“Mommy, what’s that?” my daughter said as I pinned on my husband’s Sig Ep badge under my Pi Phi arrow while getting ready for an alumnae event. “It’s Daddy’s fraternity pin,” I said. “I didn’t know Daddy was a pirate,” said my daughter, who was three or four at the time, after seeing the skull and crossbones on the badge. This conversation took place more than two decades ago, and a smile comes to my face every time I think about it.
Today, November 1, is Sigma Phi Epsilon’s Founders’ Day. Twelve young men at the University of Richmond, one of whom, Carter Ashton Jenkins, was a Chi Phi member from Rutgers University, founded the fraternity in 1901. Jenkins first sought a charter from his fraternity, but the request was declined because the Baptist school was considered too small.
Jenkins then found 11 Richmond men who were also eager to share a brotherhood built upon “the love of God and the principle of peace through brotherhood.” They named the organization Sigma Phi unaware that there was already a men’s fraternity by that name. The group added another Greek-letter to the name and became Sigma Phi Epsilon.
One of my favorite Sig Eps (next to my husband, of course) is Theodor Seuss Geisel who is better known as Dr. Seuss. A member of Dartmouth College’s Class of 1925, Geisel was a member of the New Hampshire Alpha Chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon. To read more about Geisel, see the post at http://wp.me/p20I1i-bh.
Sig Ep’s red door tradition had it start at my Alma Mater, Syracuse University. To read more see http://wp.me/p20I1i-rk.
(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
