Abstract
Pat Pogue is an active member of the Shaker community. She was in charge of the Welcome Wagon for 37 years in Shaker Heights until 1999 when the national organization did away with their community representatives. Pogue loved welcoming newcomers so much that she began a program called the Welcome Basket where she fulfilled the same duties of the Welcome Wagon, but under a different name. She tells stories of her Welcome Wagon experiences and how the organization is an asset to the Shaker Community. Pogue is also a member of the Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights. Along with her Welcome Wagon antidotes, she shares the history of the church's origins and current involvement in the community.
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Interviewee
Pogue, Pat (Interviewee)
Interviewer
Halligan-Taylor, Gabriella (interviewer)
Project
Shaker Heights Centennial
Date
8-1-2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
33 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Pat Pogue interview, 01 August 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 915032.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/508
Transcript
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:01] You go ahead and just say your name in today’s date.
Pat Pogue [00:00:04] My name is Pat Pogue. It’s August 1, 2012.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:10] And let’s go ahead and start right with the questions. When was the Welcome Wagon? Well, first of all, can you explain what the Welcome Wagon is, and then when it was established and who established it?
Pat Pogue [00:00:20] Welcome Wagon is a combination greeting service and advertising services, and we call a newcomer to the community to give them all sorts of community information and maps and gift coupons from local stores. It was started in 1928 by a man named Thomas Briggs, who lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and was a marketing expert. And he was inspired by the early stories of the Conestoga Welcome Wagons that would meet covered wagons full of people going west to settle in California and other western states to meet and greet them and to give them water and food for their journey. And so he conceived of this company, Welcome Wagon, and he hoped it would evoke the same sort of feelings of hospitality and welcome. And he hired a group of women in neighboring towns that were friendly and outgoing and familiar with their communities. And he called them Welcome Wagon, let’s see, what was that? Welcome Wagon hostesses. And their job was to call on the local people to give them community information and maps and so on. Not all the local people, just the new residents. And gradually the concept spread throughout the country and became nationwide.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:02:13] And what brought the need for, you know, this Welcome Wagon?
Pat Pogue [00:02:20] Well, I think you could say that the expansion of the country out to the western states and the fact that people were on the road, on the move, and that the population expanded and more people were moving. You could say that it was a need, but from the point of view of Mr. Bridges, it was, Briggs, rather, it was an opportunity for income. Part of the job of the Welcome Wagon representatives, or hostesses, was to contact local businesses in the surrounding towns and get them to agree to be what were called sponsors. And for a fee, the Welcome Wagon hostess would give a coupon or gift coupon or a card from that particular business to the newcomers they called on. For example, a Welcome Wagon hostess would approach a local town hair salon and ask that person if he would like to offer to the newcomers a free haircut and blow dry. And this would be given to the newcomers. And if the newcomers took the offer up and liked the service they got, like the way their hair looked, then they were likely to become regular customers, if not lifelong customers. And so that’s the way that part worked.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:12] And in Shaker, what kind of brought the need for having it in Shaker?
Pat Pogue [00:04:20] I don’t know that there was exactly a need in Shaker, but it certainly was considered a bonus that we had a service like this for newcomers to help them connect with one another.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:34] Would you say it was kind of like a nice kind of cherry on top, when moving to Shaker?
Pat Pogue [00:04:40] I think so, yes. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:43] And when did you feel compelled to join the Welcome Wagon?
Pat Pogue [00:04:52] Well, it happened that I lived on a street where the Shaker Welcome Wagon hostess lived for Shaker Heights. And I just secretly envied her because I thought it would be so great to be the person to welcome newcomers to Shaker and to answer their questions and make sure that they were happy in their new community. And this envying business went on for several years. But then I got really lucky when I found out that her husband was being transferred to Atlanta. So that left the position open and I applied for it and was accepted. Another part of the duties of the welcome Wagon hostess was to be advisor to the Welcome Wagon clubs. The clubs were organized to offer a get together place for people, newcomers in the community. They generally met once a month, either at a country club or a local restaurant. And they offered all kinds of activity groups. And this is this is the newsletter of the Welcome Wagon Club that I’m affiliated with. You can see it has information about the next luncheon, information about new people who have joined. But most of all, it offers all of these activity groups that people can join. So if you’re new to the area, you cannot only meet others who are newcomers and looking and looking for friends, but you can find people who have the same interests that you do. So these are all of the activity groups that are offered by the Shaker Welcome Wagon Club. We have a gourmet group. We have four different book clubs. We have a luncheon group. We have a play group which has about 40 young moms taking part and they meet at each other’s homes. And we have a wine club and there have been. Oh, and a garden club. There have been various others over the years. And one of the duties of the Welcome Wagon representative was to be the advisor to these clubs. And that’s how I got involved in the Welcome Wagon Club.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:07:27] And those activities are those for newcomers and current residents?
Pat Pogue [00:07:32] Yes, because it would not be too useful to have a bunch of newcomers, none of whom knew anything about the community. So we don’t require people to quit the club after a certain number of years. They can stay in for as long as they like. So we have a nice mix of newcomers and longtime residents.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:07:58] And do you think there is still a need for it in the community?
Pat Pogue [00:08:05] Well, in this Internet age, I’m not nearly as useful to people as I used to be. I used to be able to, I used to be asked to find babysitting co ops, dog boarding kennels, people who could repair stained glass windows, just all kinds of veterinarians. All kinds of activity, all kinds of pieces of information that they would want. Boy Scout troops and so on. And now these days, all of that information is pretty readily available on the Internet. So, I’m not feeling quite so useful as I used to. However, just last week, I called on a newcomer who asked me if I could recommend a swimming pool cleaning service. And he could have looked in the yellow pages and online and found lists of them, but he was looking for an actual recommendation. And since I have a couple of neighbors with pools, I was able to give him a recommendation.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:09:21] And how important do you think is that, you know, that community welcoming, you know, how important do you think that is today, and how important do you think it was, you know, when you first started it?
Pat Pogue [00:09:33] Well, I think probably it was a little more important when I first started at 30, I’ve been doing it for 37 years now. But it still has its place today. People tell me, newcomers tell me over and over again what a nice touch it is, how wonderful they think it is that Shaker offers this service. And they think it does make Shaker stand apart among other communities.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:10:11] And do you think it holds the Shaker community together? Or do you think it’s kind of a result of a well handled community? I hope that question makes sense.
Pat Pogue [00:10:28] It’s an interesting question. I think, I don’t think it can be said to exactly hold the community together. However, I can tell you that I have seen at lunches, as the luncheon is over, people exchanging names and addresses. And I know this means that they’re on the way to meeting others in the community and possibly making lifelong friends. It’s a great feeling to see that happen.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:04] And see it happen over 30 years, right?
Pat Pogue [00:11:10] Yep. Yep.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:12] And do you think the Welcome Wagon in Shaker is unique compared to others?
Pat Pogue [00:11:17] I think it makes Shaker unique because I don’t know of any others in the surrounding suburbs. In 1999, the governing body of Welcome Wagon dismissed all of its representatives around the country. They thought it just wasn’t profitable because more women were working and weren’t at home during the day if a representative called on them. And so we were just terminated. But I enjoyed what I was doing so much that I formed my own version of it which I call Welcome Basket. I couldn’t call it Welcome Wagon, but I call it Welcome Basket, which is actually better because I carry a basket with me with all of the information in it. And young children used to run to the door to see my wagon when they were told it was the Welcome Wagon lady. I could tell you a number of interesting stories about things that happened on my visits to newcomers.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:12:27] Oh, yeah, that’d be great.
Pat Pogue [00:12:28] Okay. I think it was about 20 years ago. There used to be professional hockey club, hockey team in Cleveland. It was called the Cleveland Crusaders. And I called on a young couple who had recently moved to Shaker and learned that they had moved here because he had been recruited by the Cleveland Crusaders. And it just happened that my husband and son had tickets for the game that very night. It was a Friday, and I had not planned to go because I’m not a hockey fan. I did mention, however, that my son and husband were going to the game that night. And the young wife said, you’re not going? Well, I’ve got an extra ticket, I’ll give it to you and then you can go too. I thought that the graceful thing to do would be just accept the ticket and just not go. So she gave me the ticket and I thanked her profusely and went on with my presentation. And as I left the house, she said, well, I’ll see you tonight. That ticket is for the seat right next to mine and we’ll be sitting with all the other team wives. So needless to say, I went to the game that night and I did enjoy it. And on another occasion, I arrived for an appointment with a man at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, Saturday morning. And he turned out to be very young and handsome and single and a doctor. And we went into his living room and sat down on his couch and I started my presentation. And the phone rang and he answered it, and I could tell that it was his girlfriend from Pittsburgh, which is where he had just moved from, I could tell, he said to her, could I call you back in about 10 minutes? I’ve got a visitor. And she obviously asked who it was. And he said, it’s the Welcome Wagon lady. And her voice I could hear, went up about 20 decibels. And she was not believing him, it being so early in the morning and having a female visitor. So he kept saying, I’m telling you the truth. That’s the truth. He actually went out into the kitchen so I couldn’t hear her ranting at him. And he finally came back into the living room and he handed me the phone, and he said, could you please tell me, tell her who you are and what you’re doing here? So I did my very best to convince her that I was indeed the Welcome Wagon lady and not somebody who was just spending time with her boyfriend. And once, as I was leaving newcomer’s house after having made my presentation, I commented on their pretty cat. And she said, well, the cat came with the house. And it turned out that they had bought the house from an elderly couple who had moved to a nearby condominium. And they weren’t allowed to have pets. So they worked out this arrangement so that the previous owners of the house and of the cat would come over to bring cat food, would pick up the cat for visits to the veterinarian, and they would be able to play with the cat when it was out in the yard, and I thought that was really a lovely expression of cooperation between the buyer and seller. And there was another interesting sort of similar story. A young couple told me that the seller’s wife and son had lived with them for the first six weeks after they moved into the house because the seller had taken a job in another city and was required to begin right away. But he wanted his child to be able to finish out the school year in Shaker. So they worked out this collaborative arrangement, and it worked for very well. Kind of unique and kind of wonderful, I thought. And apparently my voice on the telephone makes me sound much younger than I actually am. And I called one man’s name, I just get a list of names, and told him who I was and what I did, and wondered if he would like to have me stop by. And he said, yes, he would, but he’d like to have me come sometime when his roommate was there. And so he would just check up with his roommate and see what time would be convenient that they could both be there. And I heard him say to the roommate, it’s some chick from the Welcome Wagon. I’m sure they were very surprised and possibly disappointed when I turned out to be several decades past chick qualifying age. And they kept calling me ma’am at every possible opportunity. And once I even tried my hand at matchmaking, which would have been strictly against company policy, but I called on this very attractive, very tall, lovely single woman. And when I asked her at the end of my presentation if she had any questions, she said, yes. She said, I’m 30, I want to get married and have a baby. Do you know any single men? I said, well, I do occasionally come across some single men who are newcomers and I’ll sort of keep my eye out for you. And within two weeks, I did come across a very nice single man who was tall enough for her. And he was, I was impressed with his apartment. He had made some of the furniture. And I just got up my courage and said, would you be interested in meeting a single woman who’s interested in meeting someone? She’s new here and so are you. And he said, sure, that’ll be fine. And that was in about October. And at Christmastime I got very nice notes from both of them and a plant from her saying that they had enjoyed each other’s company. She said the spark just wasn’t there, but it was so nice for me to have put them, to try to get them together, and he said that he thought problem was that he had to travel so much for his job. So that didn’t work out. But amazingly, about five years later, I called on this same woman because she had by then a different name. And she said, Pat, do you know who this is? And I said, well, no. She said, it’s Debbie, whatever her previous last name used to be. She said, I’m married and I have a baby. So she was happy. She married someone who had been previously married and had three children already. So it was just one baby that she got to have. But I still see her from occasion to occasion.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:20:20] And do you think all those stories, do you think that would happen anywhere else but Shaker?
Pat Pogue [00:20:26] Well, if people took the trouble to ask and to put themselves out for people. I mean, my children are grown and gone and I’m basically sort of a caretaker type personality. I like to help people. So that’s why it happened. I think in my case, and I can’t speak for other communities.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:20:54] Do you have any more stories to share about the Welcome Basket and Welcome Wagon? Anything you can think of?
Pat Pogue [00:21:05] Well, not in particular. I think those are about the best ones I have. Oh there was one that is not quite so impressive in some ways. I called on a couple of young men, they were recent college graduates and they were newcomers. One of the things I handed out at the time was a brochure from the Red Cross promoting blood donation. And both of these young men said to me, well, when we were in school, everybody in our fraternity used to give blood every Friday night. And of course I gushed and said how civic minded and how wonderful it was for them to do that. And he looked very sheepish and said, well, actually the reason we did it was because with a lower volume of blood in your body, you get drunk faster.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:22:10] Oh, that’s funny. And do you still go from house to house?
Pat Pogue [00:22:18] I still do. It’s gotten very difficult. It used to be that I could call information, free, and get phone numbers for every person on my list. And now nobody has a listed phone number. People have usually no landlines and if they do, then they have privacy manager or something of that nature. And so they don’t recognize my name when I call, so they don’t call me back. So it means that now I have to sort of cruise around on a Saturday for a couple of hours just trying to find people at home. Not to then make the call on them, but just to make the appointment to make the call. Because I always did my calls by appointment. I didn’t just drop in on people. I thought they might not appreciate having to have me come into their house. Maybe their hair wasn’t combed, maybe their living room wasn’t picked up, and so on. So it takes a very dedicated person, I will say, to be able to do it under these circumstances. And another recent development is that people don’t answer their phone, their doorbell, rather after dark. They just don’t. There’s this sort of pervasive fear in the air. I see the mothers walking their children to school and waiting till they get on the bus. My children just walked down to the children and walked down to the corner and waited for the bus. But now they’re escorted on and off. And similarly, people will not answer their doorbell after dark. And in the winter it gets dark by 5 o’clock. So that limits my time a lot, which sort of forces me to concentrate on weekends to try to find people home to make appointments. And people are lovely and appreciative. That helps.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:36] If you don’t mind. Is it okay if I touch on Plymouth Church a little bit?
Pat Pogue [00:24:40] Yeah, that’d be fine.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:43] Plymouth Church. What are kind of, when did you join the church, I guess should be the first question?
Pat Pogue [00:24:50] We joined, I believe, 35 years ago.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:55] Okay, so also right around the time that you started the Welcome Wagon, right?
Pat Pogue [00:24:59] Yeah, pretty much close. That’s right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:02] And did you know anything about the church, its history or anything?
Pat Pogue [00:25:07] Well, we had moved here from Washington, DC, and we lived near the Unitarian Church and we had attended a church in Washington, had a wonderful Unitarian minister, but we actually didn’t do much about going to church until our children got to be Sunday school age. And then we did want them to get some sort of a religious education. So we attended the Unitarian Church. And after about a year we discovered that they were not learning anything about religion. They were learning about the solar system and that sort of thing, which was nice, but we wanted to learn more religious things. So I just began asking around for churches that had good church school programs. And also I had heard great things about Plymouth Church and their canteens that were held for teenagers during the war years. They were very, very popular. And a lot of other activities that went on there that I thought sounded interesting. So we made the switch about that time.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:26:20] And what were the benefits of, you know, switching to Plymouth Church, you know, as individually and then what do you think the benefits are for the community?
Pat Pogue [00:26:31] Well, I think Plymouth Church offers innumerable advantages and opportunities for the community. First of all, we’re an open and affirming church, which means that we accept anybody, any race, any creed, any sexual orientation. And we’re very involved with an inner-city school called Buckeye Woodland. We provide tutors who go there to work with the children on reading. I’ve done that myself for 12 years. We provide people who will serve as judges for their science fair. We provide backpacks with all the supplies needed for the children. Last year we gave 60 of them, and this year we’re going to try to get 120 backpacks for the children. And there are women in our church who knit hats and mittens to be given to the children who need them in the wintertime. And it’s just a very good partnership and we feel good about doing it. And other things that Plymouth offers is the use of their classrooms for organizations in the country, I mean, in the city, such as Cleveland Institute of Music uses our classrooms to give music lessons or rehearsals. And we have daycare center, federally subsidized daycare center in one wing of the church and a preschool in another wing of the church. And we are very involved with the Cleveland Food Bank. We go there to help organize and package supplies for them. We just do all kinds of good in the community. We have a women’s association that has lunches and programs for people. So whatever your interest is, we have a place for you to plug in.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:49] And so what would you say helps you know, not only the Shaker community, but just the Greater Cleveland community as well then?
Pat Pogue [00:28:56] I think it does. It’s a physically beautiful building. It’s a landmark and has been for over 100 years. The architect designed it to be what he called Georgian colonial style, which was the style of the New England churches back in those days. I don’t know whether I mentioned the history of Plymouth Church. It’s very interesting, I think. Back in 1850, a group of people who were attending the Old Stone Church downtown, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, it was Presbyterian. They broke away because they were strong abolitionists and they were unhappy with the fact that the Old Stone Church was just very lukewarm about opposing slavery. And so this group, two years later, in 1952 [1852], organized themselves and called themselves the Plymouth Congregational Church. And they worshiped in various buildings in Cleveland for 60 years. And then they heard about the fact that that free plots of land were being given in Shaker Heights to people who will build churches there. So that’s how they came to be in Shaker Heights. That was in 1916. And it has this soaring steeple and beautiful graceful columns, and it sits on sort of an island of beautiful green lawn, and it’s quite a landmark for the city.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:30:46] Where is Plymouth Church actually located?
Pat Pogue [00:30:50] It’s very close to Shaker Square on Weymouth and South Woodland.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:30:57] Oh, okay. Maybe I’ve been driving past it.
Pat Pogue [00:31:01] You probably would have. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:09] So socially, what was kind of the benefits of the church? Has it always been so community involved since it got here in Shaker?
Pat Pogue [00:31:21] I think it always has been. They had many more activities that were offered just within the church. There were so many activities like scout troops that were organized there, mother daughter banquets, father son banquets, and that sort of thing. Our church had a candy circle, older women who made homemade chocolates that were very much in demand, and those people who are no longer with us so a lot of those things, those traditions have died away, but we’ve made up for it and more than, I think, with our outreach programs.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:32:09] And what do you think makes Plymouth Church so interesting? Do you think it’s long history, or do you think it’s more the people? Or both?
Pat Pogue [00:32:19] Well, I think it is definitely its long history. And we continue the tradition by being such an integrated church and for being open and affirming. And I think the fact that we were early abolitionists, some of those people were actually involved in the Cleveland Underground Railroad, makes us interesting, too.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:32:48] Well, I am all out of questions, so, did you have anything else to share?
Pat Pogue [00:32:57] I think I’m probably out of answers, too.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:32:58] Perfect.
Pat Pogue [00:32:59] That makes it just fine.
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