Fraternity History & More

Aimee Vanneman (Higdon) was born in what was then called Persia; today it is Iran. The daughter of a missionary surgeon, she spent her childhood there and left to attend Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She received a B.A. from Vassar in 1914.

From Vassar, she enrolled in a Master’s program at the University of Texas. While at Texas, she became a member of the Iota chapter of Chi Omega. The February 1915 Eleusis of Chi Omega describes her as “a graduate student in this university and technician in the zoology department.” She is listed as a faculty member in the 1915 yearbook.

1915

At the 1915 Spring Pageant, the largest event coordinated by the female students of the university, she was a Duchess to her Chi Omega sister Pauline Murrah, who was Queen. She was also the chapter’s correspondent to The Eleusis of Chi Omega  and she attended a Chi Omega convention.

She spent the summer of 1915 taking a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the summer of 1916 in Ventnor, New Jersey. She also attended pledging at the Sophie Newcomb College Chi Omega chapter in the fall of 1916.

It was at the University of Texas that she met the man with whom she would spend more than 65 years. Two different stories were told of their meeting, one hers, one his.

John Cline Higdon, who was known as “Jay” or  “J.C.”, was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. The “Vassar girl” who transferred to Texas was the subject of chatter, especially with the pre-med students. She was a whiz at science and she was working as a technician in the zoology department.

He said he first saw her one day when he was walking across campus. His friend pointed out the “new girl.” The petite brunette wearing low heels did not appear to be the least bit scientific. He later saw her again at a picnic and introduced himself. They became an item from then on in, according to one account. And since his family was in California and hers was across the world, they spent the Christmas holidays on campus.

The Higdons were profiled in an article in the February 14, 1984, Kansas City Star. At that point they were married for 65 years.  In this account, the story was told from the feminine perspective:

Sixty-eight years, Aimee Vanneman sat in a University of Texas concert hall listening to a violin recital. She was working as a zoological technician. She was with a date sitting in back of J.C. Higdon. She married him three years later.

The couple became engaged during Jay’s senior year. She earned her master’s degree in 1917 and was elected to Sigma Xi. Her master’s thesis was published and her chapter boasted in The Eleusis of Chi Omega, “We feel that we have a s great scientist in our midst.” The couple married on August 17, 1918.

Vassar Alumnae News, February 1919

An article in the November 9, 1961, issue of the Kansas City Times told of the couple’s experience in the country in which she had been born. In 1918, the American Committee for Relief in the Near East was looking for Turkish speakers to help. Aimee Higdon’s father was a hostage and had not been heard from in five years. She thought by volunteering for the assignment she might have the opportunity to find out what happened to her father. It was said she told her  husband she was heading to Turkey and that he said he was going along, too.

The January 16, 1919 Fort Worth Star Telegram noted that the Higdons had been:

appointed members of the Relief Commission for the reconstruction of Turkey which will set sail for the Near East in February. Mrs. Higdon will work in a medical laboratory or take charge of orphan babies. Higdon will do electrical work.

Six months after applying to help, they sailed on a Navy transport. What they found was heartbreaking. Although she thought she would be using her bacteriology degree, she was charged with running an  orphanage. She also had to deal with newly orphaned children roaming the streets. Some young children were found dead and she supervised their burials. Her proficiency in Turkish and French helped her act as a translator when volunteer doctors needed those skills to work with patients.

Her husband thought he would be using his physics degree, but he was put in charge of getting wheat shipped around the country.  They lived on the British Regimental compound. One day she took a phone call at the compound and it was her father on the other end of the line. He didn’t know she was there. She heard a voice say, “Dr. William Vanneman, asking permission for his train to pass through Nachevan en route to the Black Sea.” She quickly identified herself and father and daughter were able to have a short reunion.

The Higdon’s time abroad was harrowing. Her account of the genocide was published in many newspapers. In addition, she developed typhus, delivered a baby boy named William and they all barely made it out of the country alive. In April of 1921, they made their way to New London, Connecticut, where her parents then lived. Another baby was born there.

The couple settled in Kansas City, Missouri, where three additional children were born. The Higdons spent the rest of their lives there.

Higdon kept herself busy with volunteer opportunities including as a worker with the tuberculosis clinic, the public health office at General Hospital, the polio ward at St. Luke’s Hospital, the American Red Cross and as a general hospital volunteer. Higdon was also a trustee of the Student Nurses Loan Fund, a director of the Children’s Cardiac Center, a member of the Woman’s City Club, Women’s Division of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra and a past board member of the Gillis Home for Children, among many other organizations.  She received Matrix Award from Theta Sigma Phi 1966 for distinguished cultural and community service.

She died on June 12, 1989 at the age of 96.