"I know the stories and my children know some, but their children aren't going to hear it unless we tell it to them," said Huefner, whose daughter is now getting ready to join the group that was first organized in 1901 for direct female descendants of Utah pioneers.

While current membership is growing , the long-term membership goals for both groups is to recruit new members with fewer wrinkles and less seasoning.

"We are realizing that many of our grandchildren are forgetting. We really want that unbroken line of mothers and daughters," said Mary Johnson, the DUP president who is a third generation society member and whose three daughters also are members.

Thinning enrollment

Starting with just 47 members in 1901, membership in the organization skyrocketed into the 1990s, reaching 22,000 members in 1986. That number, however, started to decline during the following decade as older members began to die and the interest of younger generations began to wane.

With new emphasis on enrolling younger women, Johnson said, the society now has a steady membership of about 20,000 and is able to compensate for the loss of older members. The group usually gains about 100 new members a month, but the median age of the members remains high.

Following the lead of their sibling organization, the Sons of Utah Pioneers officially began in 1933 with about a dozen members. Enrollment peaked during the Depression and World War II eras, fluctuating between 3,500 and 4,300 members. The idea to retrace the original pioneer trek on the 1947 centennial anniversary became the chief stabilizing force that held the organization together in its early years, according to the group's Web site, www.sonsofutahpioneers.org.

But, as was common among many men's social clubs in the second half of the 20th century, membership started thinning like many members' hair, eventually dipping to an all-time low of 1,650 dues-paying members in 1999. Part of the reason it bottomed out there, Lott said, is because leaders took the nonpaying "deadwood" off the membership rolls.

Lott credits an emphasis on recruitment for lifting those enrollment numbers up to 2,050 as of the end of June 2004, which is up 150 from last year's roll count. SUP members are scattered throughout the country in 40 chapters — from Pennsylvania to California, with members ranging in age from 30-somethings to near-centenarians. The average age, Lott says, is between 65 and 70.

Age gaps