Fraternity History & More

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

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: