HISTORY OF WELCOME WAGON – NEWCOMERS CLUB
By Gladys Smart
In 1928 William Briggs, a former newspaper man, had a vision of restoring some of
the frontier day hospitality, and he established Welcome Wagon, Inc. Mr. Briggs was
a man of high principles and high ideals. The headquarters was established in
Memphis, Tennessee and later we had offices in New York and San Francisco.
In1948 Ruth Short was asked to establish Welcome Wagon Service in the Reno/Sparks
area and a few years later in the Las Vegas area. The Welcome Wagon Newcomers’
Clubs of Reno and Sparks were a Community outreach of the WW Service, and
offered members a unique opportunity for taking part in Civic and community life, as
well as contributing their time and efforts to worthwhile charitable and humanitarian
projects, and above all, making a host of new friends.
The Sparks Club had their first luncheon Meeting March 20, 1952 (Dues were $1.00)
and Reno had their first Luncheon on March 27, 1952 with Mrs. R. Oliver as the first
President. The decorative theme carried out “launching of the new Club” and featured
small boats of blue and white with red anchors and a larger boat filled with yellow
daffodils. Among other activity groups established in 1955, we had a choral group of
seventeen members who entertained at luncheons and other civic meetings.
In 1989, during the presidency of Nancy Rumburg, Welcome Wagon Newcomers’
Club amended the by-laws to better meet the needs of the area. In so doing, they had
to drop the incorporated name of Welcome Wagon and became Newcomers’ Club.
The motto established in 1989 “There are no strangers here, only friends we have not
met” is very meaningful to me.
Gladys B. Smart was a Welcome Wagon Newcomers’ hostess from 1953-1976. She
attended Welcome Wagon Newcomers’ meetings in early 1953 and was secretary for
the service from 1953-1955. She trained in Pasadena, CA and started calling on
families as a hostess in 1955.
This page was last modified on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 11:59 AM