On this day in 1969, three men, the crew of Apollo 11, had just blasted off from the Florida coast and into the great beyond. John Paul Stevens was working in Chicago as a partner at Rothschild, Stevens, Barry and Myers, handling antitrust cases. In 1975, he was appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Stevens died on July 16, 2019. He was a Psi Upsilon at the University of Chicago. He was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Delta Phi.
Despite internet reports to the contrary of the three men aboard Apollo 11, only one was a fraternity man. Michael Collins and Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr were West Point graduates where there are no social fraternities. Aldrin was elected to Tau Beta Pi, an engineering honor society. Neil A. Armstrong was a fraternity man, an initiate of the Phi Delta Theta chapter at Purdue University.
Armstrong’s Phi Delt badge is the first fraternity badge to have been to the moon. He was the first man to walk on the moon. Upon his return to Earth, he presented the badge to Phi Delta Theta and it is on display at the fraternity’s headquarters in Oxford. However, contrary to rumor, he never pinned it on the American flag on the moon, nor did he pin his wife’s Alpha Chi Omega badge to the American flag.
A P.E.O. Connection
Aldrin carried with him a P.E.O. Centennial Charm in loving memory of his grandmother, Jessie Ross Moon. She was a member of the first Florida chapter of P.E.O., Chapter A, in Miami, as was his aunt, Madeline Moon Sternberg. His aunt and her chapter presented the charm to P.E.O. at the dedication of the P.E.O. Centennial Center on Sept. 29, 1969 during P.E.O.’s Centennial festivities.
