January 3 is the birthday of Grace Goodhue Coolidge. She was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1879. Gracious and humble, she was a dedicated member of Pi Beta Phi. SHe was a charter member of the chapter at the University of Vermont. She also served as Alpha Province Vice President. One of my favorite letters written during her years as First Lady is a handwritten one to Pi Beta Phi’s Grand President, Amy Burnham Onken. It was written in response to an invitation to attend the 1927 convention at the Breezy Point Lodge, in Pequot, Minnesota.
On April 22, 1927 she wrote on White House stationery, “I should be happy indeed, were I able to write and tell you that I would see you all at the Convention at Breezy Point in June. Unfortunately it is most difficult if not absolutely impossible for me to step aside from the beaten path and I must therefore content myself with wishing for Pi Beta Phi the most successful Convention in its glorious history. From one of its loyal members.”
As a collegian, Grace Coolidge was her chapter’s delegate to the the 1901 Syracuse convention. She attended the 1915 Berkeley convention as a fraternity officer. From that journey on the train from Boston to Berkeley, she and a group of Boston University and University of Vermont Pi Phis formed a Round Robin letter that lasted until the end of their lives.
Grace Goodhue Coolidge (center) with Pi Phi friends at the 1915 convention in Berkeley, California.
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, was the site of the first Naval Training School for women officers; 9,000 of them were trained there. Mrs. Coolidge lived in Northampton. From 1942-45, the Navy set up shop on the Smith campus, taking over several buildings for training. Mrs. Coolidge loaned her home, Road Forks, to Captain and Mrs. Herbert W. Underwood while he was in command of the program. She accompanied the Underwoods when they went to Hunter College in New York to review the WAVES there.
In the Winter 2000 Arrow, Josephine Crook Rich, a Knox College Pi Phi, recounted her experience as a WAVE. She was recommended for the program and she left her job as an accountant with General Electric. She was sent to Smith College for training. While there, she discovered that there were Pi Phis among the members of her WAVE training class. The Pi Phis knew that Mrs. Coolidge lived in Northampton and they invited her to tea.
Mrs. Coolidge gave her account of the meeting in a Round Robin letter she wrote to her Pi Phi friends:
A couple of weeks ago, I had a note from a Pi Phi Wave saying that those whom they had been able to round up among the Waves were planning to have a tea to-gether at the Mary-Marg* tea room and would I join them. I got me out my best bib and tucker and found about twelve of them on the door-step waiting for me. A friend of one who was here to visit her took our pictures and we went in to-gether for our tea.
They came from the following chapters: California Delta (UCLA), Wisconsin Alpha (University of Wisconsin), Florida Beta (Florida State University), Iowa Gamma (Iowa State University), Florida Alpha (Stetson University), Vermont Beta (University of Vermont) and Illinois Beta-Delta (Knox College). There were two from two of the chapters. A grand group of girls and Capt. Underwood and visiting Admirals from time to time have expressed themselves as well pleased with the way in which these girls take to the training.
The former First Lady was a prolific letter writer and she sent the Pi Phis thank you notes.
*The Mary-Marg was the Mary-Marguerite Tea Room at 21 State Street. It opened in 1920. Owners Mary W. Wells and Marguerite L. Hawks sold the business in 1952, and it continued under different ownership into the 1960s.
