History Behind the Victory Flagpole - Buds of Promise - Behind the Victory Flagpole — buds of promise

Last summer I found a picture among my mother’s photo albums that I hadn’t ever noticed before. It was of 16 young ladies all posing together, and on the back of the picture it said simply, “Buds Of Promise,” N.M.E. Church.

    Well, I knew it was from the Methodist Church in Camden, but I had no idea what the “Buds of Promise” stood for or who the young ladies were, except that one was my mother and another was my aunt Rosa Meyer Crow, before they were married.

    I was wondering if it was a missionary society, a social club, a gardening group, a Sunday school class or what?

    And then, just when I thought I’d hit a rock wall, I found an article about a long time Camden resident, Effie Borman. The name sounded familiar, as I remember my mother talking about her. She was writing about some of her memories and talking about a Sunday school class at North Methodist church that she belonged to.

    She stated it was called the “Buds of Promise,” and that it was started in 1914 and had as its slogan, “not for ourselves alone.” So I deduced that one of the young ladies in the picture must be Effie Borman. She also mentioned that Gwendoline Foster (who later married Earle Brown) was one of her best friends, so I assumed that she must be in the picture too.

    Effie Borman seemed to be very active in the Camden community. She had been President of the Hamilton School P.T.A. in 1930, Chair of the first Parent Education Committee in 1938, past Chair of Minneapolis Council of Americanization (a group that welcomed new citizens monthly), American Legion Auxiliary President, and on the Central Council of P.T.A. On top of all that, she was the one who prepared the weekly bulletin for North Methodist Church for many years.

    I was glad to learn about Effie Borman and the “Buds of Promise” and their wonderful motto, “not for ourselves alone”! Now, if some of the good people of Camden, who can remember that far back, could write in to the Camden News and identify these ladies, we would all know who they were.