Two days after her 54th birthday, Grace Goodhue Coolidge became a widow. The 30th President died suddenly on the morning of January 5, 1933.
This full size portrait of President Coolidge was painted by Ercole Cartotto. Although it is now at the Phi Gamma Delta’s Headquarters, it was originally commissioned. by the Xi Graduate Chapter originally commissioned this for the Phi Gamma Delta Club in New York City. Ercole Cartotto’s painting was dedicated on February 20, 1929, in the Club library. It is “life size.”
“Calvin Coolidge, Greatest of Fraternity Presidents, Mourned by Greeks” is the headline of an article in the January-February 1933 Magazine of Sigma Chi. The title of this post is the article’s first paragraph. Calvin Coolidge became a member of the Phi Gamma Delta chapter at Amherst College. His wife was a charter member of the Pi Beta Phi chapter at the University of Vermont. Together, they were the first President and First Lady who were initiated into Greek-letter organizations while in college.
After leaving the White House in 1929, Calvin and Grace Coolidge returned to the duplex they rented at 21 Massasoit Street in Northampton, Massachusetts. They had moved into it after their October 1, 1905 wedding and prior to the September 7, 1906 birth of their son John. While it was a fine home for a Northampton lawyer, and even for Mayor Coolidge, it was not a suitable for a former President. The Coolidges needed a place with more privacy to keep away the gawkers and celebrity seekers.
In May 1930, they purchased “The Beeches,” a secluded 13-room home set on six acres. They also spent time at the Coolidge family homestead in Plymouth, Vermont where the President grew up. In a September 1931 letter written while the Coolidges were vacationing there, she wrote to a group of her Pi Beta Phi friends, “As he grows older I think he will turn more and more to these peaceful hills. It is in the Coolidge blood and I think you will all agree that where he leads I follow.” However, the post-White House plans he may have had were cut short.
On the morning of January 5, 1933, the 60-year-old President left for his office at 25 Main Street. The chauffeur brought the President and his secretary, Harry Ross, back to the house a short time later. The January 6, 1933 New York Times gave details of the President’s death. In the article, Ross recounted the morning’s events:
“We drove out to The Beeches, and went into his study on the ground floor. Mrs. Coolidge was getting ready to go downtown for her regular morning shopping. She came into the study and chatted with us awhile. As she got up to go out the door without calling the car, Mr. Coolidge said: ‘Don’t you want the car?’
“‘No,’ she replied, ‘It’s such a nice day, I’d rather walk than ride.’ These were their last words together.”
When the First Lady returned from her trip to town, she went upstairs to call her husband to lunch. That is when she found him dead on the floor.
The Times article told of the funeral arrangements:
In keeping with the simplicity of Mr. Coolidge’s nature and his life, Mrs. Coolidge decided that her husband would have preferred, if had been able to express his opinion, funeral services of the utmost simplicity. Such will be their nature.
Instead of having the body taken to Washington or to Boston, to lie in state in places where he exercised the power of government as President of the United States and previously as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Mrs. Coolidge ordered that her husband’s body remain in his home in this city, where he lived before and after his Presidential career.
The funeral services took place at the Edwards Congregational Church on Main Street, where the Coolidges were faithful members. The President was buried in the family plot in the small cemetery in Plymouth, Vermont.
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January 5, 1911 is the founding date of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Founded by ten students at Indiana University, it was originally called Kappa Alpha Nu. At the Grand Chapter meeting of December 1914, a resolution was adopted and the name of the fraternity was changed to Kappa Alpha Psi. The change became effective April 15, 1915. Happy Founders’ Day to the brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2014. All Rights Reserved.
