Fraternity History & More

On October 13, 1870, Kappa Kappa Gamma was founded at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. Having walked the Monmouth campus and downtown many times, I always try to envision what life was like for those 1870 coeds. It never fails to amaze me that Kappa and its Monmouth Duo partner, Pi Beta Phi, are here today. Both were forced to cease operations when the college banned all fraternal organizations in the late 1870s.

In those days, the Alpha chapter, the Mother chapter, was typically the head of governance of the organization. It issued charters and ran the show. Lucky for both Kappa and Pi Phi that the women who joined the other young chapters of the organizations took charge of things and continued without the respective Alpha chapters.

One of the most influential of early Kappa Kappa Gamma members was Tade Hartsuff of the Mu Chapter at Butler University. As an undergraduate she advocated for a Grand Council governance model and she proposed the founding of a fraternity magazine. She served as Kappa’s first Grand President while still an undergraduate. During her term of office, Kappa invited six groups to a meeting in Boston. It was the first attempt at Panhellenic cooperation. She was Grand President from 1881-1884. She graduated the same year as she left office.

In 1886, she married John Bugher Kuhns, a member of Phi Delta Theta.

Elizabeth Gowdy Baker, a Kappa Kappa Gamma alumna from the Monmouth College chapter, was well known in the art world.  Kuhns, the subject of this full length portrait, gave it to Kappa Kappa Gamma at its Golden Jubilee convention in 1920.

Tade Hartsuff Kuhns, loved to travel and she loved to attend Kappa conventions. She planned her world travels for the off-convention years. Kuhns would often wear jewelry and clothing she purchased as she traveled. She slowly lost her ability to hear, making it difficult to carry on conversations. Because of this conventions were difficult for her, but nonetheless, she truly enjoyed being among her Kappa sisters.

At the 1928 Breezy Point convention:

Following the custom begun several years ago, a special table has been presided over, at each luncheon, by Mrs. Tade Hartsuff Kuhns, beloved first grand president. Each day 11 or 12 delegates from active chapters have received personal invitation written in the name of Mrs. Kuhns. At the request of National President Mrs. Lloyd-Jones these invitations are to be taken by the delegates to their respective chapter, to be preserved in the archives chests as historic treasures.

Kuhns attended the reinstallation of Kappa’s Alpha Chapter at Monmouth College in 1934. She was hit by an automobile in March of 1937 and died later that year. An editorial in The Key reflected on the loss:

The realization that never again will the fraternity be honored by Mrs. Kuhn’s presence at any of its meetings is staggering. For through her was preserved the living sense of the fraternity’s continuity with that brilliant past to which she contributed so much.

It was through her, and almost through her alone, that the fraternity was virtually reorganized after the first 11 years of its existence. It is a tribute to her progressive thought that the reorganization was along lines which have required little fundamental change in the 56 years since she took office.

Happy 149th, as the @minniestewartvan Begins an Adventure!

The @minniestewartvan is in Monmouth today and will be traveling the country as it kicks off the countdown to Kappa’s 150th in October of 2020. I hope to report on the Minnie Stewart Van when it comes to the St. Louis area later this fall.

Yesterday I was asked about Alpha chapters and how many NPC groups still had active Alpha chapters. Kappa Alpha Theta, which will celebrate 150 years in 2020, has the oldest continuously operating Alpha chapter, followed closely by Alpha Phi and Gamma Phi Beta.

These Alpha chapters have been in continual existence since the founding of the organization:

Alpha Chi Omega, DePauw University, 1885
Alpha Phi, Syracuse University, 1872
Chi Omega, University of Arkansas, 1895
Gamma Phi Beta, Syracuse University, 1874
Kappa Alpha Theta, DePauw University, 1870
Sigma Delta Tau, Cornell University, 1917
Sigma Sigma Sigma, Longwood University, 1898

These Alpha chapters are currently open but have been inactive for a period of time:

Alpha Gamma Delta, Syracuse University, 1904, inactive 2001-2010
Alpha Omicron Pi, Barnard College, 1897, inactive 1916-2013
Alpha Sigma Alpha, Longwood University, 1901, inactive 1919-1933
Alpha Sigma Tau, Eastern Michigan University, 1899, inactive 1977-1987
Delta Delta Delta, Boston University, 1888, inactive 1970-1984
Delta Phi Epsilon, NYU, 1917, inactive 1966-1983
Delta Zeta, Miami University, 1902, inactive 1906-1908
Kappa Delta, Longwood University, 1897, inactive 1912-1949
Kappa Kappa Gamma, Monmouth College, 1870, inactive 1878-1934
Pi Beta Phi, Monmouth College, 1867, inactive 1878-1928
Zeta Tau Alpha, Longwood University, 1898, inactive 1906-1949 and 2009-2013

These Alpha chapters are currently closed:

Alpha Delta Pi, Wesleyan College, closed by 1917, by college edict
Alpha Epsilon Phi, Barnard College, closed 1913 by college edict
Alpha Xi Delta, Lombard College, charter transferred to Knox College, closed since 1973
Delta Gamma, Lewis School, closed 1889
Phi Mu, Wesleyan College, closed by 1917, by college edict
Phi Sigma Sigma, Hunter College, closed 1976
Sigma Kappa, Colby College, 1874, closed since 1987, by college edict
Theta Phi Alpha, University of Michigan, closed since 1944

October is a busy month for Founders’ Day celebrations. Seven of the 26 National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations will be a year older before Halloween gets here. Although I try to write a post for each of the NPC groups on their respective Founders’ Day, I might not be able to this year. I’m presenting the info here, along with a fun fact off the top of my head, in case this is the only opportunity I have this year to wish them well on another year!

Alpha Phi

On October 10, 1872, Alpha Phi was founded at Syracuse University in New York. Alpha Phi’s original birthday is September 18, as recorded in the minutes of the November 4, 1872, meeting. However, Founders’ Day is celebrated on October 10. Alpha Phi is the oldest of the Syracuse Triad and it is the first women’s fraternity to build its own home.

The Alpha Phi chapter house on University Avenue 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.

Kappa Kappa Gamma

On October 13, 1870, Kappa Kappa Gamma was founded at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. Kappa Kappa Gamma and Pi Beta Phi are known as the Monmouth Duo. The amazing thing about the pair is that their Alpha chapters were forced to close by the college authorities and by the 1880s both chapters ceased to exist. Luckily, expansion had taken place and those chapters kept the organizations going despite the loss of the mother chapters. 

Alpha Chi Omega

On October 15, 1885, Alpha Chi Omega was founded at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, home to Kappa Alpha Theta’s Alpha chapter. At first membership in Alpha Chi was limited to music students, and its badge is the lyre.  In those days, music and art students were often called “special students” and early documentation from many colleges have that distinct category of students. After a while, the distinction dissolved and in time Alpha Chi dropped the music requirement and other organizations welcomed fine arts students, too.

Zeta Tau Alpha

On October 15, 1898, Zeta Tau Alpha was founded at the Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. In 1903, Themis was chosen as the patron goddess. It is also the name of the Zeta magazine.  

Kappa Delta

On October 23, 1897, Kappa Delta was founded at the Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. It is the oldest of the Farmville Four, the sororities founded there. Interestingly, the two Farmville Four members founded in October are the ones which chose to close their Alpha chapters in order to join the National Panhellenic Conference.

Delta Zeta

On October 24, 1902, Delta Zeta was founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Today, its headquarters is in Oxford, Ohio. One of my favorite fun facts about Delta Zeta is about founder Julia Bishop Coleman; she was also the first president of the Ohio State Chapter of P.E.O.

Alpha Epsilon Phi

On October 24, 1909, Alpha Epsilon Phi was founded at Barnard College in New York City. Its seven founders were Jewish and they created the organization because Jewish women were not invited to join the established sororities. Judith Resnick, Ph.D., the second woman in space, was the first American astronaut to be a member of a National Panhellenic Conference organization. Resnick, an Alpha Epsilon Phi from the Carnegie Mellon University chapter, was also the first Jewish-American in space. She perished in the January 28, 1986 Challenger disaster. Alpha Epsilon Phi’s Foundation established the Judith Resnick Memorial Scholarship as a tribute to her.

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This post was originally written for Women’s History Month 2016. The link was broken so I am replacing it with this post. With it being football season, it just seems appropriate to highlight the only female with a pillar in her name at the University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium.

I wrapped up writing the history of the Illinois Delta chapter of Phi Kappa Psi at the University of Illinois, one of several I’ve written for the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing. World War I took its toll on the University of Illinois campus and that came through in each of these histories.

After the war’s end it was decided to build a stadium in honor of the students who left campus and perished in the war effort. Memorial Stadium was dedicated on October 18, 1924; it was the University’s 15th Homecoming. On the east and west sides of the stadium there are 200 columns; 183 of those columns display the name of a University of Illinois student or graduate who lost their life in World War I. All but one of those names belong to males. The sole woman who lost her life and who is memorialized with a pillar in the stadium is a 1917 graduate, Gladys Gilpatrick, who was an initiate of Sigma Chapter of Alpha Delta Pi.

Remember that in 1917 women could not yet vote in a federal election. Women could not serve in the Armed Forces except in peripheral roles, i.e., nurse, ambulance driver, telephone operator, and such.

Gilpatrick, who was from Plano, Illinois, began her post college career as a teacher. Wanting to help in the war effort, she attended a summer training for nurses at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was in nurse’s training at Philadelphia General Hospital. There she came down with influenza. It developed into pneumonia. She died on October 12, 1918.

In the June 1919 Adelphean, Margaret Hill Pletcher, the Sigma chapter’s correspondent wrote:

We feel that Gladys was a war heroine, in spite of the fact that she didn’t go across. When taken ill she was studying nursing, preparatory to going ‘over there.’ Permission had been granted to the student nurses who so desired to return to their homes until after the epidemic, but Glad, characteristic of herself, stayed to give what help she could. Although we think of her death with the greatest sorrow, we are, nevertheless, very proud of her.

When Memorial Stadium was dedicated, 35 alumnae returned from towns outside of Champaign and Urbana, and a good many local Alpha Delta Pi alumnae attended. According to an account in the January 1925 Adelphean, Gilpatrick’s mother, father, and sister attended dinner at the chapter house and returned for a short visit after the dedication. 

Yesterday, as I walked the dogs in the early morning, there was a chill in the air. It was definitely football weather, I thought to myself. As I made my way to the Pi Beta Phi Archives for an impromptu visit, I opened a 1944 scrapbook which was recently sent by a deceased alumna’s daughter. Looking through it reminded me of how different life was for those women who attended college during World War II. (Recruitment was also different and the newspaper clippings, napkins, nametags and invitations are worthy of another post.)

The graphics of the three football programs she saved were bright and patriotic. One caught my eye. The opponent was not another college, but a group of Navy airmen stationed in Kansas at Naval Air Station Olathe. Under the program she wrote “lots of fun.” Kansas won 33-14.

Although today, September 18, is not Alpha Phi’s official Founders’ Day, it is the day upon which Alpha Phi was founded. It is the oldest of the Syracuse Triad, the three women’s National Panhellenic Conference organizations – Alpha Phi, Gamma Phi Beta and Alpha Gamma Delta –  founded at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.  A chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, was established at Syracuse University in 1871.  A year later, Martha Foote, Clara Sittser and Kate Hogoboom discussed  forming an organization of their own. They invited the handful of women attending Syracuse to a discussion about this possibility.

In September 1872, ten women met and pledged allegiance to the sisterhood.  Minutes from the first meeting noted that Rena Michaels was chosen president. Plans were  made for weekly meetings at which literary exercises would be part of the  program. A 25¢ tax was levied for the purchase of a secretary’s book.  The  first debate was “Resolved – that women have their rights.” A more interesting homage to Alpha Phi will appear on October 10, so check back.

Lana Zoe Jensen

I love Broadway musicals so I was elated to see this tweet. Zoe Jensen, an alumna of Alpha Gamma Delta’s Southern Illinois University chapter, will be in the Hamilton touring company. Southern Illinois friends take note; she will be appearing at the Fox Theater in St. Louis as part of the Angelica cast.

From my post of October 26, 2015:

I’m convention tired. I’ve spent the better part of the last week greeting old friends and making new ones. It’s fairly easy to make new friends in a place where everyone shares a deep connection to an organization. This is especially true of fraternity and sorority conventions and with P.E.O.’s early beginning as a collegiate organization, it, too, shares this trait.

For those who have never heard P.E.O.’s early history, I’ve written many posts about it. There is a search button on this blog; use “P.E.O.” to find additional posts. P.E.O. was founded on January 21, 1869, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, a month after Libbie Brook, a Pi Beta Phi founder, established a chapter of I.C. Sorosis at Iowa Wesleyan. At that time, Pi Beta Phi was the organization’s Greek motto. I often wonder what would have happened had Libbie Brook ventured eastward from Monmouth, Illinois, rather than westward as she did. Would P.E.O. exist today? Or if Pi Beta Phi had used Greek letters from the beginning, would P.E.O. be known by Greek letters, too? (In the late 1880s, the P.E.O. convention body appointed a committee to study the idea of changing the name to a Greek letter one, but nothing came of the committee’s work.)

Several collegiate chapters of P.E.O. existed. Community chapters founded by young women who belonged to those collegiate chapters followed. The young women wanted to have the bonds of P.E.O. sisterhood available to them after their formal education ended. By 1902, only one collegiate chapter remained. That chapter became the second chapter of Alpha Xi Delta.

Betty Quick, Gamma Phi Beta, makes an appearance at about the 58 second mark. In addition to having served as National Panhellenic Conference Chairman, she is a P.E.O. member.

At the Convention, President of International Chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood Sue Baker, a Kappa Kappa Gamma, passed the gavel to Brenda Atchison, an Alpha Gamma Delta.

I met many sorority women throughout Convention of International Chapter and some were even double sisters, those of us who are Pi Phis and P.E.O.s. One was a recent Pi Phi initiate. I mentioned that she was one of the few at this CIC who might be at the Bicentennial CIC in 2069. If she makes it there, she should tell those P.E.O.s in attendance of the events of the 150th. I also met a few P.E.O.s who were at the Centennial CIC in 1969 and they recounted their memories of that event, which was also held in Des Moines, Iowa.

I’m in Des Moines at the 74th Convention of International Chapter (CIC) of the P.E.O. Sisterhood in Des Moines, Iowa. I’ve been spending most of my time in the Bookstore where copies of the 150th commemorative history of P.E.O., We Who Are Sisters, is available for purchase. It has been fun signing books! Bookplates are also available for those who have a copy of the book at home. Stop by Room 301 if you are at CIC.

Last night was Projects Night, where the speakers are recipients of P.E.O.’s projects. Pi Beta Phi alumna Savannah Guthrie made a surprise video appearance.

It’s always fun seeing friends and making new ones. Kylie Smith, Kappa Kappa Gamma’s Archivist and Past President of the Ohio State Chapter of P.E.O. is here, too, as is my long-time Alpha Gamma Delta friend, Nann Blaine Hilyard. She gets the credit for me being a P.E.O. member. Betty Quick, Gamma Phi Beta and past National Panhellenic Conference Chairman is here, too. I wonder if she is the only NPC Chairman who is also a member of P.E.O.

I was hoping to walk around downtown Des Moines this morning before starting my day. Not happening. It’s raining cats and dogs, with an occasion lightening strike and clap of thunder. What’s more, I failed to pack an umbrella and raincoat.

I suspect I will be exploring the skywalk system in a little while trying to make my way to the Wells Fargo Center where the P.E.O.’s Convention of International Chapter will be taking place.

Yesterday’s drive to Des Moines was uneventful. Before I made it to my hotel, I stopped and saw a Pi Phi friend, Missy Reams who is the Volunteer Coordinator at Bidwell Riverside Center. A month or so she put out a Facebook request to her local friends for clothes hangers for the transitional housing program. In cleaning out my dad’s house, I had bagfuls of hangers without a home. I asked if she still needed them and she said she did. I told her I would drop them off the next time I was in Des Moines.

The Fall 2019 Arrow of Pi Beta Phi arrived in my mailbox on Saturday. In it was an article about Missy. We roomed together at the the first Pi Beta Phi Leadership Institute in a Washington University residence hall. She is an amazing woman doing amazing things!

File this next photo in the :things I never imagined I’d see in a Ladies’ Room. Extra points if you know the photo’s location.