By dick metzgar
Staff Writer
PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT Members of the Walter J. Conley Elks Lodge, Freehold Borough, celebrated the organization’s 50th anniversary in April. Directors include (front row, l-r) Exalted Ruler Willie Brown, Nelson Ensley and Wallace Doman III; and (back row, l-r) Emory Parks Tiller, former Exalted Ruler Sidney Blacknall, Levi Watts and Willie Banks.
FREEHOLD — For many residents of the black community in the Freehold area — and beyond — a lodge located in a building on Throckmorton Street that was once a popular bakery has become both a pillar of strength and a home away from home for half a century.
The Walter J. Conley Elks Lodge No. 1379 last week celebrated its 50th anniversary as a nonprofit, charitable organization.
Technically, the lodge is a chapter of the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, according to its current exalted ruler, Willie Brown, a resident of Manchester Township, Ocean County.
The building is also the home of the Lee B. Gibson Temple, which is its women’s auxiliary.
A photograph that hangs in the Elks Lodge on Throckmorton Street, Freehold Borough, shows Walter J. Conley, who lent his name to the fraternal organization. Conley died in 1953 at just about the time the lodge was forming.
"We are a charitable organization based on the Bible," Brown said. "We try to bring the community together through our functions and strive to help those people in the community who are less fortunate. We especially try to look out for our members and their families in their time of need."
The lodge was created in March 1953 by a group of men from the black community. Earl Baskerville presided as its first exalted ruler. Charter members were Allen Sparks, Walter Barbour, David Duncan, Herbert Duckenfield, Earl Williams, William Simmons, Turner Lee Hill, Eugene Grant, David Fitzpatrick, Robert Holloway, James Jefferson, John Henderson and Oscar Sturgis.
The club currently has 56 members, Brown said.
The newly formed club moved into its current quarters in May 1953. The building was once a bakery operated by Irving Lanborg and his family. Over the years, lodge members have made extensive additions and improvements to the structure, which is on Throckmorton Street between Broad Street and Monmouth Avenue.
Members are proud that through their efforts and patience over the years, the lodge has continued its growth, and within 20 years of existence had paid off its mortgage, according to Sidney Blacknall, a borough resident who has been a lodge member for 30 years, a trustee, and was the chapter’s exalted ruler for 10 years.
Blacknall recalled that in the early 1970s the lodge was in need of a sizable amount of money to make more additions and improvements to the building.
"We were able to get a $30,000 bank loan for the work," Blacknall said. "We were able to pay off that loan way ahead of time, so that we avoided much of the interest costs."
Walter J. Conley, for whom the lodge is named, is somewhat of a mysterious figure.
"When the charter members organized the lodge, they didn’t have a name for it," Blacknall said. "I think, at the time, Walter J. Conley was an elderly gentleman who had just died and the charter members decided to name the lodge in his memory."
"We give scholarships, make financial contributions to the PBA and contribute Christmas toys for children and hold many other benefits for those in need," Brown said. "We even hold baby christenings."
"The lodge does a lot for the young people of the community," said Lillie Hendry, a borough resident who is president of the Court Street School Education Community Center. "The lodge has been very supportive of the center. The lodge works very hard to help the community."
The girls’ drill teams, which are sponsored and have been coached by members of the women’s auxiliary over the years, have become an institution in the borough’s annual Memorial Day parade.
Robert "Peanut" Holloway, son of one of the lodge’s founders and a member of the borough’s recreation commission, still serves as a DJ during functions at the lodge and has performed the same service for the last 16 years at the Monmouth County Court House at the finishing point of the Memorial Day parade.
"It is our objective to always be there for our members and the community," Brown said.