Travelers Club of Baldwinsville

A women’s club begun in 1896 celebrates 130 years

By Tim Bennett

Before I met with Deb Bojarski and Susan Bielec at the Baldwinsville Public Library in the office of librarian Nancy Howe, I had never heard of the women’s group, Travelers Club of Baldwinsville.

With a name like that I figured it must be about women taking trips and then sharing their adventures. As usual, when assuming things, I was wrong.

Bojarski, a former social worker and the new president of the club, quickly explained the meaning of the name and how the group started.

“The name has been in our constitution since 1898, when the constitution was drafted,” Bojarski said. “And just to give you some context — in 1896, when our group was created, there was a movement around the country of women coming together to be intellectually stimulated, to bond with each other and to learn. Educational opportunities for women in those days were very limited, so groups like this filled the void.”

The club’s founder, Sarah Brandt Voorhees, who belonged to the upper class of wealthy non working women, felt a need to challenge herself and other women in her social circle, to more intellectual pursuits, according to Bojarski. For example, the first two years the group decided to study the two plays of Shakespeare — Macbeth and King Lear — and had a professor from Syracuse coming by train to teach the class.

Vice president Bielec, a retired paralegal, then passed me the list of all the annual subjects the club had focused on over the last 130 years. Pretty impressive recordkeeping! After their deep dive into Shakespeare, the group spent the next 100-plus years devoted to studying the countries of the world, which the members decided they could do themselves. They met bi-weekly to present the various aspects of a specific country, including its culture, language and geography.

“They were armchair travelers,” Bielec said. “Very few at the time could actually go to these countries, but with their imaginations they could go anywhere through the books and the presentations.”

Bielec added, “I just want to say that the social aspect is equally as important as the intellectual. I joined initially for the intellectual challenge because I really needed that after I retired, but I also needed social interaction with women of my own age. We have a stellar example of that camaraderie in something that happened recently. One of our members was scheduled to give a presentation and she didn’t show up, which had never happened before. We called her repeatedly during the meeting. No one could reach her. So, one of the members said, ‘I’ll check on her on my way home. I know where she lives.’

“Meanwhile, we were stuck with no speaker. All of a sudden, a woman says, ‘I have a presentation I could give. I have the flash drive in my purse.’ She had given her talk recently for another group. It was about the walks she and her husband had done on the Erie Canal trail in memory of their daughter who had died of a rare disease. They used the walks and presentation to bring attention to the fundraising organization they had founded to fight that disease. So, we not only had a speaker that day, but we also learned something very personal and inspiring from one of our members.”

“Later,” Bielec said, “we learned from the person who had gone to check on our original speaker that the woman was home in bed in a dire medical condition and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. The woman who went to see her was told that if she had not gone to see that person when she did the consequences could have been fatal.”

“When the recovered woman got back to the club,” Bojarski said, “she made a point of telling us that we all needed to have systems in place in case of emergencies like that or at least, have somebody we talk with every day so someone would be alerted if we didn’t call them.”

In recent years, Travelers Club has covered a variety of topics such as “Women of Importance: In History and Different Countries,” “The State of New York,” “What’s on Your Bucket List?” and “America’s Parks.” For the year 2026 to 2027, the theme of the presentations will be “Celebrating 130 Years of Travelers Club: How the World and Women’s Roles Have Changed Through the Decades.”

Although the format of the groups has remained constant throughout the years with opening remarks, introductions to the club’s officers, the half-hour presentation and refreshments, some things have changed more than a century later.

“Of course, gloves, hats and formal dress are not required today,” Bojarski chuckled. “Can you imagine having to put on a hat before going outside of your home? We also don’t discourage people from taking any leftovers home. During Sarah’s day if you tried to take that extra biscuit all the women would stare at you. Today, you also don’t have to be wealthy to participate. Any woman with a desire to learn is welcome.”

I asked how many women belong to the club and if there were any dues. Bojarski said, “We have 45 active members with maybe 25 at each meeting. The dues are pretty modest at $10 a year.”

By the end of our discussion, I realized that our meeting at the library was significant. Travelers Club of Baldwinsville was, in fact, instrumental in getting the first public town library in 1948. Up to that time the club had been dependent on renting reference books from a source in Albany for members, which was not always reliable. Having a library nearby not only solved the club’s problem of not getting their books on time, it also provided a valuable service to the whole community.

Today the club meets the second Friday of every month, no longer in the large Victorian homes as their earlier members did, but in the community room of the Baldwinsville Public Library on 33 E. Genesee St. The opening meeting for the year is from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Sept. 11. The topic is: “How the World and Women’s Roles Have Changed Through the Decades” starting with the years 1886 to 1910. Subsequently two decades will be covered at each meeting up to the present.

For more information about Traveler’s Club of Baldwinsville, contact Bojarski at debbojarski@gmail.com. Facebook page: Travelers Club of Baldwinsville public.