(This blog was posted a week or so before Roger Ebert’s death. I am so sorry to hear of his passing. I also discovered that a P.E.O. friend and Knox College alumna was Ebert’s childhood friend and neighbor. What a small world it is!)
The 15th Annual Roger Ebert Film Festival (EbertFest) will take place April 17-21, 2013, at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois. Roger Ebert, a University of Illinois alumnus grew up in Urbana. As a student, he joined Phi Delta Theta Fraternity and was a reporter and Editor for the Daily Illini. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize and have a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. EbertFest is organized by the College of Media at the University of Illinois.
A local general contractor, Almond* Whitfield (A.W.) Stoolman, commissioned the Virginia Theatre. A.W. built his first house at 14, attended the University of Illinois and then went on oversee the construction of many campus and community buildings. He built fraternity and sorority houses on the University of Illinois campus including homes for Beta Theta Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Kappa Sigma, and Kappa Kappa Gamma. He also built the University of Illinois President’s home and the local Masonic Lodge, among many others.
The Class of 1897 section in the 1922 University of Illinois Alumni News reported, “One of the most admired playhouses in the central part of the state is the new Virginia Theater, State and Park Streets, Champaign, which opened December 28 (1921). A.W. Stoolman is one of the partners. It is a reproduction of the new Chicago theater and is under the same management as the Rialto. Mr. Stoolman is the husband of Lois Franklin, ’03.”
Lois Gertrude Franklin was born in Streator, Illinois. She enrolled at the University of Illinois; on November 8, 1902, she became a member of Pi Beta Phi’s Illinois Zeta chapter. she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in 1903; two years later, she earned a Master’s. From 1903-08, she taught at Champaign High School. On February 13, 1909 she became Mrs. A.W. Stoolman.
Lois was involved in her husband’s business. The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi reported that during World War I, she “personally supervised the construction of the finest building on the University of Illinois campus while her husband was away building a cantonment.”
Lois was a lifelong volunteer for Pi Beta Phi. She served as Illinois Zeta’s House Corporation President for four years. In 1905, she was one of the five members who as the Pi Beta Phi Improvement Company, financed and built one of the chapter’s previous houses at 807 South Third Street . She also served as Chairman of the Building Committee that helped the chapter move into the home it still occupies at 1005 South Wright Street. She became Grand Treasurer of Pi Beta Phi in 1925 and served until 1946. Previous to her election to Grand Council, she spent two years as treasurer of the Settlement School Committee and three years as President of the Champaign Alumnae Club. She was chairman of the chapter’s Alumnae Advisory Committee. The chapter won the fraternity’s top award, the Balfour Cup, in 1925. When Lois became Grand Treasurer that same year, it was noted that she had “made a careful study of the fraternity situation at the University of Illinois and has a broad viewpoint, a splendid sense of humor, and exceptional business ability such as is needed to pilot the financial affairs of Pi Beta Phi.”
Charles C. Pyle, or “Cash and Carry” Pyle as he was known, is intertwined in the story of the Virginia Theatre. A.W. was a clean-cut straight-arrow pillar of the community. It is a peplexing how he became mixed-up with a partner who, a few years later, would be known as one of the most flamboyant showman in America. When A.W. realized the predicament he was in after partnering with the somewhat shady and big talking Pyle, he made good on all that had been promised, likely at a great financial risk for his business and family. At least two books on Pyle devote a page or two to Stoolman and the Virginia Theatre. The Virginia would be where Pyle found Red Grange, the football player he would represent and in doing so became one of the country’s first sports agents.
Theater architects C. Howard Crane and H. Kenneth Franzheim designed the Virginia Theatre. They were assisted by local architect George Ramey. The building’s exterior is done in the Italian Renaissance style and the interior is decorated Spanish Renaissance style. The first production was a live stage show The Bat written by Mary Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. The Boat, a movie starring Buster Keaton, was shown on the second night.
The Virginia Theatre was named for the Stoolman’s daughter Elizabeth Virginia Stoolman (Julian). She was born on January 4, 1910. Betty, as she was later called, became a member of the Illinois Zeta chapter of Pi Beta Phi. She served as Chapter President and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa.
The Champaign Park District now owns the Virginia Theatre and it has recently undergone an intensive restoration. The Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company (CUTC) holds its performances at the Virginia. The CUTC recognizes its volunteers with Ginny Awards, named in honor of Ginny Stoolman Julian.
* In some publications he is identified as Almon, although his gravestone notes his name as Almond.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com
