On September 2, 1914, 14 fraternity women met on board the S. S. San Guglielmo. Florence Eddy Hubbard, an alumna of the Pi Beta Phi chapter at Barnard College, chronicled the group’s travails as the women cut short their tours of Europe after the July 28 start of World War I.
As Hubbard put it, “There have probably been other Pan-Hellenic meetings on mid-ocean, but I doubt if there was ever a more informal one than took place on board the S.S. San Guglielmo on Wednesday, September 2.” The women were “what the newspapers delight to call ‘refugees,’ and the San Guglielmo – an Italian immigrant ship transformed into first class-with-a-question-mark accommodations – was a safe but not over comfortable refuge.”
The San Guglielmo, a Sicula-Americana ship, was built in 1911. It could carry up to 2,425 passengers – 50 in first class, 175 in second class and 2,200 in third class. It was used mainly to transport Italians emigrating to America. According to Hubbard, “we dined at pine-board tables, with pine boards for seats, and as nearly as I could analyze it, had pine boards, seasoned with spaghetti, for food.” On that let’s get out of Dodge voyage there were 700 Americans aboard and as Hubbard recounted, “it was hard to know whether we were first class or steerage.”
The meeting was arranged by a University of Washington Alpha Xi Delta, Mary E. Kay; she “hunted up the fraternity girls on board and invited them to the meeting at three.” Since the reading room was always occupied, the women “were obliged to hold our Pan-Hellenic in the smoking room!”
After the women exchanged “war experiences and college gossip for a while, we awaited the lemonade. We waited, and we waited – and for an hour we waited. Meantime we had some very good Italian candy and devoured a couple of boxes of it. Finally the waiter arrived. Lemon ice had been ordered, but we knew that on the San Guglielmo lemon ice meant a glass full of cracked ice with a little lemon juice over the top. What came, however, was plain lemonade, without any ice, and served in an enamel coffeepot! There were also seven glasses, and the waiter stood calmly waiting for half of us to drink so that he might use the same glasses for the other seven. We convinced him that such was not the custom in America, and he finally brought some more and our thirst was quenched.”
After the refreshments, the women went on deck where they had their picture taken, along with an Italian sailor who “insisted on being snapped.” Unfortunately, the picture could not be located.
In addition to Hubbard and Kay, the women who attended the meeting were: Maud St. John (University of Iowa, Kappa Kappa Gamma); Mabel Cheyney (Swarthmore College, Kappa Kappa Gamma); Carrie Ong (Indiana University, Kappa Kappa Gamma); Genevieve Brown (Indiana University, Kappa Alpha Theta); Mary E. VanArsdel (DePauw University Kappa Alpha Theta); Edith Ballentine (Cornell University, Alpha Phi); Ethel B. Norton (University of Washington, Delta Gamma); Henrietta Coleman (Indiana University, Delta Gamma); Laura R. Seguine (Barnard College, Delta Delta Delta); Maud Willard Church (University of Illinois, Alpha Xi Delta); Anna Bell Beckett (Dickinson College, Chi Omega); and Willa F. Wilson (Goucher College, Pi Beta Phi).
The meeting took place the day before the ship docked in New York, and the women were “sorry that we hadn’t thought of such a meeting before, for we might have had many good times and have extended it to a Pan-College Party.” She added “we’d do it again next time.” That October Hubbard attended the Panhellenic luncheon that was a part of the National Panhellenic Conference meeting in New York City. Wouldn’t it be fun to know if she met up with any of the women she met at sea?
The San Guglielmo was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Italy on January 8, 1918. The boat was empty except for the crew and one life was lost.
