Laura Kuykendall, Delta Delta Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2022

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Laura Kuykendall spent most of her adult life at Southwestern University. In the 1904 Southwestern yearbook, on the Alpha Delta page, she is listed as a member in faculty. It was a local organization established in 1903. On December 5, 1905, it became a chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma. After Tri Sigma chose to limit its chapters to normal schools (teacher training institutions), the chapter became the Theta Epsilon Chapter of Delta Delta Delta in 1911.

1904 Southwestern yearbook

Kuykendall became a member of the Tri Delta chapter in 1914 when she returned to Southwestern. She taught Expression and Physical Training and became the Dean of Women in 1918.

She was known for the elaborate May Fair celebrations she produced. They were a two-day affair starting on the last day of April and continuing through the first day of May. In 1917, 150 women took part in the pageantry and visitors came from the neighboring areas to see the productions. They had the air of a homecoming celebration.

From the Southwestern University archives

In January of 1925, the Ladies Annex which served as a residence hall for the women burned. Kuykendall played a major role in getting the 200 women out of the building during  the middle of the night. In 1926, a new building replaced the Ladies’ Annex.  It became known as Laura Kuykendall Hall. It was an integral part of campus life until it was torn down in 1996. There is now a Laura Kuykendall Garden to honor the former Dean of Women.

The women who were displaced by the fire stand in front of the shell of the building.

Laura Kuykendall Hall

Kuykendall died on April 30, 1935 after suffering a stroke. Her funeral was held in the Woman’s Building and Dr. C.M. Bishop, President Emeritus, conducted her services. At the time of her death, she was serving Tri Delta as a Province Inspector.

The plaque that was once on Laura Kuykendall Hall.

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Grace Fern Heck Faust, Zeta Tau Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2022

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Grace Fern Heck Faust was born in 1905. In the fall of 1924, she enrolled in Ohio State University where she became a member of Zeta Tau Alpha. She earned a bachelor’s degree in 1928, one of two women who graduated with a law major. Faust was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

She graduated summa cum laude from the Ohio State University College of Law with a Juris Doctor in 1930. Graduating in the top ten percent of her class made her a member of the Order of the Coif.

When she was passed over for a job at a Cleveland law firm in favor of a man, she spent a year as a researcher for the Wickersham Commission at Yale University as well as doing other research work.

She moved back to Urbana, Ohio, and started a private practice, making her the youngest attorney in the county. Then she decided to run for elected office in Champaign County and put in miles visiting the county’s residents knocking on doors and talking to the electorate. She won her bid to be Prosecuting Attorney and was the first woman in Ohio to win that position.

Dayton Herald, August 11, 1937

Telegraph-Forum (Bucyrus, Ohio), July 2, 1935

During World War II, she was employed by a law firm in Springfield, but when the male lawyers returned from war service she found herself without a job. She began another law practice in Springfield and served as secretary of the Clark County Bar Association from 1945-1956.

In 1951, after the death of the sitting judge, Faust was endorsed as Champaign County’s probate judge but she declined. Three years later, she was elected as the county’s municipal judge. It came with a $3,000 per year salary which was meager, even for the time. She resigned from the position in 1958  and returned to private practice. She found time to serve on the board of the Magnetic Springs Foundation, a rehabilitation facility in Magnetic Springs, Ohio.  In 1960, she was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

She served as president of the Ohio State University College of Law Alumni Association. Faust was honored with the Alumni Centennial Award in 1970 and the Distinguished Service Award in 1971, both from Ohio State University. She married Leo Faust in 1977. He, too, was an attorney.

In 1990, she was the first woman to receive the Ohio State University’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Four years later, she died at the age of 88.

Grace Heck’s 1930s red and white day dress now in the  Ohio State University Textiles collection (Photo courtesy of The Ohio State University)

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A Famous (Unheard of) Writer with a Sorority Connection

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Here’s another post by my Pi Beta Phi sister, Penny Proctor.

Quick – which writer from Indiana published six novels and over 200 short stories in popular magazines between 1924 and the early 1950s? Drawing a blank? Here’s a hint: she was a charter member of the legendary “Fifty Club” of The Saturday Evening Post, meaning that no fewer than fifty of her stories were published in that magazine. Still no guess? Allow me to introduce you to Margaret Weymouth Jackson, whose fifteen minutes of fame lasted nearly twenty-five years, but who now has vanished from the popular culture.

The daughter of a magazine editor, Margaret – sometimes called “Margery” in her youth – was born with the figurative pencil in her hand. She learned the foundation of good writing and editing from helping her father, especially during his years at the editor of Farm Life. She spent her later childhood years in Spencer, Indiana while her father worked from the family home. In the fall of 1913 she matriculated at Hillsdale College in southern Michigan and in 1914 became an initiated member of Pi Beta Phi. She left before graduating to try her luck in the publishing business and by 1918 was the associate editor of the Chicago-based magazine, Better Farming. Her first short stories were published there.

In 1920 she married Charles Jackson, then a fellow boarder at her rooming house in Chicago. Although born in the United States, he had been raised in England and joined the Canadian Army to fight in World War I. As a reward for his service, the Canadian government gifted him with several hundred acres of land near Brandon, Manitoba, so he and his bride moved there.

Their two daughters were born there, but Margaret could not completely abandon her passion for writing. She bought a typewriter and offered her services to the local newspaper. What began as a factual article on a local livestock fair transformed into a short story, the first of several published in the Brandon paper.

Manitoba winters proved too much for them, and the Jackson family returned to Spencer, Indiana in 1924. Along with having her third child and raising Charles’ orphaned nephew, Margaret wrote, and wrote. While some of her stories were published in Better Farming, she tried to branch out and submitted stories to some of the best-known magazines in the country. After eighteen rejections in a row, she considered giving up, but her agent encouraged her to keep trying. Once the first story sold, she rarely had to cope with rejections again.

For the next 25 years or so, Margaret became a regular contributor to magazines that literally were in nearly every American home: The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, McCalls, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Home Companion, and American Mercury as well as a few more niche magazines such as Country Gentleman and of course, Better Farming. Many of her stories were serialized and published in daily newspapers around the country, including the New York Daily News.

Margaret’s writing stood apart from other popular writers of the day. She eschewed over-sentimentality, moralistic tropes, or improbable adventures of the rich. Her focus was on the drama of daily life as experienced by ordinary, everyday people. As she described it, “America is a place of work and business, and I wrote a lot about “businessmen” – policemen, plumbers, firemen, factory workers, electricians – because we are all businessmen and business is America’s preoccupation.” (i)

Her first novel, Elizabeth’s Tower, was published in 1926 to generally favorable reviews, although the enthusiasm of the reviewer seemed to differ based on the size of the area served by the reviewer. For example, the critic of the paper in Rochester, New York, opened with this statement: “In Elizabeth’s Tower, the author has so skillfully blended romance and realism that the reader accepts the fairy tale element almost unquestioningly. The book is a veritable poem in prose and carries its reader into a new realm of dreams and ideal beauty.” (ii)

On the other hand, the reviewer from Chicago had this to say: “It is a ‘triumph of true love’ story. For this kind of thing, it is better than most.” (iii)

By 1930, Margaret’s output was astonishing. The February 1930 edition of The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi noted that she had no fewer than 10 stories published or set to be published between December 1929 and the autumn of 1930. “Whew! – where does she get the time to eat, with all that writing? And that isn’t all of her writing, either, but it isn’t to be told for an issue or two.”(iv)

With her career and reputation firmly established, Margaret began to make her political views known through essays and articles and the occasional heated debate. A Roosevelt Democrat, she abhorred anything which she viewed as exploiting hard-working people. In the late 1930s, with another world war looming on the horizon, she tried to get people to understand that war was about killing, not glory, and those urging men to go to war were not the ones who would be fighting it. Her editors asked her to stop, but she replied, “When I get a phone call from President Roosevelt and he tells me to stop talking about war, maybe then I’ll stop.”(v)

Despite this outspokenness, Margaret was thoroughly likeable. A reporter interviewed her in 1930 after the publication of her second novel and provided this report: “You will like her …. [S]he makes you think of wholesome salt-rising bread and other plain Hoosier substantialities. She disarms you immediately with her downrightness.”(vi)

After World War II, people’s tastes began to shift and demand for her work began to dwindle. By 1955, she and Charles were forced to “downsize” to live within their reduced means. When Margaret decided to retire from writing, she and Charles (who usually read Margaret’s drafts and offered critiques) tutored student athletes at Indiana University, primarily from the basketball and football teams. She was credited with helping these athletes achieve and sustain academic eligibility.(vii)

By the time of her death in 1974, Margaret’s 200 stories and six novels had faded from popular culture; yet even then, some English teachers were using her stories as examples of good writing.(viii)

She received accolades for her accomplishments during her lifetime, including a honorary Doctor of Literary Humanities in 1940 from Hillsdale College; induction into the Owen County (Indiana) Hall of Fame in 1969; and induction into the Indiana Academy in 1971, for her general contributions to literature and general culture. In 1996, she was posthumously inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

i Gibson, Ethel. “Margaret Jackson, Magazine Writer.” The Indianapolis News, 5 Apr 1974, p. 36.
ii “Love’s Young Dream.” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, New York] 6 Jun 1926 p. 60.
iii “True Love Wins in This Novel of a Girl Who is Persistent.” Chicago Tribune. 24 Jul 1926 p. 9.
iv Fuller, Esther, Ed. “From Pi Phi Pens.” The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, vol 46, No. 3, Feb 1930 p. 435.
v Hiller, Nancy R. “Margaret Weymouth Jackson: The Sage of Spencer, Indiana.” Bloom Magazine 11 Dec 2013. Found online on January 28, 2022 https://www.magbloom.com/2013/12/margaret-weymouth-jackson-the-sage-of-spencer-indiana/
vi Lemon, Mary Dyer. Indianapolis Star 24 August 1930 p. 35.
vii Wood, Henry. “Author Margaret Jackson Lends a Hand to I.U. Athletes.” Indianapolis Star, 4 Nov 1964, p. 33.
viii Editorial. “Margaret W. Jackson.” The Indianapolis News, 9 Apr 1974 p. 10.
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Edith Eugenie Johnson, M.D. – The Woman Behind the Park

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Enjoy this guest post by Penny Proctor, Pi Beta Phi.

If you visit Palo Alto, California, you may find yourself enjoying Johnson Park in the city. Located at the intersection of Hawthorne and Kipling streets, it boasts a community garden as well as picnic areas and a family-friendly recreation area. If you look closely at the sign at the main entrance, you will see that the full name of the park is the “Dr. Edith Eugenie Johnson Park.”

So who was Edith Eugenie Johnson, and why is the park named for her?

Edith was the youngest daughter of the ten children of John Johnson, who came to the United States from Denmark in 1850. John prized education, as did his third wife (he was twice widowed); of the nine children who lived to be adults, five daughters became teachers; two sons became attorneys, and one (Alvin Johnson) went on to become of the founders and leaders of the New School for Social Reform in New York City. Edith taught for a while, but she wanted a different path and eventually practiced medicine for more than 50 years.

As her brother Alvin described in his Forward to Edith’s autobiography:

Our Nebraska farm could feed us well, house us well, and supply abundant fuel. …There was no money whatsoever to finance education. This was not discouraging to Edith and me. We had learned to work and wait.

We had to wait a long time. Edith could go off to Sioux City at fourteen [1886] to work for her room and board and attend high school. …[She] went through a teacher’s course and settled down to teach until finances would permit her to study medicine. (i)

Finally, in 1902 at the age of 30, she entered the Cornell University School of Medicine. While at Cornell, she initiated into Eta Chapter of Alpha Epsilon Iota, a now-defunct organization for women medical students. AEI would now be considered a professional fraternity; it was founded in 1890 at the University of Michigan and came to Cornell in 1902. Judging by the Cornell yearbooks of the day, it was treated on the same footing with the women’s sororities that would become the founders of the National Panhellenic Conference. The badge, described as a pentagon, featured the three Greek letters Alpha, Epsilon, and Iota as well as a large, gold snake against a black enamel background. (The Cornell chapter of AEI was dormant by 1913, and the national organization ceased to exist in 1963).

Although she was born and raised in Nebraska, her parents had moved to Palo Alto, California by the time Edith graduated in 1908 and she moved there to live with them. Her first office was a room in the family’s home on Hawthorne Street. According to the City of Palo Alto:

Established community physicians quickly gained respect for Palo Alto’s first woman doctor and utilized her skills, particularly in obstetrics. She delivered more than 3,500 babies in the Palo Alto area during a 30-year period, charging low-income patients little or nothing. (ii)

Her brother Alvin described her acceptance in town this way:

Palo Alto was already equipped with a fine body of well-trained physicians and surgeons. A new doctor might have found it hard to fit in. But Dr. Edith had chosen obstetrics for her specialty. Most men doctors hate obstetrics. …[O]bstetrics is poor pay. …Far from trying to curb the activities of the new woman doctor, the Palo Alto medical faculty were active in sending her patients. Mostly patients who could not pay. (iii)

The population Edith served was comprised largely of Asian immigrants, especially Chinese and Japanese. This group gave her the sobriquet “the White Angel” because of her willingness to help them, regardless of their ability to pay. The nickname was first given when she was summoned to a house to help a newborn who somehow managed to get his head stuck between the slats of his crib. She came at once, but the baby had stopped breathing. In front of the parents, she administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the infant recovered. From that day on, she was the “White Angel.” (iv) Over the course of the next 30 years, she delivered more than 3,500 babies. (v)

In 1919, she was named the acting medical advisor to the women’s department of Stanford University. (vi) During the Influenza epidemic, she further endeared herself to the community by her tireless care for her patients. Despite this, she still encountered the old prejudices against women professionals. When her mother died in 1916, the obituary identified her brothers in California (two attorneys in Chico and “Dr. A.S. Johnson [Alvin] of the department of economics at Stanford University.” Despite her successful practice of medicine, Edith was mentioned as “daughter Miss Edith Johnson of Palo Alto.” (vii)

All told, Edith practiced for more than 50 years. She never married; her patients were her life. For much nearly all of her practice, she continued to see patients out of her home on Hawthorne Street despite having an office downtown. In 1954, finally retired, she published her autobiography at the urging of her brother Alvin; 12 years later, she passed away.

In 1986, the City of Palo Alto dedicate the “Dr. Edith Eugenie Johnson Park” on Hawthorne Street, directly across from her home, as a permanent memorial to her contribution to the city and its residents. (viii)

i Johnson, Edith E., M.D. Leaves from a Doctor’s Diary (Pacific Books, Palo Alto) 1954, pp. viii-ix.
ii Gauvin, Peter. Dr. Edith Eugenie Johnson. Palo Alto Online, Publication Date December 14, 1994. Copied on February 5, 2022, from https://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/news/1994_Dec_14.CREATR39.html
iii Johnson, Edith E. M.D., supra pp. ix-x.
iv Ibid, p. x
v Gauvin, Peter, supra.
vi “Stanford Adds Six to Faculty.” The San Francisco Examiner, July 7, 1919. Page 7.
vii “Mother of Chico Men Dead.” The Sacramento Bee., 24 May 1916, p. 9.
viii The author of this article is the great-granddaughter of Edith Johnson’s older half-sister Helen. The photos of Edith are from the family collection and are not dated.
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Mildred Thrasher Griffin: The Story Behind the Badge

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

This post was written by my  friend Penny Proctor. She is an initiate of the Pi Beta Phi chapter at Hillsdale College. Thank you, Penny, for sharing this story.

When is a badge more than a badge? When it is a tribute.

First, let me provide a bit of context. When I began law school in 1977, women had been practicing law for decades, yet were only just beginning to be truly accepted in the profession. While the number of women in my class – 23% – was the largest to date at my law school and attitudes were changing, there were still those who resented our presence. At a party my third year, I was told by a male classmate that I was a terrible person because I had taken away a seat from a potential male student just so I could meet and marry a future lawyer. Still, I was conscious that I was not really a pioneer; many women before me had blazed the trail I was then following.

This is the story of a badge that belonged to one of the true pioneers.

The November 1933 edition of The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi features an article entitled “The Ladies of the Bar,” written by practicing attorney Mary Elizabeth Hanger Ramier, an alumna of the University of Illinois Pi Beta Phi chapter. She intended to highlight Pi Phis who were actually engaged in the practice of law, and opened with these words:

At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, women lawyers and particularly Pi Phi lawyers were rare indeed. The majority of Pi Phis who received LL.B. degrees or were admitted to the bar at that time usually became occupied with civic work and household duties, and did not actively engage in the legal profession.(1)

One of the seven practicing attorneys she featured was Mildred Thrasher, a 1920 initiate of my own chapter, Michigan Alpha. Mildred earned her bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College in three years and then entered the Columbian College of George Washington University, one of the law schools most receptive to women students. While working for her L.L.B., she also worked as a secretary in the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice, as well as the Department Agriculture and the Civil Service.

After graduation in 1926, she returned to her hometown of Chardon, Ohio, passed the bar and joined a law firm. She was then the only woman attorney in the county; later in life, she reflected on that by saying only, “I was something of an oddity.”(2) Her practice was devoted primarily to trusts, estates and divorces. In 1928, she ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for the position of Prosecuting Attorney (somewhat ironically, losing to the son of another Michigan Alpha Pi Phi).

The Great Depression hit all lawyers hard, and women lawyers that much harder. To make a living, Mildred had to give up private practice in 1932 and was forced to work as a court reporter, which is what she was doing at the time of the article in The Arrow. Shortly after that, however, she took a job with the local branch of the Works Progress Administration (“WPA”) as a supervisor of “women’s projects.” After a series of rapid promotions, she was named the State Director in 1935. Eventually she was transferred to WPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she was named Administrative Officer.

When the WPA folded in 1942, she joined another federal agency and it was there she met and married Paul Griffin, another federal employee, in 1944. In 1951 they both joined the staff of the Pacific Trust.

Territories, administered by the Department of the Interior. Paul was the Comptroller, Mildred was named Assistant Attorney General.(3) They were based in Guam until Paul’s health began to decline rapidly, and they resigned in 1954 to return to the mainland. Paul died in his hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina in 1955. That same year, Mildred was admitted to the bar of South Carolina and began practicing in Beaufort; she also became CEO of a start-up mortgage company. She retired in 1964 and passed away in 1981.

Last November, a friend who knows of my obsession with Pi Phi history in general and my chapter in particular alerted me to a Pi Phi badge that was for sale on eBay. It was engraved with the words “MichAlph” on the back. Clearly a reference to my chapter (Michigan Alpha), I checked it out. The back of the arrow was engraved with more than the chapter – it bore the name Mildred Thrasher.

The 1933 article in The Arrow closes with these words:

I believe very firmly that every woman who practices law intelligently and conscientiously helps to raise the standard and makes it that much easier for her successors. For there is no other profession or occupation which has been considered so securely a ‘man’s stronghold’ in the past. I hope that in some not far distant future, the practice of law by women may become so general that men will no longer regard us as curiosities.

Mildred was the first Michigan Alpha Pi Phi to practice law intelligently and conscientiously. Because of that, my path was a little easier. Of course I bought her badge. Of course I wear it. It is no longer just a symbol of membership in our beloved sisterhood; it is my tribute to the courage, leadership and nobility of a sister who dared to follow her dreams.

1 Ramier, Mary Elizabeth Hanger. “Ladies of the Bar,” The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, Vol. 50, No. 2, Nov. 1933, p. 175.
2 Micronesian Monthly, “Profile [Mildred Thrasher Griffin]”. Vol. 1 No. 11 Sept. 1952 p 14.
3. Ibid
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Fraternity and Sorority Members Competing in the 2022 Winter Olympics

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

I know of only a handful of fraternity men and women who are competing  in the 2022 Winter Olympics.  Additions (or corrections) to this list are very welcomed as it isn’t always easy to find this information.

Sorority Women*

Emily German, Alpha Phi, Adrian College, Senior Synchronized Skating

Jocelyn Kalkman, Alpha Phi, Adrian College, Senior Synchronized Skating

Brita Sigourney, Pi Beta Phi (University of California-Davis) will compete as a freestyler women’s halfpipe.

(An error was made when this was first posted. There are two women named Julia Marino, Olympian who both attended the University of Colorado at Boulder. One, a skier is an Alpha Chi Omega, who represented Paraguay in several Olympics. The snowboarder named Julia Marino is not a sorority woman.  My apologies for the error.)

Competing in the Paralympics

Sorority Women

Dani Aravich, Delta Gamma (Butler University), Nordic Skiing

Kendall Gretsch, Alpha Omicron Pi (Washington University), Nordic Skiing

 

Fraternity Men

Josh Pauls, Phi Delta Theta, (Lindenwood University), Sled Hockey Team

 

 

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A Kappa Alpha Theta Grand President on Founders’ Day

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

In 1867, 17-year-old Bettie McReynolds Locke [Hamilton] was the first female to enroll in Indiana Asbury College (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, Indiana.  The first decision to allow women to attend Asbury was made in 1860. However, it was rescinded several times with debate following each decision. Kappa Alpha Theta was founded on January 27, 1870. The story involves Bettie Locke and a Phi Gamma Delta badge.

Jessie Baldbridge LeBrecht was born in La Junta, Colorado. She entered the University of Kansas where she became a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta chapter. She served and chapter president and as president of the Equal Suffrage League. A Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated in 1909.

She married Hal Rueben LeBrecht, an Alpha Tau Omega, on December 8, 1910. They moved to Kansas City and  she joined the Theta city alumnae. She was appointed District President in 1918, when “everyone else had the ‘flu,’” she noted later.

One hundred years ago, at the 1922 convention, LeBrecht was elected Theta’s Grand Vice President. Her daughters, Louise and Florence, were three- and seven-years-old , respectively, when she took on that role. Florence would later become a Theta at her mother’s chapter.  Louise became a member of the University of Arizona Theta chapter.

LeBrecht’s impressions of the 1922 convention were published that fall:

College life is but the early expression of what society in general will be as the succeeding various generations of graduates progress into their mature cycle. And, just now, when the youth of the country is being weighed in the balance because of their tradition-breaking expression of new freedom of thought, what an opportunity for the thousands of fraternity women to— not suppress—but turn this freedom toward a worthy and elevating aim. This restless spirit, expending itself so often in revolt, would generate an unimagined power if applied in the many worth-while directions that the universities and the world offer.

The opportunity for service seemed to be the underlying thought of our every discussion, and our own group of women, almost five hundred strong in conference, were eager to grasp and investigate every possibility for unselfish interest that was proposed. Cannot this wonderful spirit be infused into each chapter and give them a new viewpoint of their responsibility to the college community?

This convention was a ‘loyalty’ convention and what an illumination of that sometimes shop-worn word we received! It was not preached to us in dogmatic fashion, nor did it take the selfish form of loyalty only to our own organization. It became a warm, glowing emblem of our acceptance of responsibility—to our homes, our colleges, our selves, most of all to fusing the best from the old traditions and the best from the new freedom into a sane, balanced order.

LeBrecht was elected Grand President at the 1924 convention and served two terms. After she left office, she spoke at Gamma Phi Beta’s 1929 convention held in Kansas City. She was involved in Kansas City civic organizations including serving as president of the Woman’s Club of Kansas City. In 1955, the LeBrechts moved to Paradise Valley, Arizona.

In 1966, she sent greetings to the convention body:

All glory to the 1966 Grand Convention of Theta. Fraternity has taken on new meanings as the decades pass and Theta’s widespread influence is most rewarding to the many who serve her with such love and devotion. My good wishes for the future.

Arizona Republican, February 13, 1960

LeBrecht died on December 22, 1973.

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Ten Years of Blog Posts @GLOHistory

Posted on January 24, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Facebook has a way of reminding me of things. Late last night I saw a Facebook memory that reminded me that I’ve been writing this blog for 10 years. A decade of my ramblings about fraternity and sorority history! Who woulda thunk I’d keep this up for a decade! I never expected anyone to read the posts. It was a way to deal with the sudden death of my sister, my only sibling, at age 51.

And it’s funny, too. Yesterday I tried to write one of the @WHM2022 @NotableSororityWomen posts but I kept hitting dead ends. I started bemoaning the amount of time each one takes. Even then I am not sure I’ve got the facts right. My goal to write a post for each day in March, one for each NPC and NPHC sorority, gets harder each year. I thought perhaps I’d not commit to 30 posts this year.

But I love telling those stories. While each group has those women who are front and center, they all have alumnae who lived good lives, gave their best and did what they could with what they had. Their stories are the ones we rarely hear about. And so I thank you all for reading the posts. And since I put this in writing, I need to get going on these posts.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Some days it is hard to call myself an advocate for fraternities and sororities. When our members do stupid and dangerous and sometimes deadly things, it is difficult to reconcile the best of this experience with the worst of it. This is a conversation I have with myself on a regular basis. But, I still believe that the fraternity and sorority experience, when done well, is one of the best training grounds for life.

Instead of preaching to the choir, I will just give you all my heartfelt thanks for being a part of this community.

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Chapter A, Illinois, on P.E.O’s Founding Day

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

On January 21, 1869, the P.E.O. Sisterhood was founded by seven young women. They were among the 75 or so collegiate level students enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan University. Legend has it that some, but not all of the seven had been asked by Libbie Brook to join the new chapter of I.C. Sorosis (now known by its Greek motto, Pi Beta Phi). On that unseasonably warm January day, Franc Roads and Hattie Briggs were sitting on the steps of a wooden stile at the southeast entrance to the campus and made the decision to start a society of their own. They gathered five others, Mary Allen, Ella Stewart, Alice Bird, Alice Coffin, and Suela Pearson, and took the 35-word oath that Alice Bird had written.

Five of the seven founders graduated in June, six months after the founding. Ella Stewart did not graduate because she was needed at home. Suela Pearson, the sophomore among the seven, could have hardly kept the organization going by herself in the fall of 1869. Luckily a few others had become members. After Suela graduated, she moved to Cleveland and had little opportunity to interact with P.E.O.s. Hattie died in 1877, Alice Coffin in 1888, and Ella in 1894.

Mary Allen Stafford and Franc Roads Elliott became involved again as mature women. Alice Bird Babb was the only Founder involved in P.E.O. for decades, from its beginnings to its North American prominence.

Chapter A of the Illinois State Chapter and its  four Presidents of the International Chapter

Although there had been a few short-lived chapters in central Illinois in the 1870s, including one at the Jacksonville Female Academy, the first permanent chapter in Illinois was Chapter A, Chicago. It was organized January 17, 1893, by Kittie E. Dietrich. who had been a member of that chapter at Jacksonville Female Academy. The organizational meeting and first initiation took place at 7 p.m. at the Dietrich home at 5027 Champlain Avenue on the south side of Chicago in the middle of a snow storm.  Some of the women who were transferring into the chapter from chapters in other states could not get through the snow.

The Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago that May of 1893. Jessie M. Thayer O’Neil, the president of P.E.O.’s Supreme Chapter was a member of the Exposition’s Lady Board of Managers. Through her connections, P.E.O. was able to be represented in the Organization Room of the Woman’s Building. Minnie Osgood, a charter member of Chapter A, was the room’s official hostess. According to one account, “a vast amount of information was given out, and Miss Osgood’s outstanding personality converted the some-what doubtful venture of a P. E. O. booth into a magnificent success, giving P. E. O. much impetus to growth in Illinois.”

This month I had occasion to look at the yearbook of Chapter A of P.E.O.’s Illinois State Chapter. Yearbooks usually have a list of the women who served as president of that chapter. I was astounded to find that there were four women who served as the president of Supreme Grand/Supreme/International Chapter, as it was known over the years. In addition to two past presidents of Illinois State Chapter, whom I knew about, there were two who totally surprised me.

At the 1897 Supreme Grand Convention held in Newton, Iowa, the president of Chapter A, Illinois, tendered an invitation for the 1899 convention. Her invitation to hold the convention in Chicago was accepted. The 1899 convention was the organization’s first convention held in a hotel. And it wasn’t just any old hotel, it was Chicago’s Palmer House. More than 68 delegates and many more guests gathered in Chicago at P.E.O.’s first convention held east of the Mississippi River. The manager wrote to the chapter thanking them for the stay and noting that they didn’t find any damage to the rooms which wasn’t often the case when they rented rooms to a men’s group.

Also notable was the lack of a state chapter for Illinois. Nine chapters were needed to form a state chapter and that would not happen in Illinois until 1903. Chapter A produced and sold a cook book to help with convention expenses.

Chapter A Cook Book Fundraiser, 1893

The four women who served as president of Chapter A, Chicago, Illinois, and also served as president of Supreme Grand/Supreme/International Chapter are:  

Alice Cary Brooks Briggs, president of Chapter A, 1896-1897. She previously served as the first president of Nebraska Grand Chapter, 1890-1892, and as president of Grand Chapter from 1893-1895. (Her husband Abington was P.E.O. founder Hattie Briggs Bousquet’s brother. A business opportunity took the Briggs to Chicago but that is a story for another day.)

Alice Cary Brooks Briggs

 

Grace Runyan Parks, president of Chapter A 1900-1901. She later served as president of Illinois State Chapter from 1905-1907 and as president of Supreme Chapter 1911-1913.

Grace Runyan Parks

 

Hallie Newell, president of Chapter A from 1911-1913. She served on the Illinois State Chapter board from 1915 to 1916 as corresponding secretary and organizer. She later served as president of Missouri State Chapter from 1927-1928 and then as president of Supreme Chapter from 1935-1937.

Hallie Newell

 

Bessie Rainey, president of Chapter A 1925-1927. She served as Illinois State Chapter from 1928-1929 and as president of Supreme Chapter from 1947-1949.

Bessie Rainey

 

Additionally, Winona Evans Reeves, Iowa Grand Chapter president, served as Supreme Chapter president from 1909-1911. She was a member of Chapter A while she lived in Illinois.

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January 16, 1920 is a Special Day for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Three of the four National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) sororities celebrate their foundings during the same week. All three, Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and Zeta Phi Beta were founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. For this year’s Founders’ Dya posts, I’ve centered on the chapters at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. The idea for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, happened when Arizona Cleaver was walking with Charles Robert Samuel Taylor, a Phi Beta Sigma at Howard University. Taylor suggested that Cleaver consider starting a sister organization to Phi Beta Sigma. She, along with her four friends, Pearl Neal, Myrtle Tyler, Viola Tyler, and Fannie Pettie, are the five pearls (founders) of Zeta Phi Beta.

Although there were already two sororities on the Howard University campus, Cleaver and her four friends were interested and started the process. They sought and were granted approval from university administrators. The five met for the first time as a sanctioned organization on January 16, 1920. They named their organization Zeta Phi Beta. It is the only National Pan-Hellenic Council sorority constitutionally bound to a fraternity; that fraternity is Phi Beta Sigma.

Xi Beta Chapter at Lincoln University

This week, I’ve written about the chapters at Lincoln University, an HBCU, located in Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1950, the Xi Beta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. was chartered on the Lincoln University campus.

An early group of Xi Beta Chapter members.

In the fall of 1949, a group  sought to bring the fourth of the four NPHC sororities to the Lincoln campus. Zeta Fontella Eton was a transfer from Stowe Teacher’s College (now Harris-Stowe State University). She and fellow Zeta Mary McAfee-Turner, a librarian at the college, led the effort.

Members getting ready for a 1960s Sadie Hawkins Day dance.

The charter members of the Xi Beta Chapter at Lincoln University were Dorothy Martin Wallace, Dolores Clinton, Neculia Johnson, Lucille Horace, Bessie Powell and Frances Watson.

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