John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., the 30th President of the United States, was born on July 4, 1872 in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. He attended Amherst College in Massachusetts where he became a member of Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI).
After graduation, while working as a lawyer in nearby Northampton, he met Grace Goodhue, a Pi Beta Phi who had recently graduated from the University of Vermont. She was working at the Clarke School for the Deaf. They married in the Goodhue family home in Burlington, Vermont. Although they spent their married life living in Massachusetts with a side trip to Washington, D.C. , Vermont seemed to be always in their hearts.
The marker below is in front of his family home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where we stopped about two months ago on our way home from a Vermont graduation. Festivities are planned for today, July 4, 2013 at the Coolidge Homestead and I wish I could attend. Happy Birthday Calvin Coolidge!
To read more about President Coolidge’s life as a FIJI member, please visit this earlier post: http://wp.me/p20I1i-2L and http://wp.me/p20I1i-gf
To read more about his lovely wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a charter member of the Vermont Beta Chapter of Pi Beta Phi, please visit this earlier post: http://wp.me/P20I1i-16 as well as searching the posts using the categories on the right hand of this page. She is one of my favorite people and I love to write about her.
(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
