Homestake Ladies' Auxiliary Records

The first meeting of the Ladies Auxiliary was called to order on January 15, 1910 with the election of officers. Three hundred members of the auxiliary were present to vote. The officers were: President – Mrs. J.W. McMakin, Vice President – Mrs. Charles Parsons, Secretary – Mrs. R.H. Driscoll, Treasurer – Mrs. J.A. Archibald, Trustees – Mesdames Con Green, Mahion Lang, and James Wilkie. Elections were held each year thereafter during the January meeting. The Auxiliary met the first Tuesday of each month to discuss business, vote on allocation of funds, and schedule deliveries of donations.

The group was an Auxiliary of the Loyal Legion which had been formed ten days earlier on January 5, 1910 in direct opposition to the Lead Miners’ Union and its affiliates. Loyal Legion members were hopeful that their pledges of not unionizing would convince the Homestake Mining Company to reopen the doors of their properties which had been closed for nearly six weeks due to a company imposed lockout. The Loyal Legion was successful. A small group of non-union workers returned to work the next week.

The Ladies Auxiliary was created to alleviate strife caused by the lockout, to continue their charitable works, and improve the town after Homestake was back up and running at full capacity. In August of 1910 the Homestake Mining Company founded the Homestake Aid Association and the auxiliary of the Loyal Legion became the The Ladies Auxiliary to the Homestake Aid Association. (Shortened to Homestake Aid Auxiliary, HAA, in 1927.) The Homestake Aid Association allowed the Ladies Auxiliary to continue to help the people of Lead and surrounding mining districts.

At the first meeting in 1910 members of the Auxiliary drew six wards and assigned a chairwoman to each ward. The chairwoman was charged with getting to know the people and the specific needs within their ward and bringing them to the attention of the Auxiliary at the monthly meetings. The HAA provided donations in many forms including financial assistance, food and milk, clothing, coal, and lumber. Recipients of the donations included families, the elderly, and the disabled. During the holidays additional donations of food, money, and toys for children were collected and distributed by the HAA. The HAA raised funds through monthly dues, bazaars, bake sales, and suppers along with donations from local businesses and private citizens. The donations collected and distributed were carefully recorded during the monthly meetings by both the HAA treasurer and secretary. Large scale events such as World War I and the Great Depression led to an increase in the amount of need for HAA assistance, as is made evident by the meeting minutes.

Over the following decades a number of other Auxiliaries were created in Deadwood and Lead. These groups were often tasked with helping many of the same people for which the HAA had been providing relief. The American Legion Auxiliary was created in 1919 and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Auxiliary also established an office after the end of World War II. By the early 1980s members of the HAA agreed there was not as much need for their services as there had been in the past and meetings were held only four times a year. After 1989 the HAA became entirely inactive.