There are holiday traditions, and there is the “Winding of the Wreath” tradition observed by the Ladies Floral Club.

The organization harkens back to bygone days in Austin’s history.

Each December one such tradition pays both homage to the passing of members and loved ones and expectations for expanding one’s horizons through reading.

The tradition is recalled in verse:

“At each December meeting, a Christmas wreath we twine. Of sprays of spicy evergreen, of cedar, spruce and pine.

“The pine we wind for high ideals, cedar for those who have gone. And sturdy spruce twigs stand for us to carry on.”

Mrs. F. E. Diagnear wrote those words in 1930.

The Winding of the Wreath tradition was implemented by the organization whose origins date back to 1869, when 13 women created a club to “benefit themselves and the public” by developing “taste and skill in floriculture” and — this part had even larger ramifications than imagined — to “collect books which may prove to be the term of a ladies circulating library.”

It’s undisputed: The Ladies Floral Club is the reason the city of Austin has a library.

“It’s hard to imagine that this club and those 13 women are the reason we have a library today,” said member Gloria Nordin.

Eight months after being organized in 1869, only five years after the conclusion of the Civil War, the club opened the city’s first library — 231 books which were moved from house to house, where visitors would come and check out a book for reading.

When Austin’s new library opened in 1996, a crest in honor of the organization was inlaid in the front lobby area of the library.

That legacy of literary and civic pursuits remains strong today and so does the tradition of the Winding of the Wreath at the club’s December meeting.

The club held its latest meeting Monday at Hormel Historic Home. Sally Baker, president, presided. The wreath ceremony included Baker’s invitation to club members to take part.

“Each member, who so desired to take part, wound a spring in memory of past members or honored former or present members,” Nordin explained.

The symbolism is not lost on Ladies Floral Club members: Esther M. Morse, the first club president, composed a poem dedicated to the “Forgotten” that is still recited.

“Each well-known face comes up before us now, Wearing its own peculiar grace of eyes or cheeks or brows.

“We mind their own familiar ways, we breathe their spirit yet.”

“Forgotten? Nay! They were beloved and love cannot forget,” the Morse poem reads.