Biography

In 1867 five young women in Marion, Iowa, who had attended the Marion Female Seminary invited ten others to join them and organized a study club known first as the S S Society and then the Young Upstarts or YUS-Atheneum. While at the Seminary they had been part of the Theristriai Society (meaning "gleaners of knowledge") started by Beulah Small, the preceptress of the Marion Female Seminary. In 1880 the group adopted the initials OOP as its name. The initials stood for "Our Own Pioneer" society; ten years later the group adopted the Latin motto "Opus Optimum Praestat", meaning "best work excels". In 1891 ten members of the club withdrew and formed a separate club called Theristriai. OOP was federated with the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs from 1894 to 1900 and once again federated in 1909. The OOP was still in existence at the turn of the twenty-first century and was one of the oldest continuous women's clubs in Iowa.

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