Happy Birthday, Lorain Elks!

It was great to see the article in the Morning Journal over the weekend about the Lorain Elks Lodge No. 1301 celebrating its 100th Birthday today.

If you missed it, you can find it online here.

It's no small achievement, seeing as how many of the other fraternal organizations in Lorain have disappeared over the years. So it's wonderful to see the Lorain Elks thriving in the 2000s. Lorain is richer for it, especially with all the good that the organization does for the community.

I've mentioned my family's Elks connection on the blog before. My mother's father, Louis Bumke, was an Elk.

That's why it was such a nice surprise to see Grandpa in one of the archival photos featured in the Morning Journal article on the Elks. That's him in the sweater on the left-hand side of the photo, chomping on his cigarette holder. I still associate that particular item with him.

Courtesy Morning Journal and Lorain Elks

It's fitting for Grandpa to appear in the Morning Journal, because he worked there for years as a linotype machine operator; he fixed them too. 

Anyway, I digress. Happy Birthday, Elks! Hope you are around for another hundred years!