Meeting for lunch for over 20 years

By BETHANY ROLFSON

The Western News

Longterm friendship is the link between a group of women who have met for lunch every Friday the past few decades.

Four women, all between the ages of 70 to 90, sat at a booth in the corner of the Venture Inn Restaurant last Friday, as they have every Friday for lunch for at least the last 20 years.

They go back as far as high school, with the ‘new’ friends going back a few years after graduation.

Like any friend group, these women laugh and tease each other over their lunch.

At the restaurant, the group’s running joke is that they’re rambunctious — and proud of it.

In fact, even the staff joke with them that they can hear them across the restaurant.

“We love each other and we have a good time,” group member Jo Gilden said.

They often reminisce the “good old days,” during which they danced, listened to live music and laughed. The remember the people who either moved away long ago or who have passed on. They remember the way Libby used to be.

The economy was booming, there were jobs to go around and downtown was full of business.

People, they said, were happier in Libby then.

Hazel Halsey moved to the area in the 1950s, around the same time GIlden moved to the area. Pat Warrington is a true native, and Carol Crismore is the newcomer, moving to Libby in 1971. Peggy Moe, a member who wasn’t there that day, moved in the late 1940s.

Halsey remarked that they used to dance together at the Libby Dance Club in the basement of the Venture Inn. During those days, the the club had a live band and a midnight lunch.

Warrington also noted that some of them played bridge together for many years, and used to go on her pontoon and make daiquiris.

Although they’ll still go on the pontoon together there’s been no daiquiris lately, not because they don’t drink anymore, but because Warrington forgot how to make them.

The pool was open and the high school was Class A.

“We thought we were really living,” Gilden said.

They continue to get together outside of the lunches to play cards and host birthday parties. Through the week, they stay in contact with phone calls.

“Being through a lot together” doesn’t just include the good times. They’ve also been through loss together — loss of family members and friends. Two of the women are widows.

“We’ve lost spouses, children, grandchildren…” Gilden said.

“We meet for support,” Crismore chimed in.

“But it’s not a support group, we’re just longtime friends, me and Pat used to...” Gilden began as Warrington finished “live in the same neighborhood.“

They often finish each other’s sentences, and they never run out of things to talk about.

During the lunch, they watch as people walk in the restaurant and remark, “that’s so-and-so, son of so-and-so, who used to own that-one-business which was purchased by so-and-so.”

Sometimes they delve into mysteries such as “who was so-and-so’s wife?” Which involves a back and forth between the women, a friendly debate that’s eventually resolved and come to rest with “that’s right!” They then lean back, look up, victorious.

Then they proceed to solve the next mystery.

“We write history here,” Halsey said.

“Sometimes we rewrite history because none of us can remember,” Crismore joked, as the whole table erupted into laughter.

To outsiders, these women may seem forgetful, but few who get to witness them interact see that they have a combined, deep knowledge of the area’s history.

Some of them have owned businesses in the area, such as Warrington’s Pat’s Market. All of their husbands worked, as either loggers, excavators or miners. Crismore’s husband cut down the 1989 Capitol Christmas Tree, and her and other group member Halsey traveled with the tree during its journey that year.

They also talk about the current happenings around town, their families and other current events.

But they never discuss religion or politics.

As they come to the end of their time together, they ask if everyone is going to be there for next week’s lunch.