"I've just taken one step after another," Moates, 68, says. "The order has given me so much. I need to serve an order that has served me."

Moates has devoted 54 years to her membership in the Sunnyvale Rebekah Lodge, the female branch of the Odd Fellows organization.

She was president of the Rebekah Assembly of California in 1974-75. From 1988 to 1989, she was president of the International Association of Rebekah Assemblies. And now she serves on the 11-member International Council of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Rebekah began in 1851 in the United States, for the wives and sisters of members of Odd Fellows. Rebekahs embrace the values of friendship, love and truth. Today, Rebekah is open to all women, 18 or older, who believe in a supreme being.

Rebekah, for whom the organization is named, was a woman in the Old Testament who draws water from a well to carry to her family. A stranger comes to the well and asks for water. She shares with the man, and so becomes a symbol of outreach and hospitality.

Odd Fellows began in England. No one knows for sure how the term "odd fellows" originated. Some say it came from a group of ordinary men in England who worked together helping widows and orphans, visiting the sick, burying the dead. The men were considered "odd fellows" for their humanitarian work. Another explanation is that the original group came from various or "odd" trades.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows came to the United States in 1819 in Baltimore. In 1849 the first lodge was founded in California, in San Francisco. In 1851, when Odd Fellows created the Rebekah degree, it became the first national fraternity to include men and women. The California state Rebekah organization, called an assembly, was formed in 1891.

The Sunnyvale Rebekah Lodge was founded in 1922. Moates remembers meeting upstairs in the Kirkish Building, on the corner of South Murphy and West Washington avenues, where there were lodge rooms for the Rebekahs and the Sunnyvale Odd Fellows. Kirkish Western Wear occupied the ground floor.

About 1980, the Sunnyvale Rebekahs and Odd Fellows moved to the Cupertino Lodge on Homestead Avenue. The Sunnyvale Odd Fellows merged with the Cupertino Lodge. The Sunnyvale Rebekahs continued with their own lodge, renting space in the Cupertino building.

In 1981 the Kirkish Building, built in 1905, underwent foundation work and seismic reinforcements, says Adam Livermore Rich, public information officer with the city of Sunnyvale. At the time the Rebekahs moved out, there was talk of demolishing the building, Moates says. Today the building is part of the Heritage Landmark District.

California Rebekahs began a children's home--an orphanage--in Gilroy in 1897. In 1912, with the Odd Fellows, they began a retirement community in Saratoga. Both flourish today, one as Rebekah Children's Services, the other as the Saratoga Retirement Home.

Moates grew up in Santa Clara. She first joined Theta Rho, the Rebekah organization for teens, when she was a student at Santa Clara High School. When she turned 18, she and her mother were initiated together into the Sunnyvale Rebekah Lodge.

Her mother was attracted to the lodge because she knew people in Sunnyvale, Moates says, "and it was an easier place for her to join." Her mother had worked for years at Sprouse-Reitz, a dime store in downtown Sunnyvale. At the time of her death last year, Moates' mother was a 48-year Rebekah.

Moates majored in medical technology at San Jose State and graduated in 1959. She worked for 40 years as a clinical laboratory scientist at hospitals in the area. She is widowed and childless.

"Rebekahs are a large part of my life," she says. "My closest friends are all from the organization, here and all over the country." There are Rebekah Lodges throughout the world, with 55 in North America. There are even Rebekahs in Cuba.

"They are allowed to continue to exist because [Fidel] Castro had a female family member who was a Rebekah, possibly his grandmother," Moates says. The North American Rebekahs stay in touch with the Cuban Rebekahs through their "Canadian brothers and sisters who are able to take a trip to Cuba," Moates says.

About 10 years ago a Rebekah from Cuba traveled to the international Rebekah meeting in Chicago.

"We heard how difficult it is for them to meet. It is difficult to get gas; there is not much electricity so they meet by candlelight." Moates says she was inspired by their "will to survive and meet together. It is such a struggle. They are so strong in doing it," she says.

Membership in Rebekah peaked in the 1950s, says Mary Lou Lang, a member of the Cupertino Rebekah Lodge and state treasurer. In 1956, it began going down. There was a time when half the town of Cupertino belonged to Odd Fellows and Rebekah. In 1982 there were 14,000 Rebekahs in California. Today there are 7,000 to 8,000.

In fact, all fraternal orders are suffering a decline in membership. Various organizations have gotten together for national meetings to address the issue. Moates says television and the active lives of today's families have left little time for youngsters or their parents to join such organizations.

But membership is "beginning to pick up," Lang says.

Robert Heslop, 38, is a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 70 in Cupertino, which includes Sunnyvale Odd Fellow members. He moved to Cupertino seven years ago from Canada, with his wife and two small children. He had never heard of Odd Fellows. His wife joined the Cupertino Rebekahs and asked if he would like to join the Odd Fellows.

He joined. But he wasn't going to get involved.

"Now I'm very involved," he says. He was drawn to the group because of its community service, fraternity, friendship and the way the members help each other.

When his wife was sick, he says, "there was a brother or a Rebekah on our doorstep every night." Attendance at his lodge meetings averages 20-25. But social events may draw as many as 100.

Betty Socci, 78, a Rebekah for 22 years, also belongs to the Sunnyvale lodge. "I'm one of the newer ones," Socci says. "We need new members."

Socci became a Rebekah after she retired from Ford Aerospace in Palo Alto. She rode the bus to work and had met some Rebekahs during her commute. "We do a lot of good things," she says.

Mary Lou Lang became a Rebekah in 1982. She has two adult children. At the time her son was in high school. Her friends were her children's friends' parents, from swim club, P.T.A., Scouts.

"I wanted something for me," she says.

Odd Fellow and children's homes
reinvented

After becoming a Rebekah, Lang wanted to bring her mother, who had Alzheimer's, out to the Odd Fellows Home in Saratoga. But she couldn't, as she had not been a member long enough. "It was sad for me. I had to send her back to New Jersey."

With changing times and the lodges' diminishing numbers, Rebekahs and Odd Fellows have made some major changes in their two housing facilities.

Today, it's no longer necessary to be a Rebekah or Odd Fellow to move to the Saratoga facility--now called the Saratoga Retirement Home but still owned by the Odd Fellows and Rebekahs. The home is open to the public, with a minimum age of 62.

The retirement home completed a $96 million renovation in February.

Just 15 years ago, the property was in serious disarray with budget deficits. With its small and deteriorating rooms with bathrooms down the hall, the home could not attract enough members. The board reinvented itself and its facility and hired professional management.

Today, the facility is nearly full and has an ambiance more like a four-star hotel than a retirement home.

Grace Matthews, 81, sold her Willow Glen home and moved into the Saratoga Retirement Home in September. Her mother, a long-time Rebekah, had lived at the home for more than 20 years. She kept telling Matthews to keep her Rebekah dues current so she could live in the home, too, someday.

"By the time she died, I never wanted to see the place again. It was depressing," Matthews says. "But not any more."

A friend moved in last summer and persuaded Matthews to visit. She did and noted the changes. She saw the renovated Manor House and newly built cottages and apartments in July. She chose an apartment on the spot and moved in two months later.

"My mother is probably in heaven, beaming from ear to ear, looking down on me and saying, 'I told you so.' "

Over the years, the children's home in Gilroy has gone through a major change, too. It's no longer an orphanage, but the facility is still serving youngsters.

The children's home is the responsibility of the Rebekahs. "It was our idea, it has been our mission for over 100 years. Certainly the Odd Fellows help us," Moates says. "But it's our baby."

Huge oaks shade the grounds. Manicured lawns create a park-like setting. The well-maintained 100-year-old building is home to 28 children. Its services include counseling for children who have been mentally, physically or sexually abused. These services are provided at school, on campus or in the family's home.

Rebekahs and Odd Fellows volunteer at the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the money they earn for their time goes to the children's home.

Some things are the same

Though Rebekahs and Odd Fellows have reinvented the facilities they started so long ago, their meeting format and rituals remain the same. There is an initiation for new members and ritual at meetings that draws on biblical teachings.

Of the 60 members in Moates' lodge, some 15 attend meetings. Rebekah lodges meet twice a month, some in the evening, some during the day. Each meeting includes business with a social hour following. There are other social gatherings and fundraisers, too.

The women wear long dresses and the state and international officers wear formal gowns. Moates has a closet full of beautiful gowns. Recently, she cleaned out. She took 52 long dresses to Goodwill and made it all in one trip, she says. "But I still have 30 or 40 long dresses in the closet."

The International Council meets annually, with the location rotating around the world. The June 2006 meeting will be in Denmark. Moates serves as secretary of the council and is proud of its efforts. Together the members work to keep communication between the member organizations "in good shape," Moates says.

Locally, Moates is secretary of the Sunnyvale Lodge. In place of the Nov. 22 meeting, it held a potluck to which members could bring guests. "We need to invite neighbors and friends to come have a look at us. We have to sell ourselves as an organization," she says.

A speaker from the Sunnyvale Community Services told those gathered about services in the community. The Rebekahs gathered non-perishable food and money to contribute to Community Services.

"A major product of lodge membership," Moates says, "is that we can do more together." And the good they do is "truly charitable work. It is not restricted to members. It is for the benefit of the public."

In February, Moates will have been a Rebekah for 54 years. She thinks back to her initiation and the years shared with her mother in Rebekah. While in college, the Rebekah Assembly of California gave Moates a grant that helped her finish school. "That's a debt I can never repay."

For more information about the Sunnyvale Rebekah Lodge call Betty Moates at 408.377.5345 or email bcmoates@comcast.net.