The P.E.O. Sisterhood was founded 150 years ago today, on January 21, 1869. The temperature in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, where Iowa Wesleyan University is located, will be about 22 degrees. Legend has it that the temperature on this day in 1869 was unseasonably warm.
P.E.O. was founded by seven young women. In 1869, there were about 75 collegiate level students at Iowa Wesleyan. Legend has it that some, but not all seven, of a group of friends had been asked by Libbie Brook to join the new chapter of I.C. Sorosis (now known as Pi Beta Phi). On that unseasonably warm January day, Franc Roads and Hattie Briggs were sitting on the steps of a wooden stile at the southeast entrance to the campus and made the decision to start a society of their own. They gathered five others, Mary Allen, Ella Stewart, Alice Bird, Alice Coffin, and Suela Pearson and borrowing the Bible from IWU’s chapel, they took the 35-word oath that Alice Bird had written.
P.E.O. members believe that much of what P.E.O. is today comes directly from the seven founders. That is not true at all, save for that oath written by Alice Bird. Five of the seven founders graduated mere months after the organization was formed. Another left school because she was needed at home. The lone underclassman, Suela Pearson, graduated in 1871.
The organization might have failed had it not been for the actions of women who were initiated after the founders. Some were biological sisters. They have names few P.E.O.s recognize – Bartlett, Ambler, Curtis. My own personal favorite P.E.O. builders are Effie Hoffman Rogers and Lulu Corkhill Williams.
I had the distinct honor and privilege to serve on a committee which created We Who Are Sisters, a coffee-table history book to commemorate P.E.O.’s sesquicentennial. Writing a book by committee can be a daunting and challenging task, but I treasure the experience and the time we spent working together, the thousands of e-mails, and the all-day conference calls. I want to give a shout out to my co-authors: Susan Reese Sellers, Past President, International Chapter; Anne Pettygrove, former Chief Executive Officer of the P.E.O. Sisterhood; and Ruth Glancy, Past President, Alberta-Saskatchewan Provincial Chapter. I am honored to call them my sisters.
Happy 150th P.E.O.! It is an amazing organization that has touched the lives of women through its five projects – the Educational Loan Fund, International Peace Scholarship, Program for Continuing Education, Scholar Awards, STAR Scholarship – and Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri.
