Once a month for the past 100 years — and sometimes even more — a group of area women have gathered for common interests.

The women, part of a group called the Tuesday Literary Club, originally came together as an emergency choir for the First Lutheran Church. However, as time went on, they took up reading short stories and poems and studied their heritage.

Though they came from all over town to attend, their friendships blossomed and the club became a regular part of their life.

On Tuesday, because of declining membership and the passing of some of its members, the Tuesday Literary Club members held their final meeting to celebrate 100 years of operation and reminisce about how far they’d come.

The 11 remaining members talked of memories as they ate a luncheon in the First Lutheran Church parlor.

“It’s really been a wonderful group for friendships,” said Lucy Hansen, who presently is the longest participant in the club.

Hansen, who was invited to join the club by a neighbor, Helen Olson, 33 years ago, said her favorite things about the club were the friendships she developed and the large amount of subjects about which she was able to learn.

Though some of the members have been with the club for a shorter period of time than Hansen, the impact has been the same.

Charlotte Hovey, who had the longest history of membership — 64 years — recently passed away.

When the group originally organized in 1909, it was called the Norse Club.

The choir at First Lutheran Church was unable to attend some of the funeral services at the time, so to relieve the choir of some of its burden, a few women decided to organize and call themselves the emergency choir.

They met every other week to practice singing.

Later, they started reading short stories and poems and fully organized the club with officers and bylaws.

They adopted the name Norse Literary Club in April of that year and began studying the history of Norway.

In 1916 or 1917, they broke away from Norse history and started to study more of American history and its authors.

Membership increased so that a membership limit of 30 members was enacted.

In 1917, during World War I, the club’s name was changed to the Tuesday Literary Club.

Each time the group met there would be someone assigned as hostess and another as the person in charge of the program. Each woman would take turns.

They even adopted club colors and a club song.

To be a part of the club, a woman had to be invited by another member and then voted in by the rest of the group.