The history of Greek-letter organizations is sprinkled with the stories of men and women who have given of themselves, devoting their time, talents, and treasures to the organization they joined as college students. My Pi Beta Phi friend Evelyn Peters Kyle was of these special people.
Evelyn was born on March 26, 1911. On October 9, 2009, she passed away at the age of 98. I was blessed to have had her in my life, even if it was for a relatively short amount of time.
I have always treasured my Province Chapter Service Award, a simple hand-crafted silver arrow. I became a Collegiate Province President in the fall of 1991. One of my duties was choosing the Province Chapter Service Award winner. It was then that I learned Evelyn’s husband Stan made all the Province Chapter Service Award arrows. I wrote him a thank you note telling him how much I loved my Chapter Service arrow. Evelyn wrote a note back telling me how much my letter meant to Stan.
I finally met Evelyn in person at the 1993 Pi Beta Phi Convention’s Officer Dinner in Orlando. We wrote each other frequently, and I loved getting her envelopes in the mail. There were treasures tucked inside – things she knew I would enjoy. And she told me Pi Phi stories. Evelyn was initiated into the Illinois Alpha Chapter in 1930, a few years after the chapter was reinstalled at Monmouth College (Pi Phi’s founding campus). She was in the chapter with several of the founders’ granddaughters and she met a few of the founders. She was my own personal connection to them. In reading her college scrapbook, I had a glimpse of what life was like on the Monmouth College campus in the 1930s.
Recently, Denise Turnbull, the Holt House Curator, and I were trying to figure out which house next to Holt House belonged to founder Clara Brownlee Hutchinson and her husband. The house numbers had changed at some point and Clara’s house number in old directories did not coincide with any of the numbers currently in use. I mentioned to Denise that Evelyn would know, since she was the person who told me Clara lived next to Holt House, but we didn’t have her as a resource anymore. A few months later, I was in the archives and I was looking at a scrapbook Evelyn created after the 1967 Centennial Convention. There on the pages with pictures of the convention trip to Monmouth was a picture of the house with Evelyn’s caption noting it as Clara’s home. I smiled as I sent Denise a scan of the page and told her that Evelyn had come through for us after all.
Her grandmother was a member of the fraternity’s short-lived third chapter so her Pi Phi lineage went back to almost the founding. Evelyn grew up in Pasadena, California. When she went to Monmouth College, it was in a time when getting to and from college meant several days travelling across the country on trains. In 1956, she received Monmouth College’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
Evelyn attended her first convention in 1940, and yes, her scrapbook from that convention is in the archives, too. That convention was an interesting one because of an incorporation challenge. That is a story for another time and place, but I always found it interesting that Evelyn’s first convention was filled with such drama. She became a member of Grand Council after she was nominated from the floor of convention. She treasured her days serving Pi Beta Phi from the chapter and club level to Grand Council. An alumnae club service award is named in her honor. The Pi Beta Phi Foundation has a giving society named in her honor reflecting the spirit of generosity with which she supported the foundation.
Evelyn lived in Pasadena for more than 90 years, She was active in many organizations including P.E.O., Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena Historical Society, Women’s Civic League, and the San Gabriel Valley Area Council of Women’s Clubs. She wrote Dreams of The Pioneers: A Brief History of the Early Days of Pasadena. For many years, she and Stan coordinated the library book sales and she passed on to me copies of Baird’s Manual of American College Fraternities and the Sorority Handbook that she had rescued at the sales decades before. They were also involved in the Tournament of Roses parade.
She was a prolific writer and was named Pi Phi’s first and only Poet Laureate in 1993. In the picture below she is wearing the special pin that Stan made her when she was given this honor. Evelyn is one of those women whose service to Pi Beta Phi spanned her adult life. I feel indeed lucky that I had the opportunity to be her friend and to paraphrase a beloved Pi Phi song, “the joy of having known her will last my whole life through.”
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