Fraternity History & More

I am caught in a perpetual game of catch-up, about 10 days in on a two-week stint digging deep into history. My brain is fried with facts and figures and hints of personality about people I’ve never met. In my spare time, I am on deadline for an article in the winter edition of my organization’s magazine. Although it is to be only 500 words, those words are slow in hitting the target.

Searching for some inspiration and a quote or two from a voice from the past, I stumbled upon this editorial. It could have been written ten minutes ago. Only a handful of women who read this in a fresh-from-the-mailbox edition of this magazine are still around and they are hitting the century mark. But how timely and appropriate it is to all our organizations!

In these days of whirling events and changing values, we who have been granted the privilege of fraternity membership must assume a responsibility proportionate to the benefits received. Ours is the task of so using our influence that fine things such as our rituals declare may not perish from an unhappy world. Ours is a double moral obligation; first, so to live with the world at large that it is a better place even in some small sense because of our existence, whatever may be our special interests, whether they be political campaigns (as now when we write), civic affairs, home management, business, or family relations; and second, so to live within XXX that we realize to the utmost the possibilities for good of the Fraternity. In the activities of our chapters and our alumnae clubs we share in something different from the agenda of ordinary social clubs or political organizations.

Through our more than seventy-three years of life we have developed a type of organization that has always been outstanding in charity and fairness of view, far removed from taint of ruthless politics or unworthy methods. Seldom indeed in our history have we seen any play of politics; seldom have the ruthless and ugly methods such as have sometimes disgraced our national political scene shown themselves in the gatherings of our own or any other college fraternity. And this is right; a fraternity should differ from other organizations in the controlling, lasting quality of its bond, in its common ground of friendship between members, in its basis of spiritual interest and enlightened thinking.

More than ever in such troubled times as these must that strong tie be respected. These are days for clear thinking, unswayed by unfair tricks or methods aimed at the overthrow of existing strength. In all such organizations as ours, changes will come, and rightly so, when needed, or when demanded by a majority of the membership; such changes will be without value unless they are gained through a continuance of the fair play and honorable conduct of her members for which XXX has been known since her founding, ‘with malice towards none, with charity for all.’

Adele Taylor Alford, Arrow Editor, 1940

Congratulations to Cathy Clark Moss, Alpha Sigma Alpha, as she begins her term as International President of the P.E.O. Sisterhood.

Here is the list of P.E.O. Presidents of International Chapter who are sorority women:

Chellie Stevens Wright, 1937-39, Gamma Phi Beta

Laura Storms Knapp, 1949-51, Pi Beta Phi

Nell Farrell Stevenson, 1955-57, Kappa Delta

Alice Spensley Rinehart, 1957-59, Alpha Gamma Delta

Margaret Emily Stoner, 1959-61, Kappa Alpha Theta

Irene S. Van Brunt, 1963-65, Kappa Kappa Gamma

Amy Olmstead Welch, 1965-67, Alpha Gamma Delta

Ethel O. Gardner, 1967-69, Delta Delta Delta

Florence Tomlinson Meyers Wallace, 1973-75, Kappa Kappa Gamma (She served as Kappa’s Grand President in 1930, too!)

Lucille H. Smith, 1983-85, Alpha Gamma Delta

Mary Louise Remy, 1989-91, Gamma Phi Beta

Nancy Ryan Jerdee, 1991-93, Gamma Phi Beta

Jean C. Boswell, 1993-95, Chi Omega

Jane Burtis Smith, 1999-2001, Pi Beta Phi

Ann Fields, 2005-07, Alpha Chi Omega

Elizabeth Davenport Garrels, 2009-11, Pi Beta Phi

Susan Reese Sellers, 2011-13, Pi Beta Phi

Maria Baseggio, 2013-15, Sigma Sigma Sigma

Sue Baker, 2017-19, Kappa Kappa Gamma

Brenda Atchison, 2019-21, Alpha Gamma Delta

Patricia Brolin-Ribi, 2021-23, Alpha Phi

Cathy Clark Moss, 2023-, Alpha Sigma Alpha

Florence Tomlinson Meyers (Wallace), in 1930, when she was Grand President of Kappa Kappa Gamma. (Photo courtesy of Kappapedia.)

The early years of Pi Beta Phi and P.E.O. are intertwined. Pi Beta Phi’s second chapter was established at Iowa Wesleyan University on December 21, 1868. A month later, January 21, 1869, P.E.O. was founded at IWU by seven young women. Early Iowa Wesleyan women wore the arrow or the star, but never both.

Elizabeth Davenport Garrels, who served as P.E.O.’s International President from 2009-11, is a graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University and was initiated as a member of the Pi Beta Phi chapter there. She owns an arrow and a star. Two additional P.E.O. International Presidents have been members of both P.E.O. and Pi Beta Phi. They are Laura Storms Knapp (1949-51), a member of the Iowa State University chapter, and Jane Burtis Smith (1999-2001), a member of the University of Oklahoma chapter. Susan Reese Sellers (2011-13) became an alumna initiate at the 2017 Pi Beta Phi convention which celebrated Pi Phi’s 150 birthday.

Susan Sellers and Elizabeth Garrels, both Iowa Alphas (IWU) and past International Presidents of P.E.O., Fran Becque, and Sue Robinson, past Pi Beta Phi Grand Council member and a member of P.E.O.