Building Community: Women's Organizations

This is your cookbook. You will treasure it because of the personal recipes of friends. It will be your novel souvenir of the McNary construction world. There will be only one - the first edition. Delay means disappointment. Don't envy your friends when they show off their Co-En-Da cookbook. Order early through Mesdames. Dorothy Hilziger, Co-En-Da Cookbook Project Chairman

Front cover of the Co-En-Da cookbook. Click on image to view selections and drawings,
including "How to Cook a Husband." Courtesy of Umatilla Museum and Historical Foundation

    Women helped develop community institutions and activities at McNary and in Umatilla. While women of Umatilla formed hospital auxiliaries and garden clubs to beautify the bustling community, the women of McNary created CO-En-Da, an auxiliary of the McNary Recreation Association. Formed in 1950 with the words contractor, engineer, and dam as the basis of the club's name, the "Corps of Engineers' Dames," members had husbands who worked on the dam. Co-En-Da sponsored movies, parties, Camp Fire Girls and entertainment, bringing transient dam building families together with long-term residents.

Selections from Co-En-Da Cookbook

"Letter by Ernie Rosholt" outgoing president of the McNary Recreation Association " in "The Sage Hen," McNary Dam Newsletter, circa 1951

forward

Photo Archive * Documents Archive
Oral History Archive    
Bibliography & Web Resources