On January 21, 1869, the P.E.O. Sisterhood was founded by seven young women. They were among the 75 or so collegiate level students enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan University. Legend has it that some, but not all of the seven had been asked by Libbie Brook to join the new chapter of I.C. Sorosis (now known by its Greek motto, 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 took the 35-word oath that Alice Bird had written.
Five of the seven founders graduated in June, six months after the founding. Ella Stewart did not graduate because she was needed at home. Suela Pearson, the sophomore among the seven, could have hardly kept the organization going by herself in the fall of 1869. Luckily a few others had become members. After Suela graduated, she moved to Cleveland and had little opportunity to interact with P.E.O.s. Hattie died in 1877, Alice Coffin in 1888, and Ella in 1894.
Mary Allen Stafford and Franc Roads Elliott became involved again as mature women. Alice Bird Babb was the only Founder involved in P.E.O. for decades, from its beginnings to its North American prominence.
Chapter A of the Illinois State Chapter and its four Presidents of the International Chapter
Although there had been a few short-lived chapters in central Illinois in the 1870s, including one at the Jacksonville Female Academy, the first permanent chapter in Illinois was Chapter A, Chicago. It was organized January 17, 1893, by Kittie E. Dietrich. who had been a member of that chapter at Jacksonville Female Academy. The organizational meeting and first initiation took place at 7 p.m. at the Dietrich home at 5027 Champlain Avenue on the south side of Chicago in the middle of a snow storm. Some of the women who were transferring into the chapter from chapters in other states could not get through the snow.
The Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago that May of 1893. Jessie M. Thayer O’Neil, the president of P.E.O.’s Supreme Chapter was a member of the Exposition’s Lady Board of Managers. Through her connections, P.E.O. was able to be represented in the Organization Room of the Woman’s Building. Minnie Osgood, a charter member of Chapter A, was the room’s official hostess. According to one account, “a vast amount of information was given out, and Miss Osgood’s outstanding personality converted the some-what doubtful venture of a P. E. O. booth into a magnificent success, giving P. E. O. much impetus to growth in Illinois.”
This month I had occasion to look at the yearbook of Chapter A of P.E.O.’s Illinois State Chapter. Yearbooks usually have a list of the women who served as president of that chapter. I was astounded to find that there were four women who served as the president of Supreme Grand/Supreme/International Chapter, as it was known over the years. In addition to two past presidents of Illinois State Chapter, whom I knew about, there were two who totally surprised me.
At the 1897 Supreme Grand Convention held in Newton, Iowa, the president of Chapter A, Illinois, tendered an invitation for the 1899 convention. Her invitation to hold the convention in Chicago was accepted. The 1899 convention was the organization’s first convention held in a hotel. And it wasn’t just any old hotel, it was Chicago’s Palmer House. More than 68 delegates and many more guests gathered in Chicago at P.E.O.’s first convention held east of the Mississippi River. The manager wrote to the chapter thanking them for the stay and noting that they didn’t find any damage to the rooms which wasn’t often the case when they rented rooms to a men’s group.
Also notable was the lack of a state chapter for Illinois. Nine chapters were needed to form a state chapter and that would not happen in Illinois until 1903. Chapter A produced and sold a cook book to help with convention expenses.
Chapter A Cook Book Fundraiser, 1893
The four women who served as president of Chapter A, Chicago, Illinois, and also served as president of Supreme Grand/Supreme/International Chapter are:
Alice Cary Brooks Briggs, president of Chapter A, 1896-1897. She previously served as the first president of Nebraska Grand Chapter, 1890-1892, and as president of Grand Chapter from 1893-1895. (Her husband Abington was P.E.O. founder Hattie Briggs Bousquet’s brother. A business opportunity took the Briggs to Chicago but that is a story for another day.)
Alice Cary Brooks Briggs
Grace Runyan Parks, president of Chapter A 1900-1901. She later served as president of Illinois State Chapter from 1905-1907 and as president of Supreme Chapter 1911-1913.
Grace Runyan Parks
Hallie Newell, president of Chapter A from 1911-1913. She served on the Illinois State Chapter board from 1915 to 1916 as corresponding secretary and organizer. She later served as president of Missouri State Chapter from 1927-1928 and then as president of Supreme Chapter from 1935-1937.
Hallie Newell
Bessie Rainey, president of Chapter A 1925-1927. She served as Illinois State Chapter from 1928-1929 and as president of Supreme Chapter from 1947-1949.
Bessie Rainey
Additionally, Winona Evans Reeves, Iowa Grand Chapter president, served as Supreme Chapter president from 1909-1911. She was a member of Chapter A while she lived in Illinois.
