Daughters of the British Empire is a national society of women who are of British descent.

They meet together under the commonality of British heritage and the philanthropic motto “Not ourselves, but the cause.” Josephine Langstaff, started DBE in 1909. The American organization grew quickly when World War I happened; they had the biggest war relief contribution out of any other British organization.

Now, all DBE organizations support retirement homes for British people in America.

There are four retirement homes in the United States that they fund, including Texas, Illinois, New York and California.

There are chapters throughout the nation, but there is a particular chapter for Kern County that’s called the “Sir Edward Elgar” chapter.

The members come from Shafter, Arvin, Wasco, Delano, Taft, Lake Isabella and Weldon to meet in Bakersfield once a month.

All chapters give to the retirement home nearest to them.

The Kern County section of DBE gives to the retirement home in the L.A. area, in Sierra Madre city.

Kitty Christensen is a member and is from Yorkshire, England. “We help send donations of money, whatever we can to support a retirement home for the British people . we don’t do much, but we do little sales between ourselves,” said Christensen.”We buy each other stuff and the money goes to them [the British retirement home], then we have tea and little sandwiches,” said Joan Bohmwald, who is also from Yorkshire, England.

Even though they come together to support the British retirement homes, they all were looking for new friendships. “I’ve been in Bakersfield for 20 years now … I didn’t have any friends here, so I looked up in the phone book for organizations, that’s how I found DBE,” said Bohmwald.

The Bakersfield Chapter, “Sir Edward Elgar,” started in 1965 with about 40 members.

Now the group is the smallest it’s ever been with eight members.

They lost members for different reasons but mostly because they moved or passed of old age. “Some chapters have over a hundred members,” said Christensen.

The Kern County chapter lacks new and younger members. “Nowdays women aren’t interested in joining because they’re busy working, have children, or going to school,” said Connie Corbell.

“Our daughters and their daughters and their daughters can join, but they never come,'” said Enne Foster who is from Embra, Scotland.

The DBE group would have liked their daughters to join the group, but couldn’t get them to stay. Lyn Brown, from North Hampton, England, is the president of the chapter.

“[Our daughters] don’t have anything in common, they don’t miss England, they’ve never been there. And we miss our home, I was about 20 years old when I left my home,” said Brown.

“You get hungry to talk to someone who knows your language, who knows where you live because you’re in a strange place.”