On April 17, 1893, Alpha Xi Delta was founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois. The founders ranged in age from 15-year old Alice Barlett Bruner to a 25-year-old widow, Eliza Curtis. For nine years Alpha Xi remained a local organization on the Lombard campus.
P.E.O. was founded as a collegiate organization at Iowa Wesleyan University on January 21, 1869. Between 1869 and 1902, the P.E.O. members who had been initiated while enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan University stayed active in the college chapter even though they were no longer enrolled in the college. Many remained in or near Mount Pleasant. Others formed chapters in towns and communities where they moved after graduation. The early P.E.O. chapters that had been formed at nearby schools did not survive and P.E.O.’s growth was in community chapters. The chapter at Iowa Wesleyan University was finding it difficult to operate on a college campus with the rules put forth by the community chapters.
The P.E.O. Chapter at Iowa Wesleyan University took became Chapter AJ to distinguish itself from the Mount Pleasant community chapter, which today is known as Original A. When state chapters were established and chapters were renamed it became Chapter S/Iowa. After the turn of the century, the governing body of P.E.O. made the decision to withdraw the charter of Chapter S. The college women wished to remain a collegiate organization and discussed becoming a chapter of a Greek-letter organization.
The Alpha Xi Delta Chapter at Lombard, having made the decision to become a national organization, and the collegiate members of P.E.O., having decided to become a chapter of a Greek-letter organization, discussed the decisions that needed to be made on both sides if there was to be a resolution to these wishes. Anna Gillis (Kimble), a member of the Alpha Xi Delta chapter at Lombard College, hailed from Mount Pleasant. Her influence helped the Iowa Wesleyan women make the decision to become the Beta chapter of Alpha Xi Delta.
On June 9, 1902, the Alpha Xi Delta members entered the Lombard College Chapel wearing their tri-colored ribbons for the first time. The ribbons heralded the fact that they were now a national organization. After chapel, the installing officers made their way to Mount Pleasant.
The installation of Alpha Xi Delta’s second chapter took place at the home of Ellen Ball. Cora Bollinger Block presided at the installation.
The chapter roll quickly grew. By 1905, when the Beta Chapter hosted the Third National Convention, there were nine chapters. In addition to the chapters at Lombard and Iowa Wesleyan, chapters had been chartered at Mount Union College, Bethany College, University of South Dakota, Wittenberg University, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin and West Virginia University. The only P.E.O. founder to be continuously involved with P.E.O. was Alice Bird Babb. Her daughter Alice Babb Ewing was a member of the Beta chapter of Alpha Xi Delta and a P.E.O.
The Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Alumnae Chapter had a breakfast each year a hotel. On June 4, 1924, P.E.O. founder Alice Bird Babb was their guest and she spoke at the event. Babb mentioned she had always wanted to be an Alpha Xi Delta, but she “never expected to be here while college was in session.”
Mount Pleasant alumna Ruth Willits wrote a report of this event for The Quill. It appears as if the initiation had not been planned in advance:
The idea was an inspiration to us and it grew so fast that by six o’clock that evening we had seen an initiation ceremony given in the historic room in Main Hall – that room so interesting to P.E.O. – the room in which our initiate had helped found P.E.O. in 1869. I’m sure I never saw the ceremony performed more beautifully. Something seemed to tell all of us that we were renewing our vows to Alpha Xi Delta.
This spur of the moment initiation might be why she was initiated with Bess Randle Van Brussel’s badge. Babb was 74 years old when she became an Alpha Xi. She died in 1926.
Lombard College was founded in 1853 by the Universalist Church and it was coeducational from its beginning. Originally called the Illinois Liberal Institute, its name was changed in 1855, after a fire damaged much of the college. Businessman and farmer Benjamin Lombard gave the college a large gift to build a new building and the institution was named in his honor. Among its students was Carl Sandburg. The 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression hit Lombard College extremely hard and the college closed its doors. The last class graduated in 1930. Knox College invited the Lombard students to transfer to Knox, with the same tuition cost as Lombard, and without loss of academic standing. Knox also incorporated the Lombard alumni into the Knox Alumni Association.
