Like always: Las Amapolas club members celebrate 65 years of being together

There was a time when members of Las Amapolas, an Albuquerque women’s club, toured gardens and took on landscaping projects at hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

They had bridge and pool parties, supported charitable causes, staged fund-raising fashion shows and listened to guest speakers tell them how to plant shade trees or fashion table arrangements for the holidays.

That goes back to when the members were in their 20s and 30s, young wives and mothers eager to take on vital roles in their community and enjoy each other’s company.

Now, they are in their 80s and 90s, senior citizens thankful they can still get together. All these years later, they meet on the first Thursday in February, April, June, August, October and December.

“We have several members who have caregivers who bring them to meetings,” said Ginger Grossetete, 87. “We have a treasurer’s report, read the minutes and then we visit, go around the table and ask everybody how they are doing and ask about their families.”

But Thursday’s luncheon meeting at Savoy Bar & Grille on Montgomery was special. Las Amapolas celebrated its 65th anniversary.

“This was a nice group of women when we were in our 20s, and they are now a nice group of women now,” Pat Boyle, who is in her late 80s, said. “We genuinely care about each other.”

The poppies

The idea for the club took seed in the spring of 1958 when Grossetete, Boyle and Katie Eckert, now deceased, met at Fox Park on Alvarado and Marquette NE. The women had taken their toddler children to the park so the kids could play and they could get in some tennis.

The women’s talk turned to a common need they had for trees, shrubs and flowers at their homes. They decided to start a garden club and invited Janie Mossman, JoAnn Fidel, Dee Maloof and Donna Esquibel to join them as founding members. Other early members included Julie Kavet and Liz Wertheim.

Inspired by a song popular at the time, the members named the club Las Amapolas, which means the poppies. Early on, Las Amapolas joined the Albuquerque Council of Garden Clubs.

“In the summer, we worked on projects to raise money (for the Council of Garden Clubs),” Kavet, 94, said. “We made Christmas things to sell. We would get together at someone’s house for weeks and make Christmas decorations — angels, ceramic bells, decorations made out of pasta. I always enjoyed that. I liked to create. And we got to know each other better.”

Las Amapolas members worked at and entered flower shows at the State Fair, among other places.

“Whenever we had a project, a flower show or whatever it might be, these gals always worked hard,” Boyle said. “No one tried to get out of it. Everyone was willing to help.”

As the members got older and their children grew up and moved out on their own, interests in gardening waned. For more than 40 years now, Las Amapolas has been a social club rather than a garden club.

Grossetete still grows stuff at her Four Hills home, however.

“I have rabbits, so I can’t plant in my garden,” she said. “I grow things in pots in my enclosed courtyard. When we have meetings, I talk about my tomatoes and eggplants.”

Sisterly support

Many members, of course, have been lost over the years.

The most tragic blow suffered by Las Amapolas happened in February 1985 when Albuquerque businessman and celebrated balloonist Ben Abruzzo and five others were killed when a private plane piloted by Abruzzo crashed. The five passengers who perished — Abruzzo’s wife, Pat, and her friends Marcia Martin, Cynthia Miller, Barbara Quant and Bev Mullin — were all Las Amapolas members.

Club members found what solace they could in the support they offered survivors and each other. That’s one thing about the club that has not changed.

“Through every crisis, we have stayed together,” Kavet said.

“When someone dies in our club, we ask the family if they want us to do a (memorial) plaque at the zoo or send a donation to a charity,” Grossetete said. “Just recently, we sent a donation to All Faiths Receiving Home.”

Boyle said Las Amapolas members genuinely care about each other.

“I could call any one of these women if I needed help,” she said. “We care about each other in a sisterly way.”

‘Lots of fun’

Grossetete said Las Amapolas has 24 members today.

“We used to have 50 and there was a waiting list,” she said. “After the pandemic, some members went by the wayside. A lot of them got too old. A lot of them stop driving.”

But on Thursday, 65 years after the club was founded, 21 members gathered to partake of vegetarian pasta, garlic-sautéed shrimp, beef tenderloin tips and lemon tarts. The table centerpieces featured poppies, and the members gathered at the grill’s bar for a group photograph.

Together. Just like old times. Just like always.

“It’s been lots and lots and lots of fun,” Kavet said. “I am very grateful for the opportunity to have belonged to this group.”