From The Contest Queen

Back to our U.S. adventures. After a wonderful Saturday in Warren MI hanging out with heaps of our sweeping buddies, early Sunday morning we headed down to Payne OH to visit with The Affadaisies. (If you don’t know who The Affadaisies are, read the book or watch the movie; The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio.)

We arrived just in time for lunch. Being the grandmotherly figure she is, Dortha would not allow us to take her and her husband out to eat, instead she served us lunch. After lunch, one son, his wife and two other club members: Alice and Betty arrived. Just like the “good old days”, the men retired to the living room while the women stayed in the kitchen. We drank lemonade, ate cookies and chatted about contesting vs. sweepstaking.

I did find out what happened to the now defunct National Contestors Association. Once contests disappeared in favour of sweepstakes, the association folded. Dortha had attended a few of their conventions and told me the word sweepstakes in that circle was a dirty word. I don’t know what year they folded exactly but it was sometime after 1982.

We headed back through Defiance OH. As we drove around town, I imagined what like must have been like for Evelyn Ryan. We took a picture of the home she lived in on Washington Avenue for most of her life.

I find it amazing that two women I never met, Evelyn and Terry Ryan, could have changed my life so much. It was through reading Terry’s book about her mom Evelyn, that lead me to met Dortha and all her friends.