A step back to the early 20th century

Women attired in 1910 dresses with wide-brimmed, beautifully decorated hats walked in the door of the ballroom at Best Western Plus Havre Inn and Suites Saturday afternoon.

They were escorted to their seats at the tables by men in suits. There the women saw finely decorated tables with place settings that included 1910-era china.

They were served tea and finger food by elegantly dressed women who had prepared the tables.

It was almost like a scene from the PBS hit series "Downton Abbey," a show based on people from the upper crust of early 20th century British society.

And that's what it was supposed to be.

The afternoon of tea and fine food was a fundraiser for the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation, which funds the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum, its new Havre History Center and the Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump.

The foundation came up with the idea of the tea hoping it would attract people. Did it ever.

Tickets were sold out long before the deadline, and there were some extraordinary efforts to get tickets after the "sold out" sign went up.

One woman found foundation board member, optometrist Erica Farmer, as she was serving patients at the Chippewa Cree tribal clinic. The woman wanted tickets.

"Hear me out before you say no," she heard the woman say as she pleaded for tickets.

Others searched for tickets for Mother's Day gifts.

"It was like the Super Bowl," Farmer said.

The volunteers who waited on the guests took the job very seriously.

"I kept getting calls from people who wanted to make sure that everything was exactly right," she said. "That the spoons were just like they would have been."

Paulette Cronk, one of the servers, said the women gathered at First Lutheran Church's kitchen Friday to prepare the multi-course meal, making sure that everything was exactly right.

Twenty-five pounds of chicken were used to make sure the curried chicken salad was done exactly right.

The chicken curry was the second of three courses to be served.

The guests were treated to scones as the first course, and later were given dainties, 1910 sweets, to finish the afternoon.

The Nerds of Notes, a local barbershop quartet, performed for the guests.

Byron Ophus, the lead singer, said the group had performed for many local groups, including the foundation's annual meeting last year.

"This is the first time we've been invited back," he said, as the crowd laughed.

He started off the performance with "Sentimental Journey."

Three members of Montana Actors' Theatre - Judy Veis, Martin Holt and Angela Murri - performed a skit based on "Downton Abbey" that brought laughter and prolonged applause from the crowd.

Karen Vogel and Judy Ward co-chaired the event. Vogel designed a quilt that was raffled off.

Vogel said she was a newcomer to the world of "Downton Abbey."

"I've been following it for about three weeks," she said.

But Ward is a big fan, who knew the details of the event and made sure that all the food and decorations followed exactly what the PBS series called for.

Elaine Morse, the longtime chair of the foundation, spoke last, thanking the guest for coming and the volunteers for helping out.

"Do you know why we have to hold fundraisers for the Clack Museum?" she asked rhetorically.

Hill County's allocation to the museum is about

$25,000 a year, she said, which isn't much given that the museum has to hire an employee and pay the expenses.

"How many had a good time this afternoon" she asked the crowd.

Lots of applause.

"How many would come back next year if we can convince the volunteers to help us again?"

More applause.