Groves Women's Cooperative:A scrapbook of its pioneering history
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This article was published in September, 1981 in "The Feminist Connection" Madison, Wisconson, page 47.
Groves Women's Cooperative
A scrapbook of its pioneering history
"It won't last a year," the cynics said.
Others asked:"Can a score of 20-year-old women finance and manage a rooming house and maintain not only the property but also the discipline of cooperative living all on their own?"
Well, Dean Helen Troxell thought not. When some idealistic and enterprising women students, aided by a former state senator, broached the subject of starting an all-female cooperative off-campus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1940's, Toxell initially warned them that a first-rate scandal would surely develop, and ruin the reputation not only of the woman but of the University.
But she change her mind, and quite the opposite of her initial predictions occurred.
Groves women's Co-op, described on its early letterhead as "an Interracial Home for University of Wisconsin Women Students," became the toast of the progressives on town.
It had it start with World War II, when a men's co-op founded by former senator and Professor Harold Groves in 1940 was converted to the woman's co-op. In 1943, with the help of Prof. Groves, 23 women (described in the October 24, 1944 campus paper The Daily Cardinal as "23 girls of Varied races, colors and creeds") first rented the house at 150 Langdon St. Later they moved to a former fraternity house on North-Henry, and in 1946 they purchased a house at 1104 W. Johnson Street, Involving a contract loan and a $200 monthly mortgage. This house fell victim to University expansion, and Groves Co-op found itself esconced at its present site at 102 E. Gorham (on the corner of North Pinckney) around 1962.
Now, with cooperatives housing endeavors near the campus abounding, the story of Groves Co-op may seem Run-of-the-mill.
But it is Groves Co-op that trailblazed for the other cooperative housing endeavors to follow, trailblazing also in the area of civil rights.
Black students during the '40s were typically forced to live near the outskirts of Madison because housemothers wouldn't accept them: Jewish students likewise hod troubles as did many foreign students.
Groves Co-op - With a working policy that no more than 50 percent of the residents belong to one race - was hailed as "a symbol of the solution" by the Daily Cardinal in 1943.
A 1951 article in the Capital Times described residents as native of Georgia, who had thought for 14 years and come to the University on a leave of absence before sailing off to Adela Kadvary, who came to the co-op when $1,000 was raised in order to bring a displaced person from Germany to study here. The capital Times Described her as filled with "memories of the Warsaw ghetto, the Polish underground, and a slave labor camp." Perhaps the co-op's most famous member is Lorraine Hansberry, author of Raisin in the Sun.
The co-op was self-governed, with elected officers, and had house parents who were generally a married couple in graduate school.
The house Groves now occupies was deemed a Madison landmark in 1972 and was officially named the Keyes House, marking the one-time Madison "Boss," E.W. Keyes, who once lived there.
(The Victorian house was built by Lansing W. Hoyt, an early settler, in 1858, and was bought by Keyes in 1867. Keyes' rather rough history included a long stint as the first postmaster here - appointed by Abe Lincoln - and as a southern Wisconsin's patronage system. He was finally unseated by Robert m. LaFollete, who challenged him in a county election for DA and won.)
Despite their historic significance, The Keyes House and Groves Co-op are currently a bit of a wreck. Last year Groves approached the Madison Community Co-operative for help.
"It had degenerated into a cheap rooming house with no sense of community," remembers Diane Gerth, of MCC. MCC purchased the house, and is now undertaking its most expensive - renovating Groves - project since MCC's Founding in 1968.
"It's 20 years of neglect which fallowed a rehab job with no historic preservation at all," she said, referring to renovation done by the Attic Angels nursing home which occupied the building before Groves moved in.
Diane noted that the caretaking problems started sometime after 1978, when"people started coming because it was cheap, and didn't necessarily want to up the rent to pay for maintenance."
Although the community spirit has seemed to disintegrate along with the building in the last few years, Phyllis Rinehart, a member of Le Cheteau co-op, has been working on recruiting potential members.
In the meantime, MCC is working on insulation and plumbing - "the stuff you can't see will get done first" - in the hopes that "the whole kit and caboodle will be done by January," Diane said.
Six women are living at the co-op in its present state of repair, including tow women who stayed over from last year. October, if repairs go as anticipated. When the renovation is complete, Groves co-op will house 15 women.
The building's may pleasant aspects include having a Fireplace in nearly every room, having lots of bathrooms and being centrally located in a pretty area. When the major repairs are completed - estimated at about $20,000 - co-op residents will be given latitude to make decorative decisions.
MCC is encouraging People - especially women - to lend a hand in helping repair the building, and simultaneously pick up construction skills, It hopes to hire contractors to train volunteers from Groves and other coops to help fix Insulation and plumbing, get the bathrooms in working order and get up the storm windows. Persons interested in helping to renovate this 130-year-old landmark are encouraged to call Madison Community Coop at 251-2667.
