In June of 1910, discussion began about forming a Rotary club in Omaha. Those discussions led to a meeting in December 1910 with several notable Rotarians: Chesley Perry, the Secretary of what was then called “the National Association of Rotary Clubs of America”; Lee Metler, the “first” VP of the National Association and President of the Kansas City Rotary Club, and several others, including some members of the Lincoln Rotary Club, which was founded a year previously.
The list of attendees at that meeting was lost in a disaster of personal dimension to Omaha Rotary and with devastating impact to the community three years later. In fact, most of the written and photographic information leading up to the founding of the club and its first 19 months was lost in the disaster. No one at that meeting had an inkling of what was going to come, however.
That meeting in December 1910 paved the way for the club charter to be signed on August 4th, 1911. The first election of club officers was held as part of the Charter proceedings and the first club officers were:
- Gould Dietz, President
- George Rogers, First Vice President
- J. J. Deright, Second Vice President
- Frank Hamilton, Treasurer
- George J. Duncan, Secretary
Gould Dietz resigned the Presidency very early in his term and Frank I. Ellick was elected to fill the majority of Mr. Dietz’s term. In June of 1912, Daniel Baum Jr. of Baum Iron was elected President and George Duncan was voted as Secretary and Treasurer. Frank Ellick remained on the Club’s Board of Directors.
When you look at the officers and roster of those first two years, there was a lot of turnover and change….befiting an organization just trying to get on its feet. An event happened on Easter 1913 that altered Rotary and Omaha. At approximately 6:00 p.m. on 23 March 1913 an F4 tornado cut a path across Omaha, skirting downtown, but damaging upwards of 2,000 homes, causing what would be more then $400 million in damage in 2011 dollars, injuring 400 people and taking the lives of 103, including Rotary Secretary George Duncan. His home was flattened by the tornado.
The disaster was on the scale of what happened to Joplin, Missouri this year and the reaction from Omaha and the nation was similar. Neighbors and strangers rolled up their sleeves to help those touched by the disaster recover. They say that Frank Ellick was one of many secondary victims of the tornado…secondary in the sense that they worked so hard to help the community recover that it cost them their health and ultimately, their lives.
Recovering from the tornado was about service above self and that key cornerstone of Rotary helped the City and Rotary recover and then prosper in the years ahead.
