GALION – Bridge lovers in Galion have been playing the game for more than 80 years. It must be in the cards.
Every Wednesday, since the early years playing on the porch at the former Galion Country Club, the Bridge Club meets to play one of the world’s most popular card games. Always looking for “slam,” but always enjoying the card game – and the camaraderie.
“I just love playing bridge,” said longtime member Vee TyRee of Galion, who at 95 – “I’m afraid I’m the oldest of all of them” – wouldn’t miss her Wednesday afternoon mainstay. “To me, bridge is never boring. I love to play other cards, but this is what I like the best, I guess.”
TyRee said she developed a love for the game more than 40 years ago, learning with a local foursome and using the “Bible” of bridge for insight and as a resource – “Point-Count Bidding” by Charles Henry Goren, an American bridge player and writer who popularized the game in this country.
“I love cards, but with bridge I like the challenge of really thinking about what you’re doing too,” the veteran player said, as she flashed her first 13-card hand of the day to a visitor. “And it’s a good release for gals that really like to play bridge.”
One of those gals is Pat McMichael, who has been honing her skills since she first learned the game in high school. “My dad taught the whole family to play,” McMichael said. “He learned from a bridge master at work, and we played almost every night after dinner.”
The Bridge Club during its heyday attracted as many as 30 women every week, mostly members of the old country club, said Galion resident Pam Olt, whose mother, Helen Lott, was a faithful follower. “It was a big deal. They’d have lunch first and then they would play cards.”
Olt said her mother, a bridge buff for decades, learned the challenging card game in college – Elmira Female College in Emira, New York – then continued playing when she and her husband, William, moved to Galion with their family in the 1940’s and joined the country club.
“Oh my God, yes, it was an addiction,” Olt said of her mother’s favorite weekly pastime. “And they sort of dressed up a little bit back then. Mother would wear a suit, heels and a purse to match. It was definitely a big deal, and they were very faithful.”
These days, the attire is definitely casual. The group, until a few months ago, met regularly at Galion’s Pizza Hut in a room reserved especially for them. But due to restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve resorted to gathering in member’s homes, taking turns as hostesses.
Cindy Scohy doesn’t recall how she officially met “the gang” but said she used to golf with a few of the ladies at the country club’s 18-hole course before the property was sold. “I just learned by the seat of my pants because they needed a sub,” said Scohy, who drives from Mt. Gilead to play.
“It’s like a foreign language, I think,” admitted Galionite Cindy Hart, whose partner for a recent afternoon was “the baby” of the bunch, former Galion City School Treasurer Linda Kidwell. “I like to say that I speak English and Bridge. I learned from Vee and Connie Stanek.”
Stanek, the unofficial treasurer of the club, also learned bridge in college when she was a student at Baldwin-Wallace. She started playing at the country club during the summers more than 20 years ago. Now the retired teacher from Crestline is a regular bidder.
Kidwell, a recent retiree, said she started “bridge watching” at Pizza Hut back in March 2019. Then she and another “newbie,” Becky Milliron, got online to brush up on bidding techniques and defense strategies. “But Connie kicked us into playing, and they were very good to us,” Kidwell said.
Because although the game requires concentration and strategy, trick-taking and scoring, it’s still about a genuine love of cards, and forming lifelong connections.
“I like the camaraderie of the people I play bridge with,” said TyRee, always the competitive player. “I just love the friends. They’re all great gals.”