Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
For nearly 50 years, the old walls of the Oak Heights School gymnasium have rung with popular songs on Saturday nights as the Sweet Home Squarenaders Square Dance Club gathers for a little do-si-do.
With Jim Voll of Albany doing the calling and his wife Joyce cueing, approximately 25 members and guests spend three hours dancing, visiting and enjoying a potluck spread every other Saturday, September through June.
“I like the friendship with everybody,” said Ginger Allen of Sweet Home, whose husband Dan, a local log truck driver, is president of the organization. “It’s just getting out and meeting people. Most square dancers you meet are good people, who have good morals, so it makes it pleasant to be around them. There’s no drinking or anything like that, so you always feel safe with other people.”
The membership of 38 adults and two teenagers comes mostly from Sweet Home, Brownsville and Lebanon.
According to Marie Dorsey of Brownsville, who is publicity chair, the Squarenaders were organized “by popular demand” in February of 1957 with about 88 couples. The first caller/instructor was Ray Steele of Springfield and dances were held in the old Dance Hall in Brownsville Pioneer Park. Lessons were offered at the Oak Heights gym in Sweet Home and when the dance hall burned down, the club moved its dances to the school as well.
The name eventually was changed to Sweet Home Squarenaders.
“Somehow or other, when everything was being organized, they found out there was another square dance club in Oregon (with the same name), so they had to tack on ‘Sweet Home,’ said Dorsey, who noted that the similarly named club has since disbanded.
The Squarenaders are members of the Emerald Empire Area of the Oregon Federation of Square and Round Dance Clubs.
Square dancing, which has its roots in the European folk dances that settlers and later immigrants brought to America, is a purely American form of dance that became popular in urban areas, as well as rural communities, after World War II. The dance is a complex combination of various movements and influences, so the caller uses creative patter and colorful sayings to alert the dancers to what the next movement will be.
Most of the local dancers wear traditional square dance garb – full skirts with petticoats for some of the women, or prairie skirts. Casual dances are held as well, Dorsey said.
She said she and her husband, Roger, joined the club in 1980.
“We square danced when we first came to Oregon in 1963 from the Air Force,” she said. They danced with the Route F Twirlers in Noti before getting “involved in having children and fixing up old houses.”
Allen said she got interested in square dancing after a divorce. Her previous husband, she said, “didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t want to get involved. After he left, I decided, ‘Why not give it a try?'”
She started dancing about 8 1/2 years ago, she said. Soon after she started, Dan, who was also single, joined the club and they got married about a year later.
“It’s a good way to get exercise and to meet people,” Ginger Allen said.
Larry Lindquist, another member, started attending in 1992 after he got divorced. He and his daughter Jennie, then “about 13,” began dancing and that’s where he met Penny Pratt, his life partner.
Jennie, now a mother with a son of her own, still shows up once in a while, he said.
“Everybody knows her when she comes back,” Lindquist said. “Everybody matters to everybody in (the club). The young kids come but they never stay – but they come back later on.”
One longtime member is Alice Grovom, who’s been with the club since 1978, after the death of her husband.
“I’ve always loved to dance,” she said. “I found out there were square dance lessons, so I went up and I’ve been been dancing ever since.
“My goal was to dance until I was 80 and I did that, so now my goal is to dance for who knows how long.”
Grovom said she’s square danced in Vancouver, B.C., San Antonio and Oklahoma City, as well as two national conventions in Portland, where she’s seen square dancing spread far beyond the United States.
“I knew a colonel in the army who had called overseas,” she said. “I’ve been in Portland when people from overseas come and call.”
She said she’s danced for callers from Holland and Japan.
“I’ve met a lot of nice people,” she said. “There’s always someplace to go if you want to dance. You can go around the world, because square dance is always called in English. Maybe you can’t understand their English, but it’s there.”
She said one time, in Nevada, she was at a dance where she was surrounded by Japanese enthusiasts.
“It was the most I was ever photographed in one day,” Grovom said.
Some local dancers travel around the state to participate in dances held by other clubs. Grovom said she’s danced at a campout at Diamond Lake, where some participants camp across the lake and row over “in the moonlight” to dance.
Allen said she and Dan often will dance Fridays in Albany, Saturdays in Sweet Home and Sundays in the Eugene area.
“We’ve danced all over the state, basically,” she said.
Members say many local residents don’t know the Squarenaders exist.
“Our goal mostly is just to let people know mostly that square dancing is available, that it’s fun, and inexpensive to do,” Allen said. “Most dances cost $4, and you dance till 10 p.m.”
The club is currently offering square dance lessons lessons from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays at Fir Lawn Lutheran Church.
It’s not just for older people, members say.
“I like AAU swim club because so many ages can participate,” Grovom said.
“You have the same thing in square dance. You have young children and you have couples in their 90s.
Allen agreed.
“It keeps you young,” she said.
For more on the club, call 466-5536, 451-3480, 990-6214.