Busting Myths – That Pesky “All But Two Presidents Born Since 1825” Statistic Has Problems

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

I consider myself an advocate for fraternity life. As the start of a new academic year approaches and recruitment beckons on the horizon, a pesky statistic rears its head. Every time I see it on Greek Life websites or in a chapter’s recruitment information, I cringe. The fact in question is “Every U.S. President and Vice President, except two in each office, born since the first social fraternity was founded in 1825, have been members of a fraternity.”

To be fair, there may have been a grain of truth in that statistic at one time. Rutherford B. Hayes, born in 1822, was initiated as an honorary member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. Every President from Hayes through Calvin Coolidge, a Phi Gamma Delta initiated as a student at Amherst College, belonged to a Greek-letter organization either as a collegiate member or an honorary member. Herbert Hoover was the first to break that long streak.  The next to break it was Lyndon Johnson. Up until this point, the statement would have been true. Unfortunately, after Johnson, the statistic becomes not so true. Neither Richard Nixon nor Jimmy Carter belonged to Greek-letter organizations. Neither Barack Obama or Donald Trump are fraternity men. That is at least six, and John F. Kennedy was an honorary member, so it’s more like seven.

And to be honest, I didn’t even go searching for the Vice President information because I quickly came up with more than two recent ones who haven’t been fraternity men, including our current Vice President, Joe Biden. I am fairly certain that neither Walter Mondale, Al Gore, nor Dick Cheney belonged to a fraternity while in college. (Update – I put together the Vice President info. 

While I would love it if the above statement was true, the fact is that it is not. I suspect someone saw it on something written in the 1960s when it was true and used it in a poster or webpage. It then spread like wildfire. It appears on countless websites as a given fact. Don’t believe me? Do a quick search and you will get pages and pages of results. A quick look at the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) web-site points out the truth that “At this date 44% of U.S. Presidents have held fraternity membership.”

It is my opinion that we – those of us who advocate for and believe in the fraternity system when it works as it was meant to – shoot ourselves in the foot when we spout clearly false information simply because we assume that it is true, because it once was true, and/or because we want it to be true. If you have connections to one of the web-sites that is using that “all but two” information, please bring it to the webmaster’s attention. It hasn’t been true since the late 1960s. It’s also a good example of that old adage about a falsehood traveling around the world before the truth has a chance to tie its shoelaces. And as my Pi Phi friend Ashley Dye said, “the real stats are impressive enough.”

Fraternity men who have served as President of the United States

Thomas Jefferson, Flat Hat Club (F.H.C. Society), College of William and Mary*

Rutherford B. Hayes, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Honorary member

James Garfield, Delta Upsilon, Williams College

Chester Arthur, Psi Upsilon, Union College

Grover Cleveland, Sigma Chi, Honorary member

Benjamin Harrison, Phi Delta Theta, Miami University and Delta Chi, University of Michigan

William McKinley, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Mount Union College

Theodore Roosevelt, Delta Kappa Epsilon and Alpha Delta Phi, Harvard University

William Howard Taft, Psi Upsilon, Yale University

Woodrow Wilson, Phi Kappa Psi, University of Virginia

Calvin Coolidge, Phi Gamma Delta, Amherst College

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Alpha Delta Phi, Harvard University**

Harry S Truman, Lambda Chi Alpha and Alpha Delta Gamma, Honorary member

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Tau Epsilon Phi, Honorary member

John F. Kennedy, Phi Kappa Theta, Honorary member

Gerald R. Ford, Delta Kappa Epsilon, University of Michigan

Ronald Reagan, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Eureka College

George H.W. Bush, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Yale University

Bill Clinton, Phi Beta Sigma, Honorary member***

George W. Bush, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Yale University

National Panhellenic Conference women who have served as First Lady

Lucy B. Hayes, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Ohio Wesleyan College, Honorary member

Grace Goodhue Coolidge, Pi Beta Phi, University of Vermont, charter member 

Lou Henry Hoover, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Stanford University

Barbara Pierce Bush, Pi Beta Phi, Texas A&M, Alumna initiate (post-White House years)

Laura Welch Bush, Kappa Alpha Theta, Southern Methodist University

 

National Pan-Hellenic Council women who have served as First Lady

Eleanor Roosevelt, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Honorary member

 

Random Interesting Facts

Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a charter member of the Vermont Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi at the University of Vermont, was the first wife of a President to have been initiated in a women’s fraternity while in college. Her husband became an initiated member of Phi Gamma Delta while a student at Amherst College. Together the Coolidges were the first couple initiated into Greek-letter societies during their college years.

Phi Gamma Delta has President Coolidge’s badge and during the fraternity’s 164th Ekkelsia, it was presented to the Archon President to wear. Pi Beta Phi has Mrs. Coolidge’s badges and there is one in the Smithsonian’s collection.

Mrs. Coolidge was not the first First Lady to be a member of a National Panhellenic Conference organization. That honor goes to Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of Rutherford B. Hayes. On December 1, 1880, she accepted the invitation of the Rho Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma at Ohio Wesleyan College to become an honorary member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Her husband was an honorary member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and the first fraternity man to be President.

Mrs. Coolidge’s successor, Lou Henry Hoover, was also a Kappa Kappa Gamma. She became a member when she was a  Stanford University student.

Laura Welch Bush is a Kappa Alpha Theta, having been initiated while a student at Southern Methodist University. Her husband, George W. Bush, is a member of Yale University chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. Together they are the second couple initiated into Greek-letter organizations while college students. Another interesting note is that Lynne Ann Vincent Cheney, wife of President Bush’s Vice-President, is also a Kappa Alpha Theta. She was initiated into the Colorado College chapter.

In her post-White House years, Barbara Pierce Bush, who had attended Smith College, became an alumna initiate of Pi Beta Phi. Her chapter of initiation is Texas Eta at Texas A&M University. Her husband, George Herbert Walker Bush, is also a member of the Yale University Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. His Vice-President, Dan Quayle, is also a Delta Kappa Epsilon member. He was initiated into the DePauw University chapter.

* The Flat Hat Club was founded at the College of William and Mary in 1750.  It is believed to be the precursor of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which was established at the same institution in 1776. The modern F.H.C. Society was revived at the College of William and Mary in May, 1972. The Flat Hat is also the name of the college’s student newspaper.

** Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Harvard University, also known as the “Dickey Club.” However, the national organization did not recognize the chapter because of the chapter’s stance on dual membership.

*** Bill Clinton became a member of Phi Beta Sigma in 2009, in his post White House years. He became a member of Alpha Phi Omega, a now co-ed service fraternity while at Georgetown University. It was an all-male fraternity when he joined as a college student.


 

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternity.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

 

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Phi Sigma Sigma Celebrates Its Centennial in NYC

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

From July 10-14, 2013, Phi Sigma Sigma members will gather at the 2013 convention and celebrate the organization’s Centennial. The convention will take place at the Crowne Plaza in Times Square. The festivities will include a trip to Hunter College, the site of the organization’s founding. Phi Sigma Sigma’s first convention also took place in New York City in 1918.

Phi Sigma Sigma’s founding chapter was installed at New York’s Hunter College on November 26, 1913. Its ten founders are Lillian Gordon Alpern, Josephine Ellison Breakstone, Fay Chertkoff, Estelle Melnick Cole, Jeanette Lipka Furst, Ethel Gordon Kraus, Shirley Cohen Laufer, Claire Wunder McArdle, Rose Sher Seidman and Gwen Zaliels Snyder.

The organization’s original name was Phi Sigma Omega, but it was discovered that the name was already in use. Five years transpired before a second chapter was installed. In 1918, the Beta Chapter at Tufts University was created when a friend of one of the founders expressed interest in the organization. A third chapter was chartered at New York University.

At that 1918 convention, founder Fay Chertkoff was elected the organization’s first grand archon. A constitution was approved and a Supreme Council was elected. The 2013 convention celebrating a century of Phi Sigma Sigma sisterhood will be, without a doubt, one of the most glorious in its history. Best wishes for a joyous and memorable celebration. 

P.S. If you’d like to follow the festivities on twitter, the hashtag is #phisig100.

Hunter College in the 1920s

Hunter College in the 1920s

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Posted in Conventions, Fran Favorite, Fraternity meetings, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Hunter College, National Panhellenic Conference, Phi Sigma Sigma, Sorority History, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Phi Sigma Sigma Celebrates Its Centennial in NYC

Celebrating a Century with a Gamma Phi Beta Friend, Initiated in 1933 at the University of Kansas

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

This weekend, there was a gathering in a church hall for a local woman who was celebrating her hundredth birthday. I first met her when I came to town and joined the University Women’s Club. She was one of the organization’s first members; her husband was a long-time faculty member at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She is a Gamma Phi Beta having been initiated into the Sigma Chapter at the University of Kansas in 1933. The chapter was installed in 1915 and it was the eighth National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) group on the University of Kansas campus.

The number of women initiated into any of the NPC organizations in the 1930s grows smaller and smaller each year. It would be my best guess that there are no longer any NPC members who were initiated in the 1910s and perhaps only a handful from the 1920s. The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi arrived in my mailbox over the weekend, and it listed some of the 550 women who became 75-year members this year. They are all at least 90 years old.

As Pi Beta Phi’s Historian and Archivist, I have the privilege of working with and preserving the fraternity’s past to ensure that the future members will be able to get a glimpse of where we’ve been and the women who have worn the arrow throughout the years. Looking at pictures of women initiated in the 1930s is always a treat. They look so mature and so sophisticated (and most of them are brunettes!).

1930s ks a cropped

I was intrigued at what the University of Kansas might have been like when my friend was a collegiate member of the Gamma Phi chapter. The women pictured above, members of the Kansas Alpha chapter of Pi Beta Phi, were her classmates. I turned to the closest reference materials at hand, past issues of The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi.

In 1932, the campus “suffered the loss of Dyche Museum of Natural History which was closed by the order from the state board of regents. The building declared unsafe by the state architect, also housed the department of anatomy and the latter was removed to the Commons Building. Recent university visitors were Sir Harry Lauder, Richard Haliburton, Emmy Beckman. and Dr. T Z. Koo. Major Walter O. Woods, former K.U. student, talked on “Uncle Sam’s Money” at a university convocation October 31. Although the University of Kansas achieved no championship during the football season, it is one of two teams to score against Notre Dame. The 1932 Sullivan Prize was awarded to the former Kansas athlete, Jim Bausch, for having done the most during the past year to advance the cause of sportsmanship.” Bausch won the decathlon at the 1932 Olympic games in Los Angeles.

The Depression of the 1930s was starting to have an effect on the campus, “An all activities ticket is being planned by student representatives to cut expenses for the future. This will mean an approximate yearly saving of sixty per cent of activity fees to students. Included in this ticket will be concert course, play and football tickets, the yearbook and upkeep and completion of the Union building.” It was also noted that due to “hard times, Panhellenic voted to dispense with faculty receptions and teas. For the same reason the (Pi Phi) chapter voted against having hour dances this year.”

Pledge Day took place on September 19, 1932 and Pi Phi initiated its pledges on February 25, 1933.  I suspect Gamma Phi initiated their pledges at about the same time, too. The state legislature “appropriated $25,000 for the repair of Dyche Museum of Natural History at the university, which was condemned last fall by the state board of regents. The Junior Prom, the outstanding social event of the year, was held March 24 at the Memorial Union Building. Earlier in the same evening Bill Tilden and his troop of professionals played an exhibition tennis match at the auditorium. A concert by Jascha Heifetz. noted violinist, was a feature of the university concert course March 9.” 

Panhellenic friendship was fostered “by participating in the Panhellenic exchange dinners sponsored by the university. The chapter also has guest night several times during the semester so that the girls may invite their friends from other fraternities for dinner.”

On December 9, 1933, the Pi Beta Phi alumnae and actives gave a tea at the house at which products from the Settlement School were displayed and sold. The other women’s fraternities and the faculty were invited. That fall, J. G. Brandt, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, died suddenly and “his death was a great loss to the university.” The proceeds from the student activity ticket were used to remodel the Memorial Union Building Ballroom. 

When I mentioned to my 100-year-old Gamma Phi friend that I had recently visited the University of Kansas Pi Phi chapter house, she wondered if her chapter was still in the same house. “It was a beautiful house,” she said. And I could guarantee her that even if it wasn’t the same house as she lived in, the Gamma Phi house was indeed quite beautiful.


 

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Posted in Fran Favorite, Gamma Phi Beta, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Pi Beta Phi, The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, University of Kansas | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Celebrating a Century with a Gamma Phi Beta Friend, Initiated in 1933 at the University of Kansas

“When He (Calvin Coolidge, Jr.) Died, the Power and the Glory of the Presidency Went With Him,”

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.
The younger Calvin is on the left, John is on the right. The photo was taken on June 30, 1924, the same day that the brothers played tennis on the White house courts.

The younger Calvin is on the left, John is on the right. The photo was taken on June 30, 1924, the same day that the brothers played tennis on the White house court.

On June 30, 1924, the day that the above photograph was taken, Calvin Coolidge, Jr. and his older brother John played tennis on the White House court. Calvin Jr. wore tennis shoes, but not socks. Afterwards, he developed a blister on his right foot. The blister turned into blood poisoning.  Drugs to combat the infection were not yet available.

Calvin Jr. died on July 7, 1924 at the age of 16. His death took place three days after his father’s birthday. When his Presidency ended, Calvin Coolidge wrote his autobiography. Of the death of his youngest son he wrote, “When he died, the power and the glory of the Presidency went with him.”

The Coolidge boys were students at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. When his father became President of the United States after Warren Harding’s death, Calvin Jr. was working in a Massachusetts tobacco field. Another young worker remarked to him, “If my father was President, I would not work in a tobacco field.” Calvin Jr. replied, “If my father were your father, you would.”

images

In a July, 1932 letter to her son John, now in the collections of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, Grace Coolidge described the dreadful day,  “I leaned over his bed knowing that he was fast slipping beyond the reach of my voice, perhaps even then would not hear, and I said,  ‘You’re alright, Calvin,’ as I said so many time in the days when he was in trouble about some little matter. Without opening his eyes, he nodded his head, ever so little and the flicker of his old smile came and was gone. Then, they began giving him oxygen and kept his heart beating but his spirit had slipped away. All that afternoon, dark, awe-inspiring clouds had rolled across the sky, the lightening was almost constant and thunder followed it in mighty roars of majestic power. Calvin’s delirium seemed to be a part of it all and, for a long time, he seemed to be on a horse leading a cavalry charge in battle. He called out, ‘Come on, come on, help, help!’ And, for a time, he thought he was sitting backwards on his horse and asked us to turn him around. Father put his arms under him and tried to persuade him that he had turned him but he thought he was still wrong side around. Finally he relaxed and called out, ‘We surrender, we surrender!’ Dr. Boone said, ‘Never surrender, Calvin.’ He answered only, ‘Yes.’ And some how I was glad that he had gone down still fighting. After it was all over, Dr. Coupal broke down and cried. I found him at the window and I put my arms around him and told him that everything was alright that he and the other doctors had done everything within their power and we must comfort ourselves with the thought that courage such as Calvin had shown us all must now be our example.”

His casket was taken by train from Washington to Northampton, Massachusetts for services at Edwards Congregational Church.  From there, the train continued to Ludlow, Vermont. The last 12 miles were in a car with a cavalry escort to Plymouth and the Coolidge homestead. Boy Scouts holding roses stood at the last third of a mile. After the service, they placed the roses on the grave.

It is said that when Calvin, Jr. died, his father suffered deeply and sorrowfully. Grace Coolidge, her heart broken, carried on almost as if she thought it was her duty.

Grace, a charter member of Pi Beta Phi’s Vermont Beta Chapter at the University of Vermont, had a group of Pi Phi friends with whom she kept in contact utilizing a Round Robin letter. After her son’s death, she wrote her Round Robin friends addressing them as “Dear Robins on the Wing.” She followed with, “I thus address you feelingly and enviously because you all can come and go as you will. When I wrote the word I was looking out the window and wishing I could steal away without being seen and have one day unaccompanied just to go about unrecognized all by myself. The poor Prince! Someday I will again be a humble citizen while he can never be just himself….I want to say a word in appreciation of all your kind words of sympathy. I did not try to reply except by the little card but knew you would understand. I knew that the Robin would come along before a great while and that I could then tell  you how deeply I felt your loving sympathy. No longer can we see and touch Calvin but in a very real sense he is with us and has his place in our family circle. Two years ago this year he taught me how to swim – not because I wanted to learn but just because he wanted to teach me. He put his hand under my chin and I just had to do my best to please him. I’ll never forget how happy he was when I took a few strokes, and I hear his encouraging voice and I am not going to disappoint him.”

Calvin Coolidge was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta chapter at Amherst College. When John Coolidge entered Amherst in the fall of 1924, he too, became a FIJI. The President and his son are founding members of FIJI Sires and Sons. I’d like to believe that if Calvin Jr had lived, he would have shared a FIJI bond with his father and brother.


 

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

 

Posted in Amherst College, Calvin Coolidge, First Ladies, Fran Favorite, Northampton. Massachusetts, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Beta Phi, Presidents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on “When He (Calvin Coolidge, Jr.) Died, the Power and the Glory of the Presidency Went With Him,”

Happy Birthday Calvin Coolidge, a President (and FIJI) Born on the 4th of July!

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., the 30th President of the United States, was born on July 4, 1872 in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. He attended Amherst College in Massachusetts where he became a member of Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI).

After graduation, while working as a lawyer in nearby Northampton, he met Grace Goodhue, a Pi Beta Phi who had recently graduated from the University of Vermont. She was working at the Clarke School for the Deaf. They married in the Goodhue family home in Burlington, Vermont. Although they spent their married life living in Massachusetts with a side trip to Washington, D.C. , Vermont seemed to be always in their hearts.

The marker below is in front of his family home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where we stopped about two months ago on our way home from a Vermont graduation. Festivities are planned for today, July 4, 2013 at the Coolidge Homestead and I wish I could attend. Happy Birthday Calvin Coolidge!

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To read more about President Coolidge’s life as a FIJI member, please visit this earlier post: http://wp.me/p20I1i-2L and http://wp.me/p20I1i-gf

To read more about his lovely wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a charter member of the Vermont Beta Chapter of Pi Beta Phi, please visit this earlier post: http://wp.me/P20I1i-16 as well as searching the posts using the categories on the right hand of this page. She is one of my favorite people and I love to write about her.

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Posted in Amherst College, Calvin Coolidge, Fran Favorite, Grace Coolidge, Northampton. Massachusetts, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Beta Phi | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Happy Birthday Calvin Coolidge, a President (and FIJI) Born on the 4th of July!

More Special Trains to Convention – ΔΓ’s Began in 1881

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

After the last post about convention trains, my friend Marilyn Haas, Delta Gamma Fraternity Archivist, sent me this information about Delta Gamma’s special trains:

“The ‘Delta Gamma Convention Special’ first started in 1881. The private car of Mr. J.B. Mulliken of Detroit, whose daughter Fannie, along with Mollie Laughead and Carrie Hawk, of Eta-Buchtel (Akron) chapter, were escorted to the first Delta Gamma convention by Mr. Mulliken himself. This railroad car picked the girls up at the Akron Depot on the evening of May 22. Thirty-two friends stood to bid the girls farewell as they boarded the train. After transferring the car to another train in Chattanooga, the group arrived in Oxford, Mississippi, on May 24. The Convention Special grew into several railroad cars over the years but from 1881 forward Delta Gammas boarded special railroad cars to take them to conventions until 1956. The last trip was to the 37th Convention in Quebec City, Quebec. It was a 25 hour run from Chicago to Quebec with stops in Detroit and Toronto, and another in Montreal where arrivals from New York and the South converged with the special.”

Delta Gamma Convention Special

Delta Gamma Convention Special

The announcement that appeared in The Anchora in preparation for Delta Gamma’s 1915 Convention in Berkeley, California, is pictured below. The train was to be “Personally Conducted on the entire trip from Chicago by a Passenger Department Representative. It will be elegantly equipped and one of the handsomest trains ever assembled. The equipment will include a dynamo baggage car (from which the train will be brilliantly lighted), standard drawing room and compartment, steel sleeping cars, observation library car, and dining car, serving meals a la carte.”

The Travel Arrangements section offers a little more insight into what the trip was like, “Suit cases and small hand bags will be taken into the cars; trunks will be carried on a special baggage car, provided for them, and will be accessible at all times throughout the trip.”

Mail and telegrams were to be sent in care of Delta Gamma Fraternity’s Special Train “as per schedule.” The schedule of where the train was to be from July 27 when the train left Chicago until August 2 when it arrived in Berkeley. It followed the same route that the Pi Phi Special took earlier that summer (See the link below for the previous post about Convention trains).

The Delta Gamma and Pi Beta Phi Conventions also coincided with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. A day trip to the exposition was included in the convention schedules of both organizations. I’m sure many of the delegates tacked on visits to the exposition at the end of the convention. The cards of introduction issued to the travelers on the Delta Gamma Special were to “assure special attention and assistance in getting desirable return reservations.”

 

This announcement of Delta Gamma's Special Train to the 1915 Convention in Berkeley appeared in The Anchora.

This announcement of Delta Gamma’s Special Train to the 1915 Convention in Berkeley appeared in The Anchora.

To read more about special convention trains see:

http://wp.me/p20I1i-T6

Posted in Conventions, Delta Gamma, Fran Favorite, Fraternity meetings, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Pi Beta Phi, The Anchora of Delta Gamma | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on More Special Trains to Convention – ΔΓ’s Began in 1881

The Sleep Deprivation Study Known as Convention

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

I had hoped to have a real post with some historical significance today. Not a chance! This is because I have been participating in a sleep deprivation study otherwise known as the 69th Biennial Pi Beta Phi Convention. We had our first convention in 1868, so the math doesn’t add up, but in the early years it was a bit difficult to convene conventions and they sometimes happened on a catch as catch can basis. There was the convention that spanned two years, it started in 1907 and concluded in 1908 (New Orleans over New Year’s Eve!!). Conventions were cancelled during World Wars I and II.

One of the most fun parts of convention is meeting new friends (shout out to @Tessa Betz) and catching up with old friends met at prior conventions (you know who you are!!).

I am always in awe when the countdown of conventions takes place. At my first Pi Phi convention in 1987, the competition was between Helen Lewis, Marianne Reid Wild, Evelyn Peters Kyle and Alice Weber Johnson. Today Sis Mullis and Jean Scott (past NPC Chairman) have taken their place. Sis has attended every convention since she became a member of Pi Beta Phi and she recently became a Golden Arrow, our name for a 50-year-member. Sis has also attended almost every chapter installation since she was initiated.

It was also fun meeting some of our National Panhellenic Conference friends at the Saturday luncheon. My new Sigma Kappa friend Susan is probably still shaking her head about our use of silverware during song (our Ring Ching Ching song is accompanied by the taps of spoons on water glasses or coffee cups – a story in itself).

Tonight is our Wine Carnation Banquet. Tomorrow most of us will head home and we’ll start counting down the days to the next one in 2015. Ring Ching!

tbetz

With my new friend Tessa

 

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

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From Assigned Convention Roommate to “Pick Up Where You Left Off” Old Friend

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

I attended my first Pi Beta Phi convention in 1987. I was a young mother with three little ones under the age of three, the wife of a graduate student, and a member of the Alumnae Advisory Committee (AAC) for the Pi Beta Phi chapter at the University of Michigan. When it was time to send an AAC member to convention in New Orleans, I volunteered. My husband agreed to play mom for the time I would be away (his mother flew his sister out to help even though I was certain he could handle it).

I had never been to a Pi Phi convention before and I was a bit apprehensive. I’d also never been assigned a roommate before, except for my freshman year in college. Would I, the native New Yawker, be assigned a southern belle from the deep south? (I have since then shared rooms with several southern belles and I consider them wonderful friends, but back then I worried about such things!)

I somehow survived the kisses and tears at the Detroit airport and made it to New Orleans where the first thing I remember was the oppressive heat and humidity mixed with jet fumes outside the airport. When I checked into the Fairmont Hotel and opened the door to the room I was assigned, I was in awe of how beautiful the room was. And then I looked in the closet. My roommate had arrived, but wasn’t in the room. As I hung up my clothes, I couldn’t help but notice how matronly the clothes were. I then played out the scenario where I had been assigned a roommate my mother’s age. What would we talk about? Would she need to get to sleep early?

In hanging up the last of my clothes, I realized that what I was seeing were maternity clothes (1980s maternity clothes bear little resemblance to what pregnant women wear in 2013). Realizing this little fact, I went downstairs to where the Alumnae Advisory Committee pre-convention sessions were taking place and introduced myself to the first pregnant woman I saw. It was my roommate, Lisa. My worries were for naught. We are kindred spirits and our friendship has sustained the years and the miles.

At the 2011 Pi Beta Phi convention in Orlando, Lisa came in for the Sunday session. My daughter had the honor of being a convention initiate. Months earlier, Pi Phi sent out a request for stories about magical convention moments. Without much forethought, I sat down and typed my Lisa story. And without me knowing it, Lisa had sent in her Fran story. We were assigned to read our magical convention moments at the Sunday session. In my telling of the story Lisa is nine and a half months pregnant – well at least that is how she looked, she is tall and reed thin and was very pregnant. She said it was closer to seven months. The daughter who attended her first convention in utero is now a Pi Phi, too. Lisa is not at the convention I’m attending right now, but another Pi Phi daughter will be here soon and I can’t wait to give her a hug!

It’s a fairly good bet our friendship is not an anomaly. I am certain that wonderful friendships have been formed by randomly assigned roommates at sorority conventions spanning the continent and the years. They are those friendships where you pick up where you left off, regardless of the time that has gone by. And how lucky we all are that its a benefit of membership in all of our organizations! Greeting old friends and making new ones is a hallmark of all sorority conventions.

In the early 1990s at a Pi Beta Phi Indiana State Day

In the early 1990s at a Pi Beta Phi Indiana State Day

In the late 2000s at a Mounmouth Duo alumnae luncheon

In the late 2000s at a Mounmouth Duo alumnae luncheon

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All rights reserved.


 

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All Aboard!! Special Trains to Conventions – the Fun Before the Fun!

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.
The Alpha Xi Delta Special train. It left Chicago for the 1937 Convention at Yellowstone Park.

The Alpha Xi Delta Special train. It left Chicago for the 1937 Convention at Yellowstone Park.

The collegians and alumni/ae who are headed to conventions this summer will likely drive or fly to their destinations. Imagine what it must have been like when rail travel was the way people got to where they were going! “Specials,” those trains reserved solely for one group of travelers, added days onto the fun of being among members of one’s own organization. On these special trains filled with fraternity and sorority members traveling to a far off locale for a meeting, the fun began days before the meeting started.

On June 30, 1915, a group of Massachusetts Pi Beta Phis, including the delegate from the Western Massachusetts Alumnae Club, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, left Boston headed for Berkeley, California. Louise Richardson wrote a first-hand account of the train ride that appeared in the December 1915 Arrow of Pi Beta Phi. The group traveled to Chicago where the Convention attendees boarded the “Pi Phi Special”, ten cars filled with Pi Phis traveling to Berkeley.

In Albany, New York, two Pi Phis from St. Lawrence University joined the Massachusetts contingent. The Pi Phis traveling to Chicago now included nine Pi Phis initiated at Boston University, one from the University of Vermont, another from Washington University, one from Dickinson College and one from Middlebury College. “It’s so much fun now, what will it be when we get on the Special?,” she asked. “The girls who went to bed early missed it, for we did have a hilarious time in the ‘limousine’ doing stunts and I laughed till I was tired.”

Only July 1, she wrote, “I’m so excited that I can never follow the law of coherence! I’m on the Special and it has been a wonderful day – so wonderful that I can’t believe it will last. But I must go back a bit first. This morning we wrote reams – when we were not talking. Our only excitement was when we had found we had lost the Vermont delegate. Through a mistake she had found a seat in the car back of us, which to our surprise – and to her dismay, was switched off during the night to a different line. At nearly every station some of us would hop out, for we untraveled New Englanders wanted to see all we could. On one account we decided we had “nevermissitus” (accent on the fourth syllable).”

Then she added, “I cannot realize I was in Chicago this noon. I always thought Boston immense, but it’s nothing but a little town after all. On our arrival Miss Kate Miller met us and guided us to the C. & N. W. Station…. I never felt so big in all my life as when I saw a huge placard announcing Pi Beta Phi headquarters in the station. I wished I had on an arrow a foot long so that every one could see that I belonged to that sign. Into Mr. Allen’s office, where the greatest kindness was shown us, arrow-bedecked girls kept pouring, all smiling, all talking and all introducing themselves at once. There we were given reservations, marked these on our Pi Phi Special tags, left our bags and were piloted to the Chicago College Club rooms. Here we registered, met more college Pi Phi’s, had luncheon, heard Miss Keller  (Pi Beta Phi’s Grand President) speak, also the president of the College Club – a Pi Phi, and the president of the alumnae club, and had a chance to identify the active delegates. About 5:30 the clans began to gather for the Special and what a crowd it was! Everybody was looking at us and wondering what the sign announcing our train could mean. When the train backed in bearing on the rear that big circular light with Pi Beta Phi Special in white on it we Ohed! and Ahed! and everybody gazed still more. We soon found our sections and at 6:05 mid picture taking, the staring of the crowd, and the singing and cheering of the Evanston girls, we started westward. Sailing for Europe can be no more thrilling!”

The group arrived in Denver on July 2, “Had breakfast in the Omaha station and by doing so we missed meeting those Omaha Pi Phis whom everybody said were so splendid. But we didn’t miss their gift – a big basket of mouth-melting home made candy for each car – tied with wine and blue.”

And there was much singing; “It did seem like a big house party this evening when nearly everybody in the seven cars squeezed into the observation car till there was not an available inch of room left. We sang and sang, and when we ran out of songs we all knew, some sang chapter songs.”

While in Colorado, the group did some touring, “What a rush there was about 4:30 for breakfast! Pat’s Lunch near the station at Colorado Springs did a flourishing business on dry sandwiches, weak coffee and poor fruit.” Busses and cars, likely coordinated by the Colorado alumnae, took the group on a tour, “My first view of Pike’s Peak I shall never forget! And the strange grandeur of the Garden of the Gods! It was there that our bus was unruly and we had to get out and walk away…. I did so want to stay longer at Manitou and Colorado Springs! From there on I sat glued to my chair as the wonders of the mountains appeared. At Canyon City we took open observation cars where we had unobstructed views of the Royal Gorge with its stupendous rock walls. Then late this afternoon came the canyon of the Grand with its windings and verdure.”

On the fourth of July, the group crossed Utah, “We are in a truly Pi Phi train for every porter, brakeman, steward and waiter is decorated with a Pi Phi seal. They seem to enjoy the Special and are all so courteous – especially our Pullman conductor who is a great favorite…. At Helper, where two more engines were added to our train, we got out for ice cream cones and fruit again. Then at Top of the World we all sent cards home.”

Her last entry is on July 5 from the Sigma Kappa house at Berkeley. How Panhellenic that the convention group was housed in the sorority houses on the Berkeley campus! She summed up her experience on the Pi Phi Special, “I do not believe any crowd has ever had such a trip as we have had – wonderful country, luxurious train, splendid attendants, grand girls and a gorgeously good time every minute. There has been nothing but absolute harmony…. The friends we’ve made and the broader vision of Pi Phi I shall never forget. The ARROW will mean vastly more to me on account of these days on the Special!…. If I live a century I’ll be a better Pi Phi on account of this past week and never, never forget the Pi Beta Phi Special.”

Many other groups used special trains to get their members to convention. The DKE convention in Cuba highlighted a few days ago involved a special train from New York City to Key West. Kappa Alpha Theta and Alpha Xi Delta (pictured above) are two NPC groups that had special trains to conventions. I’d love to publish more first hand accounts of the train rides, so if they are out there, please let me know.

Added 8:30 6/26/13 from Noraleen Young, Kappa Alpha Theta’s Archivist:

Kappa Alpha Theta’s first special train was in 1911 for our first West Coast Convention, held that year in Pasadena, California. One of our last was in 1960 to our convention in San Diego. I came across this quote: “The most popular spot on the train, the Dome car, was the place for snapping pictures or socializing. Every trip has a camera bug, so we played the role of typical tourists. Sue Laffan, Gamma Mu, took motion pictures and kept the aisle hot running for every ‘sharp shot.’ As the train sped through the desert a few in the group remarked that there was just nothing to see but barren land. Sue grabbed her movie camera and took a picture of – nothing! As Sue said, ‘I want a picture of everything on this fabulous trip and seeing “nothing” is part of it.'” I contacted Sue last year and she found the following footage: http://grandconvention.kappaalphatheta.org/page/19601968 It gives us a small glimpse into this part of the convention experience.

And this from Pi Beta Phi’s Pinterest page  http://pinterest.com/pin/113012271872218007/  a brochure from the 1929 convention train.

Pi Phi special(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All rights reserved.


 

Posted in Conventions, Fran Favorite, Fraternity meetings, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, National Panhellenic Conference, Pi Beta Phi, Sorority History, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Sorority Convention Season Begins

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Pi Beta Phi’s first convention took place in Oquawka, Illinois* at the home of Fannie Thomson in August of 1868. The organization was founded on April 28,  1867 at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. The convention was a three-day affair, with talk of expanding to other campuses, a wide awake night, a boat ride on the Mississippi and many, many hours of fun and sisterhood. The second Pi Phi Convention I attended, the organization’s 58th, took place in St. Louis in 1991. It was a few days longer than the first convention, but it, too, had the hallmarks of that first one. We even took a boat ride on the Mississippi!

The convention season has started for National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations. Tri Sigma kicked off its convention on Friday and they have been having fun this past weekend as evidenced by the twitter feed (#ThisIBelieve13). As I write this I am getting ready for Pi Beta Phi’s 69th Biennial Convention in San Diego.

The 2013 convention schedule for NPC organizations includes:

Sigma Sigma Sigma, June 21-24, 2013, Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa, Orlando, FL

Alpha Epsilon Phi, June 26-30, Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, AZ

Alpha Omicron Pi, June 26-30, Chicago Marriott Magnificent Mile, Chicago, IL

Alpha Delta Pi, June 27-30, Sheraton Dallas Hotel, Dallas, TX

Kappa Delta, June 27 – July 1, Sheraton Boston Hotel, Boston, MA

Alpha Xi Delta, June 28 – July 4, Hilton Union Square, San Francisco, CA

Pi Beta Phi, June 28 – July 1, Sheraton San Diego, San Diego, CA

Phi Sigma Sigma, July 10-14, Crowne Plaza Times Square, New York, NY

 

Pi Beta Phi's 1989 convention took place in 1989, the same locale as the upcoming 2013 convention

Pi Beta Phi’s 1989 convention took place in San Diego, the same locale as the upcoming 2013 convention

*Oquawka is a small town (population < 1,400) on the banks of the Mississippi River. The home where the first Pi Phi convention took place is still standing. In the 1970s, another tourist attraction joined it. It is a memorial and grave marker to a circus elephant named Norma Jean. She was struck by lightning on July 17, 1972. Some Kappa Kappa Gammas and Pi Beta Phis who make the pilgrimage to Monmouth, Illinois, founding site of both organizations, also tack on a side trip to Oquawka to see the Norma Jean memorial.

The Norma Jean memorial in Oquawka, (photo courtesy of Kylie Towers Smith, KKG)

The Norma Jean Memorial in Oquawka                   (photo courtesy of Kylie Towers Smith, KKG)

 

Convention junkies might enjoy a prior post about the New Ocean Inn in Swampscott, MA, the site of many conventions http://wp.me/p20I1i-xN

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All rights reserved.

Posted in Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Xi Delta, Conventions, Fran Favorite, Fraternity meetings, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Monmouth College, National Panhellenic Conference, Phi Sigma Sigma, Pi Beta Phi, Sigma Sigma Sigma | Tagged , | Comments Off on The Sorority Convention Season Begins