Mendon May Day 1913
Hazel Muir Queen of May
Mendon Will Hold Glorious May Day
Mendon, April 28th— There will be a grand May Day celebration in Mendon on Saturday the tenth instant. All the committees having the arrangements in charge have been busy for a week and have been very successful in their efforts to have a good time on that day. The program for the day will be carried out as follows: May Queen, Miss Hazel Muir, Consort, Norman Watkins. Maids of honor, Edna Ladle, Elgin Lemmon, Algie Barrett, May Wennergren, Irene Bird and Monta Hancock.
Morning exercises will commence at ten o’clock. Song, Maying,
choir. Maypole dance, fourteen girls. Crowning of the Queen. The balance of the morning program will be given in the ward house. Song by choir; prayer; song, school chorus; speech of welcome by Elmer J. Hancock; monologue, Linden K. Wood; piano duet, Elease Barker, and Ethel Sorensen; recitation, Clara Watkins; vocal solo, Clifford C. Watkins; reading, Spring
Vance D. Walker; vocal solo, Lucile Bird; duet, Clinton Baker, Retta Walker; reading, Joseph H. Watkins; ladies quartet, The Ladies Quartet; closing.
Afternoon Field Sports. Commencing at two p.m. Boys' race under eight years. Girls race under eight years. Boys' race between eight and twelve. Girls race between eight and twelve. Three legged race, all ages. High jump between twelve and sixteen. High jump free-for-all. One-hundred yard dash free-for-all. Fifty yard dash all over fifty years. One-half mile race free-for-all. Rope jumping race free-for-all, girls. Fat Man’s race. Relay race, officers and teachers of Sunday school against rest of school. Prizes will be given for the above events. Following these events there will be a baseball game— married men vs. single men of Mendon. Lee Colby, captain single men; Clifford C. Watkins, captain married men. It is expected this will be an exciting game as the teams are very evenly matched. A grand ball will close the days exercises.
All are very cordially invited to come and enjoy a typical May Day. Something doing from the time the maypole dance starts in the morning until the medley at twelve o’clock p.m. The weather, we can not say much about, it’s so changeable. The farmers have done some hurry-up work. Over half the beet acreage is now planted, which is the largest in the history of the industry here. Go West young man and grow up with the country,
is the slogan here. There is a good crop of Mendon's out West somewhere, there has been such a moving in that direction of so many of our people since the good weather began. We miss them in our ward, but would not put a straw in the way of any who desire to secure a chunk of Uncle Sam's
domain while there is an opening. Success to you.1
Hazel Muir
Mendon has always had the tradition of May Day. Hazel was crowned May Day queen. There was a maypole dance and a program with the crowning of the queen. After lunch at home, all came back for races, tug-of-wars, greased pig chase and ball games. Later in the evening there was a dance. It was here that Hazel first met Denver Copen, (her husband to be).
Clella M. Ladle
Another thing the children look forward to is dancing the maypole on May Day. We always felt sorry when we got too large to dance the maypole because we sure had good times practicing the different steps, especially My Aunt Sally
for so many years. This crowd (in reference to a photo of maypole dancers, taken against the north side of the 1865 rock church house) danced many years together. Our teachers were Jane Hughes and Ethel Sorensen Walker.
We always practiced at Jane Hughes home, eating nuts from the trees that had fallen the fall before. The girls were always dressed in white with colored sashes, the large ones one color and the smaller ones another and a bow of ribbon on the side of our hair. But today they use paper dresses of different color.
Notes…
During the Great Depression of the 1930's, Mendon used paper dresses for the maypole dancers to keep costs down. If these paper dresses got wet, it is said that the color would run.The photograph of the May Day dancers was taken on the north side of the 1865 rock church in 1913.