Friends share lunch, much more for 60 years

By H.M. Cauley

For the AJC

For 60 years, a small circle of friends from the Buckhead area has kept a monthly lunch date.

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H.M. Cauley/Special The "lunch bunch" ladies have been meeting monthly for 60 years. Many have been friends since attending grade school together in Buckhead. The September gathering in Roswell brought together (left to right: Jenny Barrow, Joan Tilghman, Nikki Hughes, Helen Branch, Mary Patton and Caroline Roberts.

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They’ve met at one another’s homes to play cards, swap stories of family, share news of friends and check out the hostess’s chicken salad recipe. And though all of the members are now in their 80s, they’re not about to stop doing lunch.

“We really started out as a bridge club,” said Caroline Roberts, who lives in Jasper but travels to the monthly meal wherever it is. “There were eight of us who played, but then some people went to work or got too busy to come. After a while, we gave up the bridge and just became the lunch bunch.”

The group has grown and shrunk through the years, but today there are a dozen members who try not to miss the monthly gathering. Others keep in touch despite having moved out of state or being homebound. But everyone makes it a point to reunite at the annual holiday party, held the past few years at the Cherokee Country Club.

“We’re all in our 80s, so we all have issues now,” Joan Tilghman said with a laugh. “But we keep on keeping on. No matter what, the hostess always cooks the meal, and we sit at the table together.”

Member Helen Branch, a former Jackson Elementary principal and professor at Emory and Georgia State universities, keeps attending despite having suffered three strokes. Jenny Barrow was born, raised and still lives in Buckhead, and though she is in a wheelchair, she has an aide bring her to the get-togethers. And Tilghman didn’t let a procedure to have a pacemaker inserted keep her from hosting the September gathering in her Roswell home.

“I just made sure everything was ready beforehand,” said Tilghman. “I made the stuffed bell peppers with brown rice and okra from my garden a day or so ahead. I even fixed the sorbet dishes and put them in the freezer.”

One of the ties that has bound the group together is its common history. Most of the members attended Garden Hills or E. Rivers elementary schools in Buckhead, and seven attended the old North Fulton High School.

“We did grow up together,” said Mary Patton, a longtime supporter of various Buckhead institutions and a former Buckhead Woman of the Year. “It was our neighborhood, our community. Many of us went to school together and even to Peachtree Presbyterian Church together. For many of us, Buckhead is still home.”

Everyone in the group finds it difficult to believe that they’ve been meeting for six decades.

“We don’t think of ourselves as being old, though many of us are grandmothers and great-grandmothers,” said Patton.

“We used to think people in their 60s were old,” said Tilghman, “but we still learn a lot from each other.”

The group also has served as a support network, a place where members shared struggles and successes in their lives.

“These women have faced a lot of different things through the years,” said Nell Estes, Tilghman’s daughter. “Some have lost children; some have lost spouses. No matter what, they’ve been here for each other. It’s not just about fun lunches, births or marriages. There’s a strong bond of true friendship here.”

"Milestones" covers significant events and times in the lives of metro Atlantans. Big or small, well-known or not -- tell us of a Milestone we should write about. Send information to hm_cauley@yahoo.com; call 404-514-6162; or mail to Milestones, c/o Jamila Robinson, 223 Perimeter Center Parkway N.E., Atlanta, GA 30346.