Apr 24, 2018 2 min read

With membership declining to fewer than 10 widows, a grange is about to close in Nottingham Township after surviving for more than a century.

Ginger Hill Grange 1549 announced its closing this month in a letter to its membership, stating that active members can no longer do the needed fundraising to pay its bills.

“Granges are closing right and left,” said Sally Holets, the organization’s master.

“Like everything else we’re all going down the tubes,” Holets said.

Granges were organized as social clubs for farmers and others who live in rural areas,” said Walter Seal of Monongahela, a member who is not active in the group.

He said he paid his annual membership dues to honor his late mother, Ida Mae Donley Seal, who was a former secretary at the grange. Seal said the club held fundraisers to pay for his mother’s funeral and tombstone.

“They loved her. She didn’t have life insurance,” he said.

The grange has a long history of raising money to help out its neighbors who were in need because of a house fire, vehicle accident or health problem.

“It was a wholesome, family-oriented organization that helped people who were down and out,” Seal said.

Holets said there are only a handful of granges left in Washington County, including one in Buffalo and another in Long Branch. There is also another one of the clubs in nearby Rostraver Township.

Greene County once had 46 granges, but only a few of them are still active, state grange records indicate. Washington County once had more than 60 of the clubs.

The Ginger Hill club was organized in 1913 and took residence in a building at 3389 Route 136.

Holets said it costs about $10,000 a year to keep the building open and because of dwindling membership the group is preparing to list the building for sale.

She said it could easily be repurposed as an office, day care center or catering business. The proceeds from the sale will go to the Pennsylvania State Grange.

“Young people don’t want to join us,” Holets said.