Oh, to have been in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 150 years ago today, on December 21, 1868. Earlier that fall, Libbie Brook, a founder of I.C. Sorosis (now known by its Greek motto, Pi Beta Phi), enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan University instead of spending her junior year at Monmouth College, where her organization had been founded on April 28, 1867. It might have been because a chapter of Beta Theta Pi was established there and Libbie might have had a connection to Mount Pleasant. Perhaps her parents felt comfortable allowing her to be in Mount Pleasant. I often wonder why she chose to go to IWU rather than Knox College or Lombard College on her quest to establish the second chapter.
Libbie and her sister Mary took the train from Illinois. The bridge across the Mississippi River had opened for traffic on August 13, 1868. Mary became a student at IWU’s Preparatory School.
Libbie spent the fall getting acquainted with her fellow students. She had a plan and she kept to it. On December 21, 1868, the Gamma Chapter, I.C. Sorosis, was organized the home of Elijah Spry. Even though it was the second chapter, it took on the name of the third letter of the Greek alphabet. Legend has it that Libbie asked some of a group of friends, but not all seven, to become members of her organization.
A month later, on January 21, 1869, those seven, Franc Roads, Hattie Briggs, Mary Allen, Alice Coffin, Ella Stewart, Alice Bird, and Suela Pearson, chose to found a society of their own. They called it P.E.O.
As a P.E.O. and as Pi Beta Phi’s Historian, I am well aware of the early rivalry between the two groups. In fact, there is a section of Pi Phi’s centennial history titled “Rivalry Between P.E.O. and I.C. Sorosis at Mount Pleasant.” According to the report, some of it taken from the Story of P.E.O. written by Winona Evans Reeves, the two groups were for years “mortal foes yet each respected the steel of the other, for the societies were made up of much of the same type of girls. In Iowa Wesleyan they couldn’t even belong to the same literary societies; they had two societies in later years. The two boys’ fraternities (Beta Theta Pi, founded 1868, Phi Delta Theta, founded 1871 and perhaps Delta Tau Delta active 1875-80) had to be very careful in the way they divided their dates and their attentions.”
But the fact remains that the two organizations were intertwined. Had the event of December 21, 1868, not occurred, I likely would not be a P.E.O. today. I seriously doubt if P.E.O. would exist today. So I think it is fitting to celebrate the efforts of Libbie Brook on the way to celebrating the sesquicentennial of P.E.O. January 21st is but a month away!
