Our Lodge has been very busy trying to reinstate all of the original nuances of Odd Fellowship that we were known for more than 100 years ago. If you’ve been reading our posts, you know that Norman appears to be the original city that hosted the meeting to organize Odd Fellowship in the Indian Territory, and then took the lead as “Lodge No. 1” of Oklahoma Territory. We’ve shared quite a bit of what the beginnings of our Lodge looked like, but how about when we hit “full swing” in the 1900s?

Our 1915 stationary (above) was plain, elegant and functional. A line for the secretary’s name and a space to the right of our city/state for the date the letter was composed to be typed. Our letter of appreciation, mailed to Lodges who provided care for our sojourning members under sickness and distress (below) is even more intricate; mounted on black construction paper and beautifully typeset.

In 1916, we had a complete overhaul. Our cards and envelopes were emblazoned with an illustrated engraving featuring the axe (an early symbol prominent in the initiatory degree), bundles of sticks, the all-seeing eye and the three links. Our stationary was even more elaborately designed with the Holy Bible and bunches of arrows, in addition to the axe, eye and links that appear elsewhere.

Compare this to the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma stationary (below) of the same period, and you can see that Odd Fellowship was in the age of enlightenment, when it came to professional communication and correspondence. From our Lodge records, we know for sure that the stationary designed in 1916 was still in use into the late 1920s at Norman Lodge No. 7.