Pi Beta Phi was founded on April 28, 1867, at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, by 12 young women. Ten of them gathered in the southwest bedroom on the second floor of a home owned by “Major” Jacob Holt. The two who could not make the gathering agreed to abide by whatever the others decided to do. Their intention from the beginning was to create a fraternity for women based upon the men’s fraternity model.
A second chapter was founded at Iowa Wesleyan University in December 1868. On April 1, 1873, a chapter was established at Kansas University in Lawrence, Kansas. For #WHM2018, I wrote a post about Flora Richardson Colman, a charter member of the chapter who was the first female graduate and Kansas University’s first valedictorian. Today, I am writing about Lucinda Smith (Buchan), an 1890s initiate of the chapter who served as Grand Treasurer of Pi Beta Phi from 1893-98. Today is Pi Phi Giving Day and Lucinda Smith Buchan is connected to one of the first instances of fraternity women, in their grief, pooling their “pin money” to help other women.
Lucinda loved a Phi Kappa Psi named Fred E. Buchan. He had graduated before her and was a member of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers (akin to the National Guard of today). The United States became involved in the Spanish-American War. The war began on April 21, 1898. The men from Kansas headed west to fight on the Asia-Pacific front of the war.
Lucinda Smith
Lucinda Smith is in the middle and she is surrounded by her Kansas Alpha sisters.
If you look closely you can see Fred Buchan’s Phi Psi pin to the right of her arrow.
In June 1898, the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers were called to San Francisco for service in the Philippines. They had one day’s notice, according to an article that appeared in The Arrow. Ida Smith (Griffith) was appointed to fill her sister’s term as Grand Treasurer. Lucinda and Fred quickly married and the ceremony took place at the home of relatives in San Francisco.
An account in the November 2, 1899 Topeka State Journal told this story:
The officers were not permitted to have the company of their wives on the transports and separation seemed inevitable. But the Kansas girl had pluck. With the wife of another officer, she became a stowaway on the Indiana, and although the government tried to prevent it, she journeyed as far as Honolulu on the way to Manila before she was parted from her husband. Though compelled to leave the transport, she followed Capt. Buchan within a few day on the regular steamer and shared his lot up to the time of her death.
Lucinda Smith Buchan died in Manila on April 17, 1899. The Lawrence Pi Phis sent a telegram to Grace Lass Sisson to tell her the sad news.
It reads: “News received of Lucinda Buchan’s death in Manila no particulars.”
Captain Buchan immediately left Manila with his wife’s body hermetically sealed in a coffin. It took him more than a month to bring his young wife back to Lawrence. Funeral services were held at the Trinity Episcopal Church and she was buried in Oakhill Cemetery.
Edith Huntington Snow, a Kansas Alpha, wrote about Lucinda:
She possessed the qualities most needed in fraternity life – loyalty, enthusiasm, good judgement and tireless energy for work, with the sort of loyalty which is as unfailing in time of reverses as in the day of greatest prosperity….Forceful, reserved, and yet responsive, she was at once the dignified, efficient council member, and the interested, sincere and sympathetic friend.
The Arrow had several pages on her death including this account by a KU professor:
Tp honor her memory, her chapter established a $200 loan scholarship, at a time when these financial aid opportunities were few and far between. The amount is about $5,500 in 2018 dollars.
Captain Buchan became a career Army man, serving in two wars, and rising to the rank of Colonel. After his journey to Lawrence to bury his wife, he returned to service. In 1901, he married Laura Conger. They had two daughters and he died at the age of 58 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery along with his second wife. (The courtship of Laura and Fred is a fascinating story in and of itself – it involves the Boxer Rebellion and two young people who suffered tragic first marriages, but you’ll have to research that on your own.)
