It's the sort of thing you expect to see in a 1950s TV show: the neighborhood mothers gathering once a month for coffee, sharing the burden of parenthood, sitting out on the lawn watching their kids grow up together.

It may not be Mayberry, but the women of East Waterloo Street in Rapid City have kept their neighborly tradition of monthly gatherings alive for decades.

The group, which calls itself The Waterloo Gang, began with 13 members in the 1960s, said founding member Betty Wicks, who is now 78.

"We just got together in the evenings, the mothers," Wicks said. "When you've got kids, you feel like you need a (quiet) house sometime."

It's been more than 35 years since the first meeting of The Waterloo Gang, and, though only four of the original members remain on East Waterloo Street and two have died, the 11 remaining members still meet nearly every month for coffee and socialization.

"It's just a different bunch of women, but we think an awful lot about each other after all these years," said Renee Jones, 69, who joined the group in the '70s.

For the first several years, each member would bring a dime to the monthly gathering and the funds would be saved up and used to buy gifts when a member had a birthday. Over time, they changed the amount to $1. Early this century, the birthday idea was dropped due to cost, Wicks said, and now they just get together for fun.

The ladies in the group vary in age from 82 to 60, Wicks said, and each one takes a turn hosting the monthly meeting at her home. All of the members still live in Rapid City, except for June Kilby, who commutes to the meetings from her home in Faith.

"(I like) the idea of getting together and hearing everybody's news, especially the ones that have moved away and you don't see them on a daily or weekly basis," Wicks said. "Most of us are grandmas and great-grandmas, and so we have family to talk about."

In addition to their monthly gatherings, the group holds a picnic in August and a Christmas gift exchange in December.

Despite their commonality of all having lived on the same street at one time, the ladies don't have too much in common with each other, Jones said, but they still are good friends and enjoy their monthly gatherings.

"We all kind of run in different circles and hardly ever see other," she said. "But we're very good friends."