Fraternity History & More

Alpha Sigma Alpha was founded on November 15, 1901 at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. Its founders had been asked to join some of the other sororities on campus, but they wanted to stay together. The five, Virginia Lee Boyd (Noell), Juliette Jefferson Hundley (Gilliam), Calva Hamlet Watson (Wootton), Louise Burks Cox (Carper) and Mary Williamson Hundley, started their own sorority; they called it Alpha Sigma Alpha.

Just as the March 1945 Phoenix went to press, news was received of the release of Beth Harkness from the Santo Tomas prisoner camp. Harkness was an alumna of the Tau Tau chapter, at Fort Hays Kansas State College.

Harkness earned a Master’s degree from Columbia University. She went to Shanghai as an Episcopalian missionary. In January 1941, she was transferred the Phillipine Island of Luzon and was assigned to the mountain province of Sagade. She was 29 years old when she was taken captive by the Japanese in 1942.

For three years she and was confined to Camp Holmes near Baguio. The 500 prisoners lived in barracks designed for 85. The room she shared with three other women was crowded and privacy was nil. During her captivity she served as a schoolteacher for the 80 children who were there.

In October 1944, as American forces advanced towards the Philippines the prisoners were transferred to a camp near Manila. Late in January 1945, the prisoners saw low flying American planes. That night there were battles in the streets. Although the Japanese guards had left their posts, the prisoners remained in the camp until their American liberators found them the next day.

At the camp Harkness met John A. Renning, who had grown up in South Dakota. He spent four years as a mining engineer on Luzon and was taken prisoner in December, 1941. While captive, Harkness and Redding grew fond of one another. Once they were free to live life away from the camp, the couple knew they wanted to spend their lives together. They married on May 10, 1945, at the Church of the Incarnation in Santa Rosa, California, shortly after each returned to the United States separately.

The November 1945 Phoenix included this quote from Beth Harkness Renning:

Looking back, one has time to do so in a Prison Camp, I am so glad for happy Alpha Sigma Alpha memories and realize those experiences were the kind which help tide one over in difficult times.

In 1977, the Rennings had retired to Auburn, California. They spoke to the local newspaper about their experiences in the early 1940s. They planned to attend a reunion of camp survivors. Later that year, they spoke to a community group about their time in the prison camp. Beth Renning died in 2000 and her husband in 2002.

Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. was founded on November 12, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana by seven young African American school teachers. Sigma Gamma Rho’s founders are Nannie Mae Gahn Johnson, Mary Lou Allison Little, Vivian White Marbury, Bessie M. Downey Martin, Cubena McClure, Hattie Mae Dulin Redford, and Dorothy Hanley Whiteside. On December 30, 1929, a charter was granted to the Alpha chapter at Butler University making the organization  a national college sorority.

Edna Mae Douglas was a charter member of Sigma Gamma Rho’s Theta Sigma chapter in Little Rock, Arkansas. She served as Second Grand Anti-Basileus from 1948-52 and First Grand Anti-Basileus from 1952-54. She was the organization’s eighth Grand Basileus and her tenure spanned from 1954 until 1959.

Douglas graduated from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Her Master’s was earned at Atlanta University. She taught and was chairman of the science department at Paul Dunbar High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

During the 1952-53 year she was the winner of the first Ford Foundation Fellowship offered by the Little Rock Public Schools. She spent a year in travel as part of the fellowship. In 1953 Sigma Gamma Rho named her the winner of the Blanche Edwards Award, its highest personal honor.

Douglas was on the Board of Directors of her Alma Mater, the only African American woman to serve in this way. A residence hall at the university is named in her honor.

She was active in the Little Rock community and served on the Board of Directors of the Greater Little Rock YWCA. Douglas also served as President of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc. from 1960-62.

The Theta Sigma chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho hosts a Edna M. Douglas Scholarship Luncheon each year.

The first social event Frances Haven (Moss) attended after enrolling in Syracuse University in 1874 was a church oyster supper. Her father, Dr. Erastus Otis Haven, was recently elected Chancellor of the university. At that supper, she met the man who would become her husband, Charles Melville Moss. She also met two members of Alpha Phi, a women’s fraternity founded at Syracuse in October of 1872. Instead of accepting the invitation to join Alpha Phi which had been offered to her, she joined with three other women – Mary A. Bingham (Willoughby), E. Adeline Curtis, and Helen M. Dodge (Ferguson) –  and they found an organization of their own. The date was November 11, 1874. The organization is Gamma Phi Beta, the first of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations to use the term “sorority;” Syracuse Latin professor Frank Smalley suggested the word to the young women.

The years surrounding World War I and sorority women’s response to the crisis is an interest of mine. In preparation for this post, I went searching a hundred-year-old Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta. I found this entry from its Phi Chapter at Washington University in St. Louis:

We returned for classes September 26, and found everything in a state of chaos, for somehow the work of the Student Army Training Corps would not fit in with the regular work of the college. Finally, when we were used to the unearthly hours for classes, and the courses which we had to take, not because we wanted them, but because they were the only ones offered, the influenza ban stopped all activities. After the first week of expectant waiting for the ban to be lifted and three weeks more of the disturbing boredom, numbers of the girls of the university decided to help in relieving the economic situation and took positions.

The correspondent who wrote that was Frances Barbour. The chapter’s report noted that she was “recently made a member of the Missouri Folk Lore Society for her work done in Ozark ballads.”

Barbour graduated with a Bachelors in 1919 and was awarded a fellowship for graduate study. In January 1920, the chapter reported:

Frances Barbour, our most recent Phi Beta Kappa, holds a fellowship for graduate work. Incidentally, Frances discovered, actually discovered, some ballads last summer in the Ozarks and was asked to talk about them at the Artists’ Guild!

Her name sounded very familiar so I did some more research. An article in the March 1932 Crescent was titled The Vanishing Folk Lore of the Ozarks. Barbour’s passion was the study of folk lore and she contributed to several folk ballad anthologies. The introduction to the article mentioned the she was a “modest person and is loath to tell of her achievements, but her interesting article betrays not only her ability to write but her deep knowledge of her subject.”

More research found that after earning her M.A. she taught at Carbondale Community High School in Illinois, the high school my offspring attended. She then joined the English faculty of Southern Illinois Normal University, as Southern Illinois University Carbondale was then known. She spent her career in Carbondale and retired in 1963.

Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases of Illinois was published two years after her retirement. Copies of the book turn up every now and then at the Friends of Carbondale Public Library Book Sale, which I help coordinate, and when they do, I place in the local interest section. The book contains more than 4,000 regional sayings collected from her students and local residents from 1944 to 1950. Barbour arranged them alphabetically by the first noun. She also referenced them to parallel sayings in more than 100 other collections. Her research was an important reference for those interested in American folklore.

Her name sounded familiar for another reason. It hit me just as I fell off to sleep one night. In 1964, she was a charter member of my P.E.O. chapter. Her name has appeared in every yearbook published since I joined the chapter in 1991. Barbour died in 1979 at the age of 84.

On November 9, 1874, Sigma Kappa was founded by five young women, the only females enrolled at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. They received a letter from the faculty approving the organization’s petition, which included a constitution and bylaws.

The five founders of Sigma Kappa are Mary Low Carver, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Fuller Pierce, Louise Helen Coburn and Frances Mann Hall. In Sigma Kappa’s first constitution, chapter membership was limited to 25 women. The original chapter is known as the Alpha chapter. After Alpha chapter’s membership reached 25, a Beta chapter was formed. A Gamma chapter soon followed. Although there were some early joint meetings, the members did not think it feasible to continue that way. In 1893, a vote was taken to limit Alpha chapter to 25 members and to allow no more initiations into Beta and Gamma chapters. In due time, Beta and Gamma were no more.

The Espilon chapter at Syracuse University was founded in 1905. In 1911, Frances Willard Lyons and her older sister Mabel became members of the chapter. Frances was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and served as chapter president. She spent another two years at Syracuse and earned a master’s degree in 1917.

Frances began teaching high school history in Middletown, Connecticut and she advised the first Girl Scout troop in the city. Her fiance asked her to join him in post-war France. The parents of Frances and Mabel had died in 1897 and 1917, respectively. Mabel married and set sail for China with her husband where he would teach in a school for missionary children until they and the four children born to them there escaped during the Chinese revolution. There was nothing tying Frances to Connecticut save a job. She had volunteered to index the Triangle and was hard at work, “when Captain Howard Spencer MacKirdy sent that cable message to Frances which made her drop everything at home and take that long voyage across the Atlantic to join Captain MacKirdy in France.”

On September 3, 1919, she married Howard Spencer MacKirdy. What was unusual was the location of the wedding and the 3,000 miles she traveled to become a bride. Frances wrote a personal letter to Emma Kinne, editor of The Triangle which was printed in the December 1919 edition. I am printing it in its entirety because it offers a fascinating look at post-World War I France. (The German prisoners of war were held until the spring of 1920 in case anyone is wondering.)

I want to tell you about a very wonderful event that has taken place, and about which an announcement has been sent to you. I think I wrote you that I was going to France. Well, I arrived just three weeks ago, and they have been the happiest weeks of my life, especially in the last few years. On Wednesday, September 3, Mac and I were married at Gievres, which is a U.S. Army base of supply, of which Mac is adjutant. We had a very beautiful wedding, so I feel as if I had stepped off into a world of story-book romance. Coming 3,000 miles to marry one’s soldier lover is unique in itself, but an army wedding is also unique. And besides there are many other little ideas which stand out as peculiarly beautiful, and, yes, even pathetic.

After a civil marriage in accordance with the laws of France, we had the religious ceremony at six o’clock in the evening. I must tell you a bit about the civil ceremony which was odd, to say the least. Going to a quaint little town, into a quaint stone house, whose stone floor was badly broken in spots, where a long bare table and several straight, forward tipping chairs were the only furniture, it seemed an unusual ceremony. Behind the table stood the mayor and his secretary. The mayor wore a sash of red, white, and blue, with gold tassels. Mac and I with four witnesses were seated in the chairs. Then in French the secretary asked Mac and me to rise, and in rapid French he read a long dissertation which proved to be the story of our birth, lives, parents, residence, occupation, etc. This over, he read a question in French to Mac who answered “Oui,” then a question to me, and I gave the same answer. Then followed our signatures and those of cur witnesses. Mac had promised to “cherish” me and I had promised ”to obey him and follow him wherever he went” and previously we had decided not to promise to obey. It did not seem quite right for people to call me Mrs. MacKirdy after just those two words, but so it was.

However, at six o’clock we had a beautiful ceremony. It was celebrated in the barracks of the army chaplain there, who by the way performed the ceremony. It was the Presbyterian ritual. The other ladies at Gievres had had the place decorated and it was wonderful. German prisoners of war did all the decorating under supervision. A long narrow aisle of white canvas stretched along the floor led to an improvised altar, with two white pillars with candle on them. All behind the pillar was evergreen mistletoe, heather, and roses. The Lohengrin wedding march was played by an orchestra composed of German prisoners. The wedding procession came up the aisle in couple led by Lieutenant-Colonel Warner and Major Wheeler then Lieutenant Israel (French) and Lieutenant-Colonel McCleary, then Mrs. Warner, wife of Lieutenant Colonel Warner as matron of honor (in tan georgette with yellow roses which were edged in deepest pink). Then came Colonel Davids, the commanding officer of the post at Gievres, with me. I wore a white crepe de chine dress, with white suede slippers, and a wedding veil tied with orange· blossoms, both of the latter being bought in Bourges, France. I carried a bouquet of white roses and mistletoe. We had a double ring ceremony and our rings were narrow green-gold bands with a wreath of ivy leaves embossed on them. They were bought in Paris and are very beautiful.

There were many guests at the wedding-three high French officers, Colonel Leger (Sous-Intendant), Colonel de Place, Major de Rochars. These, by the way, gave Mac a silverhandled ivory paper knife. Uniforms, of course, were everywhere present. Captain Reid, C.A.C., was Mac’s best man. After the ceremony, the wedding group was taken by a French photographer, then a picture of the decorations, and then a picture of the wedding group and all the guests taken in the yard of the chateau which is the officers’ barracks.

After this we had a wedding dinner in regular army style ‘with all the fixin’s,’ even to a huge wedding cake which had to be cut by the bride. One of the interesting features of the dinner was that it was cooked and served by German prisoners. Some other very unique points of our wedding were gifts received. Lieutenant S- gave us a little oval-shaped box which he had made from the propeller blades of German airplanes captured at Verdun. One German prisoner carved a picture frame with two ovals. On the card accompanying it was written ‘Devotion from a prisoner of war’ (Mac is a much beloved man). Headquarters’ Mess (C.O., etc.) gave us a dozen solid silver teaspoons and a solid silver service spoon and fork. They were bought in Blois, France, and are very odd. The German cooks also made us a German wedding cake with ‘Many Happy Days Together’ in German on the icing.

After a very delicious banquet of consomme, roast duck and chicken, sweet potatoes, etc., frappe, and coffee, the party .adjourned to the chaplain’s barracks and there we had a dance and reception to which were invited many who had not been present before. Of course it was up to the bride and groom t0 lead off. (Yes, I dance.) After about an hour of dancing, Captain Reid took me to my little house, and there I changed my dress to my suit, and soon Mac came. We had a Cadillac limousine which took us to Blois, thirty miles away. Mac had been stationed there at Blois in February as captain of a casual company. He had lived with a very lovely lady and her daughter who had a beautiful home, and he had made arrangements for us to go there. Mme. Gagnot said that it was his French home. She was very lovely to us. We did considerable sight-seeing in Blois. It is a quaint old town, typically French, and I just enjoyed it, I can tell you. Then we came to Paris, where we have been eight days, and what a very wonderful time we have had, too. Every minute has been ideal. We have a very nice room in a lovely hotel, where the Tuilleries are at our “back door,” the Place de la Concorde but a few minutes walk, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, The Invalides, Napoleon’s Tomb, The Seine, Notre Dame, Palais de ,Justice – all are no longer mere names, but beautiful realities.

One day we spent at Versailles, where its glory of yesterday and today just filled our hearts with the romance of it all. One felt as if one stood on a mighty brink where happened and where would linger the thoughts and hopes of the world for ages.

One evening we spent at the Grand Opera, where we saw Thais, and were filled again with wonder. A single day at the Louvre gave us a taste of its marvels. We went there with the idea that it would take six months to see it, and the little that we did, we did carefully. The paintings and everything about which we know so much kept our attention all the time.

Yesterday we hunted up an American church and went there to worship, and to think how happy we were, and to thank God for the beauty of life. ·with my best love to you, dear Emma,

The couple returned to the United States on Thanksgiving Day 1920 after chaperoning 19 French and German war brides across the ocean. Once back in the states, she took on the role of Army wife, following her husband to whatever post he was assigned. The December 1923 Triangle focused on homemakers and Frances MacKirdy was one of the Sigma Kappas featured. By then the MacKirdys had three boys. Randolph (Burt) was born in August 1920, Wayne in October 1921 and Robert in February 1923:

Their first station was Fort Hancock, with a few months at Fort Wadsworth. A year at Fortress Monroe was ended by orders taking them to Fort Adams, R. I., where proximity to Delta, Phi, Boston and Rhode Island Alumnae Chapters gives these groups an opportunity to become acquainted and love at sight one of the finest of our Sigma sisters. To Sigma, Frances is a devoted slave. The TRIANGLE index from 1915-21 is from her hands, performed under difficult conditions; as the capable chairman of the Scholarship Trophy Committee she has evolved and given much time and energy to a plan which will result in the presentation this year of a scholarship cup to the chapter maintaining the highest average. No appeal for assistance is in vain if Sigma needs her. The old cry ‘Ask Frances’ still avails. But deep as is her love for Sigma, unmeasured her loyalty and readiness to serve, these are dwarfed by her devotion to her home, her husband, and her three adorable baby boys, Burt, Wayne and Robert. Whether it is a dinner party for the Commanding Officer of the Post and other guests, or a wardrobe for one of the babies, or sage discussion on the current events and literature, Frances is equally efficient and well prepared to make a success of the undertaking.

Howard MacKirdy died in 1943 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Frances passed away in 1964 at the age of 69 and is with him at Arlington.

On November 4, 1899, eight young women, Mable Chase, Ruth Dutcher, May Gephart, Harriet Marx, Eva O’Keefe, Adriance Rice, Helene Rice, and Mayene Tracy, formed a sorority at the Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Alpha Sigma Tau was the name they chose. The organization became a national one in October 1925. 

In 1926, Alpha Sigma Tau joined the Association of Education Sororities (AES). Alpha Sigma Tau became a full member of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) when the merger of AES and NPC was formalized in 1951.

Maxine Mirus was a charter member of Alpha Sigma Tau’s Pi Chapter at Harris Teachers College (today Harris Stowe State University) in St. Louis. Her sister Lucille became a member of the chapter, too. Maxine graduated from Washington University. She was a member of the Pi Alumnae Chapter of Alpha Sigma Tau and the St. Louis Alumnae Club, which may have been one and the same. The May 1936 meeting of the latter took place at the Mirus home on Connecticut Avenue.

Maxine was the St. Louis Alumnae Chapter delegate to the 1934 convention. She served as Alpha Sigma Tau’s first Life Membership chair from 1934-37. In 1937, the sisters traveled to Puerto Rico for vacation.

On November 4, 1939, Maxine married Robert J. Auld in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was 20 years her senior. The March 1944 Anchor of Alpha Sigma Tau featured an article she wrote six months after being commissioned as a WAVE:

Although it was to be nearly a year before I even saw a WAVE outside of newsreels and magazines, my admiration and enthusiasm were fired and now, after six months a commissioned officer, both have increased. Since I lived in Puerto Rico, and the Naval District with its headquarters there had no quota for the Women’s Reserves, my application, tests, and all preliminaries had to be carried on through a second headquarters which delayed the action somewhat. However, I was finally on a Pan-American plane flying up to Miami to be sworn in to the U.S. Naval Reserve, then bound for Northampton for officers’ training.

She received her training on the Smith College campus in Northampton, Massachusetts. There:

For two months we marched in company and platoon formations to classes, to mess, to the dispensary, to lectures, to drill, to uniform fittings, to the gymnasium, rain or shine. We learned to fold blankets in the Navy way, to check tops of transoms for dust, to turn square corners in making up our bunks, besides our five hours of classes and two hours of drill or gym a day – and loved it! The day on which we received our commissions, wearing our snappy white uniforms, was a day on which each of us could feel a sense of great satisfaction that we had managed to measure up to the high standards set by the Navy for is. Receiving orders was a thrill, and to my surprise I found myself simultaneously detached and attached to the Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School here, assigned as a member of the Instruction Staff.

Auld was assigned to teach a course called Naval Personnel which instructed the women:

how to recognize the different ranks and ratings in the U.S. Navy; how to know other military services, both men’s and women’s; military etiquette and military authority. In fact, military etiquette looms so largely on the list of rocks and shoals visible to the new recruit, that instructors in our course are referred to as the Emily Posts of the station, and for snappy salutes and military precision in navel procedures, the WAVES can hold their own.

She told about the jobs being done by the women with whom she trained and those she taught. She said some sounded almost unbelievable:

encoding and decoding; giving clearances to aircraft for landings and takeoffs; operating synthetic training devices for pilots; acting as members of military courts; almost any kind of non-combat job in continental United States. Regardless of the diversity of jobs, though, we all have one feeling in common, pride in being allowed to live under Navy Regulations and military discipline, and to release our Navy men from shore jobs for combat duty afloat.

Auld also mentioned Alpha Sigma Tau in her article. Perhaps some connections were made after the fact.

A new class goes out of here every month, and underneath the blue serge and brass buttons we feel a sense of loss like any school faculty on graduation, yet very proud of having turned out four hundred more qualified officers who will out that many men behind guns in the Fleet. I’ve had no way of knowing – but I hope some of them have been AST’s.

She died in 1997 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Puerto Rico National Cemetery in Bayamon. Her grave marker notes that she was a LT JG in the US Navy.

Delta Zeta and Alpha Epsilon Phi, both members of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), were founded on October 24. In 1902, Delta Zeta made its debut at Miami University in Ohio; Alpha Epsilon Phi was founded in 1909 at Barnard College in New York City.

Delta Zeta’s founders are Alfa Lloyd, Mary Collins, Anna Keen, Julia Bishop, Mabelle Minton, and Ann Simmons. Delta Zeta’s history includes the heritage of several other NPC organizations. Between 1941 and 1962, the members of four other NPC groups became members of Delta Zeta. Delta Zeta absorbed or merged with Beta Phi Alpha, Theta Upsilon, Phi Omega Pi, and Delta Sigma Epsilon. Some of these had themselves merged with other groups prior to joining with Delta Zeta.

Alpha Epsilon Phi was founded in Helen Phillips’ room. She had the inspiration for the group as a way to stay in closer contact with her friends. The other founders are Ida Beck, Rose Gerstein, Augustina “Tina” Hess, Lee Reiss, Stella Strauss and Rose Salmowitz. The seven shared their Jewish heritage. A second chapter was quickly founded two months later at nearby Hunter College. The founding chapter at Barnard was closed when the college banned Greek-letter organizations in 1913.

Actress Barbara Barrie is a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi. She was initiated into the University of Texas chapter as Barbara Ann Berman. While at Texas, she was awarded the Kappa Kappa Gamma Donna Dellinger annual scholarship. (It was established in 1952 in memory of Donna Dellinger, Kappa who was killed in an automobile accident. Those eligible for the award were seniors or graduate students who showed “definite drama interest and ability.”)

Barrie has performed on Broadway, in movies and on television. She spent nearly two years in Company, one of my favorite Stephen Sondheim shows. She received a Tony Award nomination for her performance. Barrie also played the mother in Breaking Away, the 1979 film about Indiana University’s Little 500 race. She was nominated for an Academy Award for that performance. She has appeared in many television shows, including a 1975-78 stint as Elizabeth Miller, fictional detective Barney Miller’s wife. Most recently, she played Brooke Shield’s grandmother in Suddenly Susan.

Barbara Barrie, Alpha Epsilon Phi

Florence Henderson, who began her career on Broadway, has a place in 1970s sitcom history for her role as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch. She was an alumna initiate of Delta Zeta. Henderson died on November 24, 2016. This question and answer which was on her website addressed that:

Are you really a member of the Delta Zeta Sorority?
I am an honorary member of Delta Zeta. They do a lot of work for the House Ear institute and the hearing impaired and so do I, so it was a good match. I was never an officer or an active member of the sorority.

Happy Founders’ Day, Delta Zeta and Alpha Epsilon Phi!

Kappa Delta was founded on October 23, 1897 at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. Its founders are Lenora Ashmore Blackiston, Julia Gardiner Tyler Wilson, Sara Turner White and Mary Sommerville Sparks Hendrick. Kappa Delta, along with Zeta Tau Alpha, Sigma Sigma Sigma and Alpha Sigma Alpha, was founded at the same institution and comprise the “Farmville Four.” (Two of them joined the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) and the other two became members of the Association of Education Sororities (AES) – before AES members became a part of NPC but that is a story for another day.)

I once had the opportunity to tour Kappa Delta’s Headquarters with KD’s Archivist Shirley Gee. One thing I did not expect to see was a green chair from a baseball stadium. Shirley told me the reason why it’s there.

Janet Marie Smith, an initiate of the Delta Omega Chapter at Mississippi State, is a an architect and urban planner. She is the Los Angeles Dodgers’ senior vice president of planning and development. Smith was instrumental in upgrades to Dodger Stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Fenway Park, and Turner Field. In 2013, she was the commencement speaker at her Alma Mater. That year, she was also a speaker at Kappa Delta’s 60^th Biennial Convention Boston. The convention body then took in a baseball game at Fenway Park, seeing Smith’s work up close and personal.

In a feature in The Angelos, Smith said that she in the late 1970s, she was one of a handful of women studying architecture and that Kappa Delta gave her a refuge from the pressure of studying architecture”

It was freeing to be with women. It was freeing to know we were ‘sisters,’ and the judgmental nature of humans was set aside for a moment as we shared the bond of being together…Mostly, from KD, I think I learned to dream…And as my confidence in myself grew, I realized I could do more than meet expectations. I could make dreams come true.

This weekend marked the 40th anniversary of the marriage of two young kids. We blinked once or twice and 1979 turned into 2019. Amazing how quickly that happened. We celebrated as best we could considering it’s mid-semester and the first Dr. Becque has a Friday class to teach. Amazingly we made it to the West Baden Springs Hotel before dark.

We most likely would have cancelled the trip since the weekend wasn’t the greatest time for us to be away. However, when I called to make sure of the time needed to cancel a reservation, I was informed we didn’t have a reservation, but after further checking it was determined we were a no show on a reservation the night of the day I’d made what I thought were reservations for October 18. One of the first things I did after making the the reservation was to reserve spots in the scheduled tours for both hotels. What more could be evidence of a dumb mistake? We were given a credit for the amount we’d already been charged for the no-show. Any idea of cancelling went by the wayside as I cannot part with that much money unwillingly and with nothing to show for it. A few more minor setbacks greeted us upon arrival, but Guest Services manager Siobhan went above and beyond to resolve them. We had a wonderful time. It’s an extraordinary place and I recommend it highly.

The story of the West Baden Springs Hotel in Indiana is a fascinating one. It involves mineral springs, a large wooden hotel which was consumed by fire, a vision of the world’s largest dome, an architect named Harrison Albright who was willing to take on the challenging of designing it (before calculators or computers!). When the hotel opened in 1902, it was dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Several fraternity and sorority conventions took place at the hotel before it closed in the wake of the stock market crash in October 1929.

Beta Theta Pi held its 1922 convention at the hotel. The Story of Beta Theta Pi mentioned that the September:

weather was hot at West Baden, but, aside from that, the hotel was ideal for convention purposes. The management provided everything possible to secure the comfort and contentment of the delegates. The spacious hotel office afforded room for many interested groups. The restful atrium, with its colorful effects of old rose and green and the play of the changing lights in the evening, lingered long in memory. The beautiful park outside, the charms of sunken gardens, the gleam of globes of light, the touch of sentiment which nature gave through its fine September moon, all combined to make the week a happy one. There was an abundance of melody as the hours were sped with joyous song. There were the delights of dancing in the center of the great hall as the shifting lights chased the shadows from one side of the room to the other. There were horseback rides and golf for the devotees of those sports. There were healing springs for those who wished to take the waters. The general spirit was excellent, and out from West Baden went forth a strong determination in the minds of the delegates to push Beta Theta Pi still further forward during the new college year.

An additional insight about the Beta convention was found in a 1922 Caduceus of Kappa Sigma. George E. Allen, a Kappa Sig alumnus, was assistant to the hotel proprietor. The Caduceus noted that the Beta magazine paid this compliment to Brother Allen:

The management was alert and attentive. The entente between Kappa Sigma and Beta Theta Pi was made more cordial by the many courtesies of Mr. Allen.

The Phi Gamma Delta magazine also reported on the Beta convention:

Beta Theta Pi, we are informed by the magazine of that fraternity, at its recent convention, censured an undergraduate delegate who played golf instead of attending the sessions. Fidelity is the word which best characterizes the attitude of the delegates during the Convention sessions. They kept on the job. As a consequence the business of the Convention was transacted with a minimum of delay. The roll calls showed some chapters unrepresented during the first day. But the fault was not with the delegates. The annulment of many trains owing to the railroad strikes made connections uncertain, occasioned long waits in out-of-the-way junction points and in large cities as well. But they all got to West Baden at length. There was one delegate who played golf when he had accepted railroad fare from the fraternity to help it in its deliberations. He was rightfully censured by the Convention. There was one delegate, a chapter president at that, who disgraced his famous old chapter through the assistance of a boot-legger. He lost his chance of influence in the Convention. But these two flagrant failings to get the vision only emphasized the fidelity of the other seventy nine.

Kappa Alpha Theta’s 1924 Grand Convention was held at the hotel. The location is about 100 miles from Theta’s founding site, DePauw University. 

Sigma Nu’s Grand Chapter met at West Baden on December 30, 1925 and ended on January 1, 1926. Later that year, on Saturday, 24, 1926, Phi Kappa Tau’s first convention at a resort hotel took place at West Baden Springs. They must have enjoyed their stay as the men returned to the hotel in 1928 to conduct fraternity business. From December 28-31, 1927, 355 Phi Gamma Deltas gathered at the resort for the fraternity’s Ekklesia.

The stock market crash of 1929 led to the hotel’s demise and it closed in 1932. Two years later, it was sold to the Jesuits for $1. They used the building as a seminary, West Baden College. The Jesuits  removed some of the decorations, including four Moorish towers. In 1964, the seminary closed. In 1966, the property was purchased and donated to Northwood Institute, a private college, for its use; it closed in 1983. The hotel was sold to a real estate developer in 1985. The property was in litigation for years after the developer declared bankruptcy. In the winter of 1991, an exterior wall collapsed due to a build up of ice and water. Indiana Landmarks stabilized the hotel. In 1994, the hotel was sold for $500,000.

In 2007, the West Baden Springs Hotel was returned to its former glory. The restoration of the hotel (and the French Lick Springs Hotel, less than a mile away – the subject of a future post) is due to  dedication and vision of William Alfred “Bill” and Gayle Cook, along with their son Carl, of the COOK Group, headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, and Indiana Landmarks. Bill Cook, a Beta Theta Pi, was an initiate of the chapter at Northwestern University.

I’ve been intrigued by the sites at which fraternity and sorority conventions were held. (Kappa Kappa Gamma’s centennial convention in 1970 took place at the French Lick Springs Hotel, a short walk from the West Baden Springs Hotel. I promise I will write about French Lick soon). There’s already posts about the New Ocean House in Swampscott, Massachusetts and the Bigwin Inn. I hope to do a few more posts about these grand hotels and convention locales.

Two weeks ago, an historic meeting took place in an historic hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. It was NPC’s first Annual Educational Conference. Last November, the NPC Board of Directors approved a new structure. The revised governing documents “allow for the development of a new organizational and governance structure designed to make the Conference more nimble and responsive to the most pressing challenges facing students, campus partners and the greater Panhellenic community.”

The new governance structure includes a Council of Delegates comprised of a representative from each of the 26 member organizations. This Council deals with NPC membership and Panhellenic policies.

NPC now has a seven member Board of Directors. Five are elected member and two who are appointed from the member organizations in the rotation. This rotation has been an NPC custom since 1908, a few meetings after the organization began meeting in 1902.

Kudos to the NPC staff who put together a terrific meeting at one of the most beautiful of historic hotels, the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. It was my honor to speak at the Saturday night dinner. The “Power of 26” is indeed powerful.

October 15 is Founders’ Day for both Alpha Chi Omega and Zeta Tau Alpha. In 1885, Alpha Chi Omega was founded at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Thirteen years later, in 1898, Zeta Tau Alpha was founded at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia.

In the late 1800s, colleges and university typically offered two courses of study – classical and scientific. If one looks at the 1880s issues of sorority magazines, there will sometimes be mention of “special students.” These students were studying the fine arts at institutions where these types of courses might be available.

Alpha Chi Omega was founded by DePauw School of Music students Anna Allen (Smith), Olive Burnett (Clark), Bertha Deniston (Cunningham), Amy DuBois (Reith), Nellie Gamble (Childe), Bessie Grooms (Keenan) and Estelle Leonard. With the guidance and support of James Hamilton Howe, Dean of the School of Music, they created an organization that at its beginning insisted its members possess some musical culture. The first appearance of Alpha Chi Omega was in Meharry Hall of East College. The seven women wore scarlet and olive ribbon streamers attached to their dresses to display the organization’s colors.

Zeta Tau Alpha‘s founders are Alice Maud Jones (Horner), Frances Yancey Smith, Alice Bland Coleman, Ethel Coleman (Van Name), Ruby Bland Leigh (Orgain), Mary Campbell Jones (Batte), Helen May Crafford, Della Lewis (Hundley), and Alice Grey Welsh.

Both organizations had national Presidents who had a similar situation at about the same time, in the post World War I years. Their predecessors left office unexpectedly.

Alpha Burkart Wettach served as Zeta Tau Alpha’s Grand President from 1920-26. Her predecessor Dr. May Agness Hopkins, served for two decades. When Hopkins resigned in June 1920, Alpha Burkhard received a wire telling her of the departure and proposing her for appointment to fill Hopkins’ shoes.

As an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, Wettach was a member of a local organization, C.I.C. It became the Chi Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha. She was the Zeta chapter’s first president. After graduation, she became the first female recreation center director in Pittsburgh. She left Pennsylvania in 1922 to enter a master’s program at Columbia University. She graduated in 1923 and began a fellowship in mental hygiene at the New School for Social Research in New York City and earned a certificate in psychiatric social work.

On August 28, 1924, she married Robert Halsey Wettach, a Sigma Alpha Epsilon alumnus. They lived in North Carolina where her husband was on the law faculty at the University of North Carolina. During her tenure, 26 chapters were installed and a central office was established.

Gladys Livingston Olmstead Graff was Alpha Chi Omega’s National President from 1920-24. Prior to that role she was Atlantic Province President. She also served as chairman of the French Orphan Committee and was National Alumnae Editor. Graff was a member of Alpha Chi Omega’s Zeta Chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music.

She was active in the women’s suffrage effort and was as an officer of the Boston Writers Equal Suffrage League. Graff was also a charter member of Zeta Zeta Alumnae Chapter