Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, volume 4 [Extract: letter O]

              150  ODD FELLOWS, INDEPENDENT ORDER OF
Officers of the first Newfoundland Odd Fellows lodge: CR. Thomson (noble grand), R.R. Chappel (vice-grand), J.W. Robinson (warden), W. T. Brown (conductor) and William Bannister (district deputy grand sire).
ODD FELLOWS, INDEPENDENT ORDER OF. The
Odd Fellows began in England during the seventeenth century as a fraternal organization engaged in commu¬ nity projects and teaching activities. Its own tradition attributes the name Odd Fellows to the regard with which observers viewed their charitable activities. The organization moved to the New World in 1819 with the establishment of a lodge at the Seven Stars Tavern in Baltimore, founded by Thomas Wildey and four Eng¬ lishmen. In 1851 the female version of the group, the Rebekahs, was founded. Later a junior foundation for boys and a girls' group named Theta Rho were formed. The first Odd Fellows lodge in Newfoundland was formed on August 20, 1894 at Temperance Hall in St. John's. It later moved to Fraternity Hall, Victoria Hall, Atlantic Hall and then Atlantic Lodge in Mount Pearl. Other lodges were founded in Grand Falls, Bonavista, Clarenville, Buchans, Channel/Port aux Basques, Cor¬ ner Brook and Labrador City. The first St. John's Rebekah Lodge was founded on August 14, 1940. Odd Fellows support a number of national and interna¬ tional programs, including the World Eye Bank and Visual Research Program and the Arthritis Founda¬ tion. Locally they raise money for the Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Association ofNewfoundland, and support the Janeway Children's Hospital, the Cana¬ dian Mental Health Association, the CNIB, the New¬ foundland Heart Foundation, the Canadian Red Cross Society, the Epilepsy Association of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Newfoundland Cancer and Re¬ search Foundation. Berkley Lawrence/kaw
ODE TO NEWFOUNDLAND. Composed in 1902 by Governor Cavendish Boyle qv, the four-verse poem "Newfoundland" was first sung in public December 22 of that year at the Casino Theatre in St. John's. The singer, Frances Daisy Foster, closed a performance of the play Mamzelle with the verses set to music by E.R. Krippner, a German bandmaster, music teacher and music store owner living in St. John's. The song became so popular that local newspapers called on the govemment to adopt it as Newfoundland's national anthem.
The poem was to have many settings, as Boyle, buying the rights to Krippner's music so that it could
be forgotten, sought another arrangement. Some ac¬ counts claim that Boyle desired a more dignified set¬ ting, while others say he was simply looking for something with a wider appeal. He contacted his friend, well-known British composer Hubert Parry, who composed two settings, one of which was chosen by the government on May 20, 1904 as Newfoundland's official anthem. Two settings were published by Charles Hutton qv in 1906, and Alfred Allen, organist and choirmaster at the Church of Eng¬ land Cathedral, created another in 1907. While some critics claim that Allen's setting, written for orchestra and chorus, is superior to early settings, it is the Parry arrangement that came to be known and loved by Newfoundlanders. The title of Boyle's poem evolved into "Newfoundland: An Ode" in the first decade after its publication, but eventually became known as the "Ode to Newfoundland" or simply as "the Ode".