there are lots of friendly people, who know the value of human kindness and morality. They know how great it is to be able to belong to an organization that values family time, gives young kids positive role models, teaches leadership & focuses the youth on positive activities.
I don't want to sound preachy, but the Grange has been a big influence on my life. I never even realized what it did for me as a woman, because I grew up in the 70's when the Women's Movement was just starting. I never paid much attention to feminism, because in Grange equality was kind of taken for granted. I guess it goes back to the farm family, where the woman always played a major role on the farm. Her work was always valued. Grange never made a big deal about treating women equally to men - they just did it. This attitude gave me a lot of self-confidence. Today I am a computing professional & have earned the respect of many people that I work with. I don't think I would be where I am today if I didn't have such a great foundation when I was growing up.
There's one woman who was especially influential to me. Carolyn Haynes was a distant cousin of mine, but in a small town like Middletown Springs, VT - family is family. I was closer to Carolyn's children than to my first cousins that I rarely saw. Carolyn was the leader of my Junior Grange. Thanks to her, I traveled around Vermont starting at a very young age. She also instilled respect for the Grange rituals, which I never really appreciated until recently. Carolyn died some years ago, and I regret never having thanked her properly for all that she did for me.
OK, on that sad note, I'll let you wander to other sites. Here are the links to other Grange sites, as I promised earlier.
 OK, I was kicked off the GrangeNet because
I'm really awful about keeping my site up to date. But these links should still work
to get you to other GrangeNet
sites. You can email me at SuePowers. Want to join the "GrangeNet" web ring? |
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