About a month ago, in the first of two columns on the history of Southern New Hampshire Medical Center (the second is coming soon), I came across a neat little tidbit: In 1898, ahead of the February 1899 grand opening of the much-anticipated Nashua Emergency Hospital, several women’s civic clubs each adopted a private room and got to work decorating and furnishing them.

One of those clubs was the Nashaway Woman’s Club, barely two years old at the time – but, according to the extensive compilations of its history I perused the other day, bearing no resemblance to the tiny, disordered group of recruits one would expect of a fledgling organization.

That the club, which peaked in membership somewhere north of 300 strong in its early to mid-20th-century heyday, has retained its original name has long interested me. So when current President Linda Twombley told me the club is about to celebrate its 120th birthday, I started asking questions.

Wading through the sampling of the club’s historical volumes that Twombley lent me the other day, I found two slightly different explanations. One, a dispatch included in a several-page special section in the old Manchester Union – today’s New Hampshire Union Leader – ties the name to that of "the tribe of Indians who made the banks of the Nashua River their headquarters."

Another reference is in a handwritten timeline of the club’s history, recorded in June 1896, about two months after "ten ladies (met) at the home of Mrs. E. F. McQuesten for the purpose of organizing a woman’s club."

"It was voted to give the club the name … in honor of the original way of spelling the name of the city," the account reads.

Never mind the fact that by all accounts, these Nashua women weren’t interested in founding another social club devoted more to hosting teas and swapping the gossip of the week than to rolling up their proverbial sleeves and dig into some community and societal issues that needed bettering.

Right away, according to these historic recordings, the burgeoning membership formed committees tasked with a wide variety of initiatives.

One was aimed at "furthering the education of women" by developing "programs of study" ranging from literature to current events to art. Another took on the statewide fight against tuberculosis; another, raising funds for the state sanitarium (predecessor of the State Hospital).

Members aided the local King’s Daughters Benevolent Society, helping that club open a day care and children’s home. One of its campaigns brings a smile to a 21st-century reader’s face: "the campaign for the annihilation of the fly."

It was a clever way of prompting Nashuans to "beautify their city by conducting a ‘cleanup week,’" which was a sort of polite code for, well, picking up after your horse, much the same way we have to keep reminding our neighbors today to pick up after their dogs.

Members were credited with the club’s leading role in "starting manual training and sewing" classes in the public schools. "Pure and clean milk" was another cause.

Fast-forward a few decades, and there in the books for the 1967-68 season is a Telegraph photo of several Nashaway women standing with a classic VW bus that the club had donated to the Nashua Children’s Home.

The pages are filled with records of donations of funds or goods to almost any cause you could think of – mostly tied in one way or another to children.

Twombley said the membership in the ’60s hovered around 220, a statistic that, while healthy, portends the unfortunate trend of shrinking memberships in pretty much every civic, fraternal or social club as the new millennium drew closer and closer.

Some have even disappeared – perhaps most notably the Nashua Exchange Club, whose membership had dwindled to six. Others hang on, but the Nashaway Woman’s Club, despite being down to 30-something members, appears to have found a way to "do more with less," which we hear so often these days.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.