(from the Austin Daily Herald website, austindailyherald.com, published on 9 Dec. 1999, retrieved on 11 March 2016)

"Pythias Sisters make last act of charity

Lyle Temple No. 76 of the Pythias Sisters is no more. An aging membership and their declining numbers has forced the organization to disband.

Their last meeting was part-business, part-social last Monday at Johnny’s Main Event restaurant in Austin.

Alice Rohne was there, but other charter members, Virginia Wilder and Lola Denisen, were not.

Louise Hall, the organization’s Most Excellent Chief, was present and so was Eloise Foss, treasurer.

Jan Wells of Charles City, Iowa, where the next closest Pythias Sisters temple is located, and a dual member of the Lyle temple came with a friend and also a Pythias Sisters temple member in Iowa, Viola Laffler.

“It’s a sad day,” Mrs. Laffler said. “The Charles City temple sent a double staff of men and women to the Lyle temple; they were a drill team who would perform rituals and install officers. We enjoyed a certain closeness among the temples’ members and now that’s gone.”

Damon and Pythias were two noble youths in Greek legends. Their friendship and loyalty to each other made them famous.

Pythias had been condemned to death by Dionysus, ruler of the city of Syracuse. Pythias was allowed to leave Syracuse to put his affairs in order after his best friend Damon agreed to die in his place if Pythias failed to return.

Although delayed in his harrowing journey to return to Syracuse, Pythias arrived just in time to save his best friend Damon from death.

Syracuse’s ruler, Dionysus so admired the display of friendship that he pardoned both and asked them to be his friends.

“Since 1888, there has been a ladies auxiliary to the Knights of Pythias in Lyle,” Mrs. Hall said. “In 1954, the order reorganized when the men’s group was disbanded and we became Lyle Temple No. 76 of the Pythias Sisters.”

Twice, the Pythias meeting hall suffered fire damage and once it was totally destroyed by fire, the members met in homes at first and most recently, the Copper Kettle restaurant on Lyle’s main street.

“We did charity work and supported a home for the mentally retarded at Sauk Center, when Lyle had a child there,” said Mrs. Hall. “We also gave gifts to different organizations that supported the mentally retarded as well as others.”

Last year, the Lyle temple had 13 registered members. Now at the order’s end, it is five or six if Mrs. Wells’ dual membership is counted.
“Nationally, the organization is suffering the same fate,” said Mrs. Wells. “The organization once flourished in the United States and Canada and it was about loyalty and friendship.”

“We would have our regular meetings and then socialize,” said Mrs. Rohne.

Mrs. Hall remembers moving to Lyle and wanting to make friends. “It was a way to become acquainted with the town and I made a lot of good acquaintances in the organization,” she said.

“That’s what I liked about the organization most of all,” said Mrs. Foss. “It was the friendships that we enjoyed and how we helped others.”

“I’d like to see it keep on, but I don’t think that’s possible any more,” said Mrs. Rohne.

“I just can’t see us trying to keep it going when there are so few members,” Mrs. Hall said.

“We needed a minimum of four to have an official meeting and in the end we didn’t even have that many attend,” Mrs. Foss said.

All three Lyle temple officers and their guests from Charles City, Iowa, agreed, the organization’s failure was, in part, due to changing lifestyles of women in small communities.
“Working women can’t do as many things as they used to do,” said Mrs. Rohne. Mrs. Foss agreed. “Our members grew older and it got harder and harder to attract new and younger ones,” she said.

Each local temple was given money from the state organization upon disbanding. The Lyle temple chose to give the money to REM-Minnesota, Inc., which operates homes for the developmentally disabled in Austin; an endowment fund for scholarships for high school graduates; and the Mower County Senior Advocacy program.

Mary Kittelson, the county’s senior advocate, was present at the order’s last meeting Monday and accepted a check for $400 with her words of appreciation.

“Each year, the Mower County Senior Advocacy Program must raise a certain percentage of its funds through fund-raising of our own,” said Kittelson. “We are thrilled to announce that with this contribution we are able to reach our fund-raising goal for 1999.”

Jan Wells of Charles City, Iowa, is the Pythias Sisters’ unofficial archivist and will chronicle the long history of the organization and its demise.

“The values of the Advocacy program are much the same as the Pythias Sisters’ values,” she said, “so it is fitting that they receive this donation from the Lyle order.”