(Look Back with Bob Enoch - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

The Village Improvement Society was formed in the 1890s. It was made up of a group of determined women who knew how to get things done for the betterment of Parkersburg. Their activities, based on meeting minutes of that organization, were written about by Marie Wood in a 1951 news article. Her news item continues:

The [VIS] financed publication of a small booklet on “Parkersburg, the City Beautiful,” checked unsightly vacant lots and reported location of same with owners to the sanitation officer, whose appointment they finally obtained; got an ordinance passed forbidding the use of “[drain] gratings as cuspidors” and became gravely concerned when “Mr. Boreman, president of the Board of Education, said owing to financial conditions” there could be no sanitary drinking cups in schools for the present.

They launched a movement to get school books fumigated, a medical inspector for schools and purchased some books on health and sanitation for the public library.

They set up a “Gift Day” to raise money for VIS activities and concluded that program with paying out $126 for supplies and help, against a total income of $175.

They screamed about lack of enforcement of quarantine rules, took cognizance of a complaint “about disreputable families on Lynn St.,” and the fact that garbage “was not collected on an alley near 13th St., the collector claiming that it was impossible to do so on account of so much broken glass and bottle.”

They objected to the careless “manner of distributing handbills” and “the use of public wastebaskets by private families as deposits for old clothes and rubbish,” and agreed that curfew problems should be considered.

They also approved appointment of a police matron and agreed to use “the influence of the Society for this purpose,” along with encouraging the establishment of a crematory for disposal of trash of the city.

The summer of 1911 they purchased 1,000 fly posters and named a committee to confer with the city relative to framing an ordinance for abatement of the fly nuisance.

Occasionally they failed in a mission, as when they sought to get retail merchants to close at 6 p.m. Saturdays by attempting to bring the necessary pressure by petitions left in the stores to be signed by clerks and customers.

This was “not a success; it did not seem to be practical at this time,” according to minutes of a later session.

The Masons were asked to trim trees on their Ninth and Market St. property, and the telephone company was asked to remove fallen limbs of trees “caused by their work.”

The ladies had an association for each cemetery and collected money for keeping up the cemeteries. They interested themselves in the chicken nuisance and went to the health officer about it.

They finally conceded that their dream of a crematory would have to wait, even after the mayor reported himself in favor of it, but pointed out, alas, funds were not available at present. But the ladies were thanked “for the interest manifested.”

Frequently also the ladies found reports of activities of Village Improvement Societies in other places, such as Minneapolis, Pennsylvania, or Stockbridge, Mass., where the organization was formed.

Excerpt from The Parkersburg News,

Nov. 11, 1951

NOTE — While the local VIS faded away years ago, throughout the country there are numerous Village Improvement Societies still working diligently to improve their towns.

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Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.