A Vermont Graduation Brings Thoughts of Grace and Calvin Coolidge

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Being in Rutland, Vermont, mere miles away from the Coolidge Homestead in Plymouth Notch, brings thoughts of the President and First Lady who were native Vermonters. Calvin Coolidge, a Phi Gamma Delta, and Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a Pi Beta Phi, spent their formative years in Vermont. Calvin attended Amherst College; Grace graduated from the University of Vermont. The couple met in Northampton when Grace was teaching at the Clarke School for the Deaf and Calvin was a lawyer.

Calvin Coolidge State Forest is in the area and the library at Castleton State College is named in his honor. Some of the doors in the hotel in which I  stayed had pictures of the Coolidges on a train leaving Rutland  after he took the oath of office in the parlor of his father’s home.

The Coolidges married in the Goodhue family home in Burlington (the home is now part of Champlain College). Although they spent their married life living in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. , Vermont seemed to be always in their hearts.

In September of 1928, the Coolidges traveled to Vermont to survey damage from the prior year’s devastating flood. They stayed at the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch and visited family graves, including the one of their son Calvin, Jr. who died at age 16 in July, 1924. At the last train stop in Vermont, the President spoke eloquently and from the heart:

Vermont is a state I love. I could not look upon the peaks of Ascutney, Killington, Mansfield, and Equinox, without being moved in a way that no other scene could move me. It was here that I first saw the light of day; here I received my bride, here my dead lie pillowed on the loving breast of our eternal hills.

I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people. They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves to serve others. If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the Union, and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont.

The Calvin Coolidge Library at Castleton State College

The Calvin Coolidge Library at Castleton State College.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Calvin Coolidge, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Beta Phi, Presidents | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Happy Founders’ Day, Alpha Delta Pi!

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Alpha Delta Pi was founded as the Adelphean Society on May 15, 1851 at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. In 1905, the Society changed its name to Alpha Delta Phi and installed its second chapter at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A third chapter was founded at Mary Baldwin Seminary, in Staunton, Virginia, in 1906.

The Delta Chapter at the University of Texas was installed on June 6, 1906. It is the oldest, continuous Alpha Delta Pi chapter. It was the sixth sorority chapter on campus. Alpha Chapter member Jewel Davis (Scarborough) went to the University of Texas as a graduate student with the intention of creating a chapter there. Davis, a Delta Chapter charter member, installed the chapter all by herself. She composed the first whistle and served as National President from 1913-17. Dean Helen Marr Kirby was an Adelphean and proved herself as a valuable friend of the chapter. During 1908-09, the chapter lived in an eight-room house with a professor and his wife as chaperons and the chapter owned most of the furniture in the house. Mabelle Fuller (Sperry), who served three terms as National President from 1921-27, was an early initiate of the chapter. During 1911-12, the non-sorority women were “the cause of considerable disturbance throughout the year, finally petitioning the state legislature to put the Greek letter societies out of school. The move was unsuccessful and was voted down at a special session of the legislature.” (History of Alpha Delta Pi, 1930).

Mabelle Fuller Sperry

Alpha Delta Phi joined the National Panhellenic Conference in 1909. The installation of the Sigma Chapter at the University of Illinois in 1912 came shortly after the installation, on the same campus, of the Illinois Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi, a men’s fraternity whose chapters were primarily in the northeast. Alpha Delta Phi, the men’s fraternity, was founded in 1832 at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. The women made their organization aware of this duplication of name and the problems that surfaced because of it. In 1913, the convention body voted to change the name  to Alpha Delta Pi.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 


 

Posted in Alpha Delta Pi, Founders' Day, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, National Panhellenic Conference, Sorority History, University of Texas, Wesleyan College, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Grace Coolidge, Pi Beta Phi and First Lady, Speaks!

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

By now, readers of this blog know that Grace Goodhue Coolidge is one of my favorite First Ladies. She was a charter member of the Vermont Beta Chapter of Pi Beta Phi and the chapter was installed in the Goodhue home. She attended two Pi Beta Phi conventions, one as a chapter delegate and the other as an alumna.

She was a founder and first president of the Springfield, MA, Alumnae Club of Pi Beta Phi and she served as a Province Vice-President. In 1924, the Eastern Conference of Pi Beta Phi, an event that took place only once, had as its cornerstone the dedication of the First Lady’s official White House portrait. Mrs. Coolidge greeted all of the 1,200+ attendees and a picture was taken on the White House lawn.

How I wish I could have been among those in attendance on that April day in 1924! I just located this talking movie clip of the First Lady from Historian Carl Anthony’s collection. I urge you to watch and listen. I love her smile at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DknJzlhmEg

Posted in GLO, Grace Coolidge, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Pi Beta Phi, University of Vermont, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Mary E. Gladwin, R.N., Winner of the Florence Nightingale Medal and a ΔΓ

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

National Nurses Week started on May 6, National Nurses Day, and it ends on May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday.  In 1920, Mary Elizabeth Gladwin, an 1881 initiate of Delta Gamma’s Eta Chapter, was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross “For great and exceptional devotion to the sick and wounded in peace and war.”

Gladwin was born on December 24, 1861 in Stoke-upon-Trent, England. Her parents moved the family to Akron, Ohio, in 1868. Gladwin graduated from Buchtel College (now University of Akron) in 1887. She taught chemistry and physics in Norwalk, Ohio, for several years. She then enrolled in a nursing program at Boston City Hospital and graduated in 1896.

The second Delta Gamma Convention, 1883. Mary E. Gladwin served as Assistant Secretary of the Convention.

During the Spanish-American War, Gladwin served as the chief nurse in the U.S. Army. In 1899, she served with the American Red Cross in the Philippines and was awarded the Spanish-American War Medal for service. She then returned to nursing school and in 1902, she again graduated from the Boston City Hospital School of Nursing.

In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, she served for six months as a Red Cross nurse in Hiroshima, Japan. She was again honored for her service with several awards. Afterwards, Gladwin returned to her previous job as Superintendent of Beverly Hospital in Beverly, Massachusetts. In 1907, she became Superintendent at Woman’s Hospital in New York City.

In 1910 she returned to Akron and was employed by the Goodrich Company. She served as the chief American Red Cross nurse during the Dayton, Ohio floods of 1913. She also organized Akron’s School and Visiting Nurses Association.

The November 1914, Anchora of Delta Gamma, noted the she “sailed in the Red Cross ship for active service as a nurse in the European battle fields.” Gladwin was among the first American Red Cross nurses to serve in Europe. She was stationed in Belgrade, Serbia where she was a supervisor of nurses. She helped care for 9,000 soldiers in a hospital built for 1,000 patients She also served in Greece. She received many awards and accolades for her service.

After the war, Gladwin was involved with nursing education in Minnesota and Indiana. She died at the age of 77 on November 22, 1939 in Akron, Ohio. On September 21, 1979, the University of Akron dedicated a building named in her honor.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Delta Gamma, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Notable Fraternity Women, Sorority History, University of Akron, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Graduation Edition – Alumna / Alumnae /Alumnus / Alumni

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

I love the pomp and circumstance of graduation ceremonies. After all, I earned a degree based mainly on the color of the hood (two of my favorite colors wine and silver blue, which just happen to be Pi Beta Phi’s colors).

The doctoral hood is wine and silver blue and, yes, that is a very big arrow, worn in the manner sometimes seen in late 1800s pictures of Pi Phis.

And free of charge, I will let you in on one of my pet peeves. I cringe when I hear a member of an all-women’s organization talk about the organization’s “alumni.”  I bite my native New Yorker tongue and don’t say what I’m thinking which is “News flash, honey! Your all female organization doesn’t have alumni. They are alumnae – alum-knee-knee-knee.”

If an organization is coed, or if a college or university is coed, the individual female graduate is still an alumna. If there is a male/female ratio greater than zero on the male side, the group of all graduates is called alumni. A lone male graduate is an alumnus. Graduate members of an all-women’s organization (a sorority/women’s fraternity perhaps) or an all-women’s college/university are alumnae. I will illustrate these points using family photos (after all, Mother’s Day is around the corner and I need all the brownie points I can get!).

Twin B and Twin A, Knox College alumni wearing Beta Theta Pi tassels, with their grandmother, a Goucher College alumna. Goucher College in Baltimore had been a women’s college, but it is now coed, making its graduates alumni, after years of having been alumnae. Her son, their father, graduated from Washington and Lee University when it was an all-male institution. The W&L Alumni Association remained the Alumni Association after W&L admitted women in the 1980s.

A Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association (MHC is a women’s college) member minutes after she became a member of the Syracuse University Alumni Association. She is also an alumna initiate of Pi Beta Phi and is a member of a Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Beta Theta Pi, GLO, Goucher College, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Knox College, Syracuse University | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

On National Teacher Appreciation Day: SIUC and the AES / NPC Merger

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

May 7 is National Teacher Appreciation Day. In honor of Southern Illinois University’s beginnings as a teaching training institution (a/k/a normal school), I am including this segment of the history of SIUC’s fraternity system.

There were three mergers which affected the women’s fraternities at SIU. The first and most important was the 1947 merger of the Association of Education Sororities and the National Panhellenic Conference. The most painful merger affecting SIU was that of the national organizations of Delta Sigma Epsilon and Delta Zeta (this really is a fascinating read – the alumnae were finally released from the terms of the merger). The easiest merger for the SIU campus was the one between Pi Kappa Sigma and Sigma Kappa’s national organizations.

Merger of National Coordinating Organizations

The Association of Education Sororities [AES] was founded in 1915 as the Association of Pedagogical Sororities. In 1946, six national organizations, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Delta Sigma Epsilon, Pi Kappa Sigma, Alpha Sigma Alpha, Alpha Sigma Tau, and Theta Sigma Upsilon, comprised the Association of Education Sororities. Its members had chapters at teacher training institutions (Stintson, 1956). The National Panhellenic Conference [NPC] began in 1902 as an umbrella organization of seven women’s fraternities. These groups sanctioned only chapters at senior colleges and universities (Leonard, 1958).

Mrs. Edward A. Beidler, Delta Sigma Epsilon’s National Secretary, wrote President Lay regarding the merger: “Certain details are to be worked out before full participation is granted in National Panhellenic Conference activities. One of the stipulations for National Panhellenic Conference membership is that: It (Delta Sigma Epsilon) must have all of its chapters established in senior colleges and universities which are authorized to confer a Bachelor’s Degree, and which are given satisfactory rating by the Association of American Universities and/or the pertinent recognized Regional Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. We are pleased with this new affiliation and feel it will bring added prestige to our sorority and to the colleges where we have chapters. (Mrs. E. A. Beidler, personal communication, November 22, 1947)

The merger of AES and NPC was a significant one in the history of women’s fraternities. Teacher training institutions were evolving into more comprehensive institutions. SIU was a prime example of this trend. The AES and NPC merger was meant to strengthen the entire women’s fraternity system by dissolving unnecessary lines of demarcation. Had this merger not taken place, many institutions would have encountered problems in regards to women’s fraternities. Helen Shuman, Dean of Women at SIU, echoed these thoughts in her congratulatory statement on the merger, “I was pleased to learn that the sororities belonging to the Association of Education Sororities have been accepted as members of National Panhellenic Conference. It will solve some of the problems potential on our campus” (Stintson, 1956, p. 299).

Shuman’s private comments to President Lay showed a larger concern and a sense of relief that the merger put to rest some of the dilemmas SIU could have faced had the merger not taken place: “As the teachers colleges over the country have received a greater degree of accreditation, some unpleasant situations have arisen on some campuses. I had ‘prayed’ that these situations would not come into the picture at Southern, and I am pleased that the situation is no longer potentially full of problems.” (H. A. Shuman, personal communication, December 15, 1947)

The former AES organizations had two years before they would be faced with competition from the NPC groups. Marie S. Dunham, Sigma Sigma Sigma Executive Secretary, told President Lay of an NPC ruling which stated that not until January 1, 1949 would any NPC member make overtures leading to future chapters on campuses then occupied by AES organizations. Dunham felt that the merger would strengthen the women’s fraternity system and would, “result in wider opportunity for service in every way. You may be sure that Tri Sigma’s best efforts are pledged to that end” (M. S. Dunham, personal communication, December 12, 1947).

Shuman had received a letter from a Delta Zeta national officer regarding the number of women’s groups on campus. Shuman answered the Delta Zeta letter in November, 1948. She also kept President Morris apprised of the situation: “Since the college field is no longer to be divided into two territories open to the different kinds of sororities but open to all sororities, and since we are one of the ‘coming’ universities, I expect a number of the sororities belonging to the NPC to solicit the opportunity of establishing groups at Southern. Recently I have had a letter from a group other than the Delta Zetas.” (H. A. Shuman, personal communication, November 30, 1948)

Delta Zeta was the first of the older NPC groups to establish a chapter at SIU. Its Gamma Omega chapter was installed in 1953. The founding of the Delta Zeta chapter was followed by the Kappa Gamma chapter of Sigma Kappa in 1955. The Beta Eta chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta was chartered in 1957 after the former Delta Sigma Epsilon chapter was released from the terms of Delta Sigma Epsilon’s national merger with Delta Zeta.

In 1926, three years after it was founded, Epsilon Beta, a local organization at Southern Illinois Normal University, gave this bench to the University. It sits in front of Wheeler Hall. At the time it was given, Wheeler Hall served as the library.
Epsilon Beta became part of a national organization, Delta Sigma Epsilon,in 1928. Delta Sigma Epsilon was a member of the Association of Education Sororities. When the national organization merged with Delta Zeta in 1956, the SIUC chapter did not go along with the merger. Instead it became a local organization, Nu Delta Sigma, until a release from the merger was granted from the Delta Zeta national organization. The organization that started out as Epsilon Beta became the Beta Eta Chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta on September 29, 1957.

From A HISTORY OF THE FRATERNITY SYSTEM AT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY FROM 1948 THROUGH 1960 by Frances DeSimone Becque, Pages 63-65.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Alpha Gamma Delta, Association of Education Sororities, Delta Zeta, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Sigma Kappa, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Sorority History, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The First Fraternity House Built by Women for Women

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Syracuse University has the distinction of being home to the first fraternity house owned by women.  There were no dormitories for women when Alpha Phi and Gamma Phi Beta were founded in 1872 and 1874, respectively.  In 1884, the Alpha Phi chapter gave up the meeting rooms it rented in a downtown bank.  According to Alpha Phi Fraternity (1931), plans were made to rent a house “where the out-of-town girls could live and where one room could be used for a chapter hall.  The experiment proved a success, and at the end of a year it was suggested that the girls build and own a chapter house.” (p. xxiii)

Jennie Thornburn [Sanford], an 1887 Alpha Phi initiate, recounted the story of Alpha Phi’s chapter house and she gave credit to Grace Latimer [Merrick], for “making practical by figures, by argument and by enthusiasm the possibility of building and owning a house.  At first we thought it a crazy idea; it was certainly novel – no girls had ever owned a chapter house.” (Alpha Phi Fraternity, 1931, p. 142)

In May of 1886, a 56’ x 178’ lot at 17 University Place was purchased by the members of Alpha Phi for $1,400, or $25 a front foot (Thomson, 1943).  A few of the members’ fathers acted as a Board of Trustees.  A $2,500 bank mortgage was arranged and another father loaned the chapter $2,700.  The father of a chapter member was himself a building contractor.  He contributed his services and asked the firms with which he dealt to contribute some materials.  An eyewitness described the start of the building process, “At 2 P.M. June 22, 1886, on the lot opposite the campus of Syracuse University, which had already been purchased by the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi, were held the exercises attending the laying of the corner stone of the first chapter house owned by the society.  Ida Gilbert DeLamater Houghton, ‘76, one of the founders of the organization, struck the gavel upon the unfinished foundation wall.  Carrie Shevelson Benjamin, ‘81, read a paper, at the conclusion of which a song composed by Lydia Thompson ‘83 was sung.  After a short address by Chancellor Sims,[1] Dr. W. P. Coddington [2] laid the corner stone in the name of the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi.  In closing all joined in a familiar college song and the interesting ceremonies were completed.  This was the first chapter house built by women and the day was the fourteenth anniversary of the founding of the Alpha Phi society.” (“Alpha’s new home,” 1911,  p. 22)

The chapter moved into its new home in November.  The chapter hall was dedicated in January, 1887, and on Washington’s birthday, the chapter opened the house to 300 invited guests.  In order to pay the mortgages, “it was decided to have the members make an annual subscription to a house fund, each girl giving what she thought she could afford.  This was done, the largest amount given being fifty dollars” (“Alpha’s new home,” 1911, p. 23).  In 1896, the chapter house was redecorated at a cost of $600.  By 1902, the debts had been paid.  It was time to move again, “As the house became too small for the 40 members, the Bacon residence on Walnut Park, an Alpha Phi home,[3] became available.  The old chapter house was sold to the university for dormitory use.  Thirty women could live in the new house.” (Alpha Phi Fraternity, 1931, p. 145)

The Alpha Phi chapter house on University Avenue [4] in Syracuse. It was the first house built and owned by a women’s fraternity. The house was sold in 1902 and the chapter moved to its current home on Walnut Place.

Galpin (1960) noted that in 1895, during Chancellor Day’s administration, there were six men’s and four women’s fraternities and “Nothing was said about students living in homes, either rented or owned by them; nor could there be much criticism so long as the University had no dormitories of its own” (p. 346).  By the turn of the century all the women’s fraternities at Syracuse University were either renting, on their way to owning, or being the proud possessors of a home in which to house and feed members and to provide a meeting place for chapter activities.

[1] Chancellor Sims was also the father of an Alpha Phi member.

[2] Syracuse University professor Dr. Wellesley Perry Coddington was a popular man among the three women’s fraternities founded at Syracuse. Alpha Gamma Delta was founded in 1904 in Dr. Coddington’s home.

[3] The Bacon home had belonged to the family of an Alpha Phi member.

[4] A 5/5/2013 p.s. not in the dissertation. I have  heard and I believe I have read that the Alpha Phi home was located on the land occupied by the Newhouse School of Public Communications complex. I can’t put my hands on that documentation right now. Plugging the address in google maps brings up a location closed to the Medical Center.

From “Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867-1902″ by Frances DeSimone Becque, 2002.

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Phi, Gamma Phi Beta, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, National Panhellenic Conference, Sorority History, Syracuse University, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Fraternity and Sorority Magazines – Preserving History, Fostering Enthusiasm and Promulgating Lifelong Loyalty

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

This week, I had the opportunity to read hard copies of recently published sorority magazines.* What fun it was to turn the pages and read about some of the 26 National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations! Good works are being done. Current topics are being discussed. Lifelong membership is being promulgated.

The editors of the NPC organization’s magazines met for the first time prior to the first session of the 12th National Pan-Hellenic Congress (as it was then called) meeting in October 1913 at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. Eleven editors attended. In addition, some groups were represented by former editors, business managers and NPC delegates. A few organizations had two or three representatives. R. Louise Fitch, editor of The Trident, was elected chairman and L. Pearle Green, editor of Kappa Alpha Theta, was elected secretary (Green also served as NPC Chairman in 1909 and 1949). The editors discussed life subscriptions, business management, and general editorial issues. The opportunity to meet as a group “was so successful and the mutual problems found to be so universal, that it was agreed that the conference should meet at least biennially, in the future.”

I find it interesting to note that all 14 magazines represented in the picture above are still being published. The four additional organizations whose editors are not pictured (Sigma Kappa, Zeta Tau Alpha, Phi Mu, and Kappa Delta) were also members of NPC in 1913 when this collage was put together by Florence A. Armstrong, Editor of The Lyre. The 18 organizations comprising NPC in 1913 are all members of NPC today. Also included in the collage is one NPC woman extraordinaire, Ida Shaw Martin, who was identified as the Sorority Editor of the Greek Exchange (also known as Banta’s Greek Exchange). Martin was a founder of Delta Delta Delta, better know to generations of Tri Deltas as Sarah Ida Shaw.

Armstrong noted that during the Congress “a report on the use made of fraternity journals by the college libraries was read and discussed. The majority of college libraries welcome the publications of those fraternities represented in the college community and give them a place on their reading-room tables. It is desirable that all Greeks become familiar with these magazines and gain the broader knowledge of the fraternity world at large which a constant reader can obtain. No one magazine can cover all the pertinent topics of the time in a single volume but each one contributes its share to the general fund of information and a truly broad-minded fraternity woman should be familiar with several journals besides her own. There is no better way to gain the real Pan-Hellenic spirit.” I concur wholeheartedly!

*You can thank my husband who somehow managed to snag me into getting new tires, but didn’t spring this on me until I was already in St. Louis. (“Just get there before seven. They have the tires in stock and will be waiting for you.”) I had nothing with me to read while I waited for the tires to be installed, so I borrowed some magazines from Constance Dillon, Pi Beta Phi’s wonderful Arrow Editor. (And yes, I do know that the magazines are all available on line, but I am old school when it comes to magazines and books. There is a great joy in physically turning the pages.)

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Gamma Delta Quarterly, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta, Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Gamma, Delta Zeta, Gamma Phi Beta, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Ida Shaw Martin, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Alpha Theta (magazine), Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, National Panhellenic Conference, Notable Sorority Women, Phi Mu, Pi Beta Phi, Sigma Kappa, Sorority History, The Anchora of Delta Gamma, The Angelos of Kappa Delta, The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, The Eleusis of Chi Omega, The Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma, The Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega, The Quill of Alpha Xi Delta, The Themis of Zeta Tau Alpha, The Trident of Delta Delta Delta, Zeta Tau Alpha | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

May 1 – Phi Gamma Delta’s Founders’ Day and FIJI Sires and Sons Anniversary

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

May 1, 1848 is the date of Phi Gamma Delta’s founding. John Templeton McCarty, Samuel Beatty Wilson, James Elliott, Daniel Webster Crofts, Ellis Bailey Gregg and Naaman Fletcher – the Immortal Six – were students at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, when they founded the fraternity. The fraternity’s Beta chapter was established the same year at Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania. The chapters became one when the colleges merged to form Washington and Jefferson College in 1865.

In the summer of 1920, a Phi Gamma Delta  alumnus from the Amherst College chapter won the Vice Presidential spot on the Republican ticket for the 1920 election. At the time of the nomination, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge was at Amherst attending his 25th college reunion and the 99th anniversary of the college. A reception at the chapter house was arranged with his wife Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a Pi Beta Phi member, helping the chapter plan the event on short notice.  More than 1,500 people – students, faculty, alumni, students and community members – attended.

Calvin Coolidge became President after the death of Warren G. Harding on August 23, 1923. The Coolidges were planning  to attend Phi Gamma Delta’s 75th anniversary celebration in Pittsburgh in September 1923, but the plans had to be cancelled. Later, a founders badge was presented to the President. On that occasion, President Coolidge said, “I am very glad to have this badge. My wife wears mine most of the time.”

On November 17, 1924, the Coolidges’ oldest son, John, became a member of his father’s Phi Gamma Delta chapter at Amherst College. On the following Founders’ Day, May 1, 1925, FIJI Sires and Sons was organized.  Its purpose is to “impress upon all fathers and sons, who are members of the fraternity, and in time upon their sons, a realization of the noble trinity of principles of the fraternity, with the hope that they may outrun the fervor of youth.”

The Coolidge family – Calvin, Jr., Calvin, Grace, and John shortly before Calvin, Jr.’s death. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The idea was conceived on March 17, 1925 when T. Ludlow Chrystie and Fraternity Historian William F. Chamberlin discussed creating a list of all the fathers and sons who have been initiated into the Phi Gamma Delta. Chrystie, Chamberlin and three other men, Robert D. Williamson, Charles H. Bosler, and Abram S. Post, visited the White House. President Coolidge, Sire No. 1, signed the preamble of the organization. The men then joined the President for lunch at the White House.

There is no membership fee to be a member of Sires and Sons, but there is a suggested donation of $100 to receive a certificate. There are a limited amount of certificates signed by John Coolidge, who died in 2000; they are available for a $500 gift to the Phi Gamma Delta Educational Foundation. Half of the donation is then forwarded to the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation in Plymouth Notch, Vermont.

“Phi Gamma Delta – Calvin Coolidge Fraternity – Amherst College, Mass.”

I apologize for the misspelling of Fiji in the original issue of this post. It was corrected within the hour it was posted, and I am sorry for the error. I also regret not taking typing in high school, but that is indeed another story.  My departed father-in-law and my brother-in-law are both initiates of the Johns Hopkins chapter, so I hope you Fiji men will cut me some slack.

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013


 

Posted in Amherst College, Calvin Coolidge, Founders' Day, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Beta Phi | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Theta Phi Alpha’s Founders’ Day and Its Connection to a Saint

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Theta Phi Alpha was founded at the University of Michigan on August 30, 1912.  Its ten founders are Amelia McSweeney, Mildred M. Connely, May C. Ryan, Selma Gilday, Camilla Ryan Sutherland, Helen Ryan Quinlan, Katrina Caughey Ward, Dorothy Caughey Phalan, Otilia Leuchtweis O’Hara, and Eva Stroh Bauer. It was founded as a sorority for Catholic women in a day when their social opportunities were sometimes limited depending on the campus environment. Today, the organization is open to women of all faiths.

Theta Phi Alpha celebrates Founders’ Day on April 30, the Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Siena.* Saint Catherine is the patroness of the organization and her motto, “Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring,” is Theta Phi Alpha’s motto as well. Since 1937, Theta Phi Alpha has honored a non-member with the Siena Medal. A round gold medal with the organization’s coat of arms, it is inscribed in Greek with the motto.

The Siena Medal was established to recognize a woman of integrity and principled leadership, as well as grace and social change. In 2012, Elizabeth Smart was honored at the Centennial convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was honored for her daily efforts to prove that “that there really is life after a tragic event” and her determination live her life to the fullest after her kidnapping.

For more info on Theta Phi Alpha’s founding, visit  http://wp.me/p20I1i-lS

* Saint Catherine was canonized in 1461. From 1597 until 1628, the feast of Saint Catherine of Sienna was celebrated on April 29, the date she died. In 1628, due to a conflict with the feast of Saint Peter of Verona, hers was moved to April 30. In 1969, it was changed back to April 29.

 

(c) Fran Becque, fraternityhistory.com, 2013.


 

Posted in Founders' Day, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, National Panhellenic Conference, Theta Phi Alpha, University of Michigan, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off