Mabel Lee Walton on Tri Sigma’s Founding Day

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Sigma Sigma Sigma was founded on April 20, 1898, at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia (now Longwood University). The founders are Lucy Wright, Margaret Batten, Elizabeth Watkins, Louise Davis, Martha Trent Featherston, Lelia Scott, Isabella Merrick, and Sallie Michie.

On April 14, 1904, Mabel Lee Walton was initiated as a charter member of the Sigma Sigma Sigma chapter at Randolph Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her life was dedicated to advancing her sorority. She was Tri Sigma’s third National President and she served for 34 continuous years, from 1913 through 1947, and she was named President Emerita in 1956.

The December 1913 Triangle contains agreeting from Walton and its words are as true today as they were more than a century ago. They can also be applied to all of us who wear badges of sisterhood. She wrote:

TO THE SORORITY:

A word of greeting at the beginning to officers, chapters, and alumnae!

A Sigma Sigma Sigma never outgrows her usefulness to her Sorority — has this occurred to you? While she is in school she is a very influential personage. She is one of a number that forms a unit — which unit makes a chapter — a part of a whole. And if that girl does not play an important part in chapter affairs the fault is largely hers.

After leaving school a Sigma Sigma Sigma becomes an individual member. She acts entirely for herself. If she fails in this obligation which she deliberately took upon herself, the fault is wholly hers.

If every girl who wears the Sigma Sigma Sigma emblem would work earnestly for her Sorority, what a mighty band we would be! What a force we could prove to the sorority world! One member can never take the place of another — YOU have a work no other can perform. If you fail to do your part, the duty falls on other shoulders, willing, perhaps, to do extra work, but the question is, are you willing to stand by and see others doing what you know you should do yourself?

Let this mark a new era for the Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority. Let each one do her part in the upbuilding of her Sorority. Success, unbounded success, will be our reward! Is not this a priceless prize worth working for?

Mabel Lee Walton

 

 

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A Life Lost, a Brave and Heroic Pilot, and a Plane Full of Grateful Passengers

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

I am sitting at the Southwest terminal in Orlando, Florida, waiting for a plane to take me back to St. Louis. My heart breaks for the family and friends of Chi Omega and P.E.O. Jennifer Riordan, who was tragically killed when an engine blew on Southwest flight 1380. She joined Chi Omega at the University of New Mexico and she was a member of P.E.O.’s Chapter X/New Mexico.

On my flight down to Florida, I took note of how little people talk to one another on planes. Earphones here, neck pillows there, small electronic devices everywhere. Reports about flight 1380 and the reaction of the passengers post-engine failure tell of people talking and praying with one another trying to make sense of what happened and how lucky and blessed they were.

Pilot Captain Tammie Jo Shults, one of the first women to fly for the Navy, calmly landed the plane in Philadelphia and then went to personally speak with those who had feared they might never walk off the plane alive. What a wonderful example she is to legions of young women who may someday follow in her footsteps. And what a gift she gave to those survived the ordeal. My prayers are with them all.

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Barbara Pierce Bush, Literacy Advocate and Pi Beta Phi

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Barbara Pierce Bush, wife of a Delta Kappa Epsilon, was the daughter and sister of Beta Theta Pi members. She was also the mother of a Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon. Perhaps these connections were part of the reason she became an alumna initiate of Pi Beta Phi. She is a Texas Eta, the chapter at Texas A&M University.

Or perhaps it was Pi Phi’s literacy philanthropy. A letter she sent to Pi Beta Phi appeared in The Arrow’s Winter 1990 edition, more than a decade before she became a member of the organization.

This video message greeted the attendees at the 2011 Pi Beta Phi Convention in Orlando, Florida.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox417t-Ern8

At home I have a letter she wrote thanking me for a copy of Hearts That Are Bound By The Wine and Silver Blue. At the bottom of the letter she added in her handwriting something to the effect that the portrait of Grace Goodhue Coolidge was one of her favorite First Lady portraits and that now she and Grace shared the Pi Phi connection. Unfortunately, I am not at home, so I cannot share it. (Can I mention how much I adore this stationery!)
She once said, “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent.” A wise woman was she and she will be sorely missed. Rest in Peace, Barbara Pierce Bush.

 

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Anna Gillis Kimble on Alpha Xi Delta’s Founders’ Day

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Alpha Xi Delta was founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois on April 17, 1893. Its founders are Cora Bollinger (Block), Alice Bartlett (Bruner), Bertha Cook (Evans), Harriett Luella McCollum (Gossow), Lucy W. Gilmer, Lewie Strong (Taylor), Almira Lowry Cheney, Frances Elisabeth Cheney, Eliza Drake Curtis (Everton), and Julia Maude Foster. At age 15, Alice Barlett Bruner was the youngest of Alpha Xi Delta’s founders; Eliza Curtis, a 25-year-old widow, was the oldest.

P.E.O. was founded as a collegiate organization at Iowa Wesleyan University on January 21, 1869. Between 1869 and 1902, the P.E.O. members who had been initiated while enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan University stayed active in the college chapter even though they were no longer enrolled in the college. Many remained in or near Mount Pleasant. Others formed chapters in towns and communities where they  moved after graduation. The early P.E.O. chapters that had been formed at nearby schools did not survive and P.E.O.’s growth was in community chapters. The chapter at Iowa Wesleyan University was finding it difficult to operate on a college campus with the rules put forth by the community chapters. 

The Alpha Xi Delta Chapter at Lombard, having made the decision to become a national organization, and the collegiate members of P.E.O., having decided to become a chapter of a Greek-letter organization, discussed the decisions that needed to be made on both sides if there was to be a resolution to these wishes. 

Anna Gillis Kimble

Anna Gillis (Kimble), a member of the Alpha Xi Delta chapter at Lombard College, hailed from Mount Pleasant. Her influence helped the Iowa Wesleyan women make the decision to become the Beta Chapter of Alpha Xi Delta. That event took place on June 9, 1902. 

On June 24, 1902, Anna Gillis became the bride of Dr. Thaddeus Carey Kimble.  While at Lombard College she was the editor of The Lombard Review, the college newspaper. She served as the first editor of The Alpha Xi Delta Journal (later named The Quill). She also served as Grand Historian and wrote four of the sorority’s early songs.

She was Alpha Xi Delta’s first delegate to what it today the National Panhellenic Conference. She attended the third Inter-Sorority Conference in 1904 and ended her printed report:

In closing, I wish to make a personal plea that the Pan-Hellenic idea be carried out in the spirit as well as in the letter that here, however, much there may be of social intercourse an enjoyment that a due consideration be afforded the broader interests of Sorority life and influence. To many the Sorority seems bounded by the chapter. Broaden your interests and your intelligence by an endeavor to widen the influence of your chapter to the limits of your sorority and beyond. To each of you, your sorority may be a very petty and unworthy thing or a very great and noble thing.  As you will.

Dr. Kimble practiced medicine in Kansas and the couple had two daughters, Margie Kimble McCauley and Kathryn Kimble Butcher. Both were Alpha Xi initiates at Kansas State University. Anna Gillis Kimble was also a member of P.E.O., and at the time of her death in 1964, she was a member of Chapter FQ/Kansas.

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NPC’s Committee on Progress, 75 Years Ago

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Last week, in celebration of Chi Omega’s Founders’ Day, I had hoped to use this entry from the 28th National Panhellenic Congress meeting which took place in late October and early November of 1943. It was held at the Medinah Club in Chicago. And yes, the National Panhellenic Conference called itself a Congress in 1943.

Mary Love Collins, the idol of Chi Omegas everywhere, chaired the Committee on Progress. However, as I started the post, I was unable to get the pictures off of my phone and onto my computer. My phone and the hotel internet were not cooperating. After several unsuccessful attempts, I went to Plan B and wrote about something else.

These are the books that were considered the “must reads” of the early 1940s for those in the student development field. How many of these are still must reads? And yet, the committee’s beliefs are as true today as they were in 1943, 75 years ago.

L. Pearle Green, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Clementine Newman Militzer, Kappa Delta, joined Collins on the committee.

 

Mary Love Collins at her cabin in Pennsylvania with her dog, “Frolic,” c 1932 (photo courtesy of Chi Omega Archives)

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Happy Founders’ Day, Theta Chi

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Theta Chi was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University, in Norwich, Vermont. In 1819, Norwich University was the first private military college founded as literary, scientific and military academy.

Frederick Norton Freeman and Arthur Chase, military cadets, met in Freeman’s room in Norwich’s Old South Barracks. After taking an oath, they declared each other “true and accepted members” of the Society. Chase became President and Freeman became Secretary. The next evening two more cadets – Edward Bancroft Williston and Lorenzo Potter – joined the order. Theta Chi was incorporated in 1888, and despite a few unsuccessful forays to other colleges in the early years, decades went by without any attempts at expansion.

It wasn’t until more than 45 years later, on December 13, 1902, that Theta Chi’s Beta chapter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was installed. That chapter came to be solely because of one man, Park Valentine Perkins, a Theta Chi who had transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Valentine,” as he preferred to be called, wanted to share his Theta Chi bond with some of the students there.   

Perkins was one of nine men in his class when he entered Norwich Military Academy at the age of 16. Five of them became Theta Chis. For most of his time at Norwich, Perkins ate a diet of only peanuts, following a plan put forth by the teachings of Bernarr MacFadden, a physical culturist.

When Perkins left Norwich after a year and enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there were more than a dozen fraternities at MIT. Perkins found a group of men he thought would make good fraternity brothers and sought a charter from Theta Chi. He had the support and assistance of Theta Chi alumni living in the Boston area, E. Wesson Clark and J. Albert Holmes, both of whom later served as Theta Chi National Presidents, and George Prentice Lowell.

The group’s first petition was rejected. A second petition was filed, and it, too, was rejected. Several of the men traveled from Boston to Norwich to make personal appeals. There they presented a third petition, and they were finally successful. Theta Chi was on its way to becoming a full-fledged national fraternity. Would Theta Chi be here today had Perkins had been less persistent?

The Alpha Chapter was in existence until 1960 when Norwich disbanded all its fraternities.

For Theta Chi's 75th Anniversary, a stone monument was dedicated at Norwich, Vermont.

For Theta Chi’s 75th Anniversary, a stone monument was dedicated at Norwich, Vermont.

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Dreams, Resiliency, and Graduation on the Horizon

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Recently my daughter hosted a baby shower. She planned it, I paid for it, and those there were friends of the honoree’s family. I was seated next to a woman who goes to our church. Whenever we are at the same service and she’s seated nearby, I notice that she has a lovely voice. Somehow we started talking about “dream jobs.” She confided that her dream was to be an opera singer. It wasn’t until she auditioned in front of an opera star at college that she realized that she did not have the level of talent needed to be part of a top-notch opera company. Teaching or the other uses of a music degree held no charm for her. So she changed her dream. It wasn’t easy at first, especially when she had so much invested in the dream. She said it took some searching around and trying new things. She recently retired from a long and respected legal career and we laughed at how life sometimes hits us over the head with the reality that dreams are just that – dreams.

When does one give up on a dream? How does one give it a makeover into another dream? How does one deal with setbacks, major or minor? What happens when it’s time to go to Plan C, D or Z? And how does one acquire resiliency, “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change”? Does one need to practice it when young or does it magically appear when it’s most needed? How can we give our children that skill? And is the ability to “pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again” even valued anymore? 

Sigma Phi Epsilon Theodor Seuss Geisel had 27 publishers reject the manuscript to his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street. Had he given up after the first or second or even twentieth rejection, the world would likely not know Dr. Seuss. Bess Streeter Aldrich, the subject of a recent post, is said to have had every story she wrote published; if it was rejected she would rewrite and rewrite it until it was accepted.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1925, while a student at Dartmouth (courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library)

Does the need to appear perfect prohibit today’s college students from learning from their failures? Instead of looking at failure as a challenge – an opportunity to grow and learn, has it become an end and a dead-end at that? Suicide, the elephant in the room, is one of the top causes of deaths for college students, (second for students 24-34, and third for 15-24 year olds, according to the American College Health Association) after accidental deaths. Many more college students have considered suicide.

Now You Know, a song from Merrily We Roll Along, written by Beta Theta Pi Stephen Sondheim, fills my head as I walk the dogs around the neighborhood.  Merrily We Roll Along was, in the Broadway vernacular, a flop, maybe the biggest flop of 1981. It closed after 16 performances. But it and its songs have made it through the test of time. Best thing that ever could have happened is a line from this song, and the title of a documentary about the show, The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, is a take off on that. The documentary which is available on digital platforms and is worth the time to watch “draws back the curtain on the extraordinary drama of the show’s creation – and tells the stories of the hopeful young performers whose lives were transformed by it. Directed by Lonny Price, a member of the original cast, the film is a bittersweet meditation on the choices we all make, and the often unexpected consequences of those choices — through success and failure.”

As semesters come to a close and as graduates look towards their future, I suspect that there are some who are floundering and feeling like abject failures. Asking for help is often the hardest first step there is and voicing out loud that there is something wrong can seem impossible. As members of Greek-Letter Organizations, we are each other’s keepers and I hope that we can offer assistance to our members and help to those who need it. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

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Happy Founders’ Day, Chi Omega!

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Happy Founders’ Day to Chi Omega! It was founded on April 5, 1895 at the University of Arkansas. Ina May Boles, Jean Vincenheller, Jobelle Holcombe, and Alice Simonds, with guidance from Fayetteville dentist, Dr. Charles Richardson, a Kappa Sigma, created the organization. Dr. Richardson was known as “Sis Doc” to generations of Psi Chapter members (the founding chapter at Arkansas is known as the Psi Chapter) and he is counted as a founder. He crafted Chi Omega’s first badge out of dental gold. I think it’s a safe bet to say that Chi Omega is the only National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organization to have its first badge crafted out of dental gold.

Original Chi Omega badge crafted in dental gold by “Doc Sis.”

Th Pi Chapter at the University of Tennessee was founded  on April 15, 1900, five years and a handful of days after Chi Omega came to be. Lucy McDaniel Curtis wrote the chapter’s first report in The Eleusis of Chi Omega and it offers a glimpse into expansion in the early 1900s. 

To all her older sisters Pi sends greeting! We do not even know who all those sisters are as yet, for we have not seen the complete chapter roll. But it is our wish to make their acquaintance and earn their friendship. 

We organized April fifth, at the home of Prof. Carson of the University, who is the father of one of our charter members. I need not tell you that we had a glorious time both at the initiation and at the spread that followed. We started with five charter members: Margaret Coffin, May Hazen Williams, Nelly Gratton Morton, Katherine Waller Carson, and Lucy McDaniel Curtis.

We have, as yet, taken in no new members, although it is likely that we shall do so before long. Four of us will probably not return next year, but fortunately all of us, with the exception of Nelly Morton, live in Knoxville. So we shall always be able to keep a watchful eye upon the frat. and do what we can to help it flourish.

Pi chapter of Chi Omega is the first chapter of a woman’s national fraternity to be established at the University of Tennessee. Quite a little stir was produced by the appearance of our pins and much favorable comment was called forth. Being the first on the field, we naturally have the choice of material, and I believe we can easily make ourselves the leading woman’s fraternity for all time. We could not accomplish very much this year, owing to the fact of its being so late in the term before our founding.However, we have succeeded in one thing at least, we secured a page in the University annual. That, we believed, would make our presence recognized and respected more quickly than anything else.

A few nights after we appeared with our pins, the pan-Hellenic banquet was held. The young men officially asked us and also had a man respond to our toast. But we thought it wisest not to attend. Our English professor, Dr. Henneman, had some vacant chairs near him and he referred to us most respectfully and stated that we would be there next year.

‘Children should be seen and not heard.’ So I will say merely that we are all full of love and enthusiasm for Chi Omega and only regret that it was not our privilege to come in sooner. Hoping that we may be seen at the convention, I am, Yours in Chi Omega,

***

Kate Rigazio, a Chi Omega, is a sophomore studying journalism and American studies at Miami University in Ohio. She is originally from Andover, Massachusetts. She is a Co-Editor for the Culture section for The Miami Student. In addition, she is on an improv team and works for the Department of Media, Journalism and Film.

On February 27, 2018, Greek or Not, It’s None of Your Business was published in The Miami Student. Rigazio wrote it and it begins:

‘You don’t seem like the type of girl who would be in a sorority.’

This is often the response I get when I tell people I am in a sorority, and I hate it. I’m never sure if I’m supposed to take it as a compliment or an insult.

Am I supposed to say “thank you?” Am I supposed to be flattered that I don’t fit the stereotype someone has in their head of the typical sorority girl, or am I supposed to be offended for the same reason?

I get particularly mad when I hear this comment from other women because, regardless of the subtext, this comment is scratching at the surface of a much bigger issue.

To read the complete article

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A Dissertation, a Chi O Barrette, and a Fiji 50th Celebration

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

March was #WHM2018, Women’s History Month, and after writing 31 posts in 31 days, I am questioning my sanity. I do love discovering the stories of #notablesororitywomen, and don’t ask me who my favorite was this go-around, because I adored them all (If you missed any the links are available at the right side of this blog). However, I’ve missed out on writing about other things and highlighting the interesting people, places and things happening today in the Greek-letter organization world.

One of the best parts of March was attending my daughter’s doctoral defense. She never told me much about the project other than it involved domestic spaces in sitcoms. I had too many other things swirling about me to press her about it, and I knew I’d likely not get any more information anyway.

After all her committee members had their say, it was opened to the rest of us in the room. I said I was there to learn about the topic she chose. In unison, the committee seemed to say, “You’re her mother? You’re in there – in the beginning, middle and end.” And so I am. (I do take a slight bit of offense to “apoplectic fits of rage” –  hyperbole at its best, in my opinion, but if it seals the degree, It’s ok.)

When my daughter was home, she hosted a baby shower for one of her best friends, who happens to be a Delta Gamma. I am amazed I was able to find a unisex Delta Gamma themed outfit in our one-horse town.

***

And now for some GLO news.

 

From the “I’m green with envy” files is this hair barrette which was unearthed by Kirk Killer using a metal detector on Gooches Beach in Kennebunk, Maine. He contacted Lyn Harris, Chi Omega’s Archivist, and its new home will be the Chi Omega archives. What a treasure it is!

***

And from the “It’s terrific to honor those who come before us” file is this article about the 50th anniversary of the rechartering of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta. Although the chapter at the University of Georgia was established in 1871 as the university’s fourth fraternity, by 1890 it was no longer active. The chapter was reinstalled on March 23, 1966, and many of the men from the charter class returned along hundreds of other alumni and active chapter members. Seeing old friends reconnect and new friends coming together makes for a joyful celebration. (And it reminds me that one of these days I want to write about Frank Norris and the pig roasts.)

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Bess Streeter Aldrich, P.E.O., #WHM2018

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

It’s the last day in March, Women’s History Month is almost over. I’ve written about 26 NPC and four NPHC sorority women. The day ends with a P.E.O. who was not a sorority woman, although her daughter was a Kappa Alpha Theta and a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood.

Bess Streeter Aldrich was initiated into P.E.O. chapter DL, Lincoln, Nebraska in December 1926. Her fourth book, A Lantern in Her Hand, had just been published, but she had been writing short stories since she was a young woman; she sold her first story when she was 14. At the time she was initiated, she had published about 100 short stories in the popular magazines of the day, among them Century, Ladies’ Home Journal, Women’s Home Companion, and American Magazine. The stories also appeared in British magazines.

December 2, 1928 Lincoln, Nebraska account of Chapter DL’s meeting.

Aldrich was born in 1881 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to pioneers who had travelled to Iowa from Illinois. She was the youngest of eight children. In 1901, she graduated from Iowa State Teachers College (now the  University of Northern Iowa), and spent five years teaching – four in Iowa and one in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also worked at her alma mater for a year, as an assistant supervisor in its primary training school. 

In 1904, she met Captain Charles Sweetzer Aldrich, the youngest captain who served in the Spanish-American War. They wed on September 24, 1907. After living in Tipton, Iowa, for a short time, they moved to Elmwood, Nebraska, where her husband was a banker and a lawyer. They had a daughter, Mary Eleanor (a Kappa Alpha Theta at UNL), and three sons – James, Charles, and Robert.

Captain Aldrich died suddenly in May 1925 and Bess Streeter Aldrich turned her hobby of writing into a career to support her family. When he was growing up, Robert, the youngest child, who was four when his father died, thought that all mothers wrote.

During her early years writing she used a pseudonym Margaret Dean Stevens. In 1918, she began using her own name. 

It is said that she sold every short story and novel wrote. When a story was rejected, she would rewrite it. One story, The Man Who Caught the Weather, was rejected 28 times. When it was finally accepted by the Century, it was chosen for the 1931 O. Henry Award volume. 

Bess Streeter Aldrich, circa 1920s

Aldrich belonged to many organizations – Nebraska State Writers’ Guild, Women’s Press Club of Omaha, Southern California Press Club,  Midland Authors, Iowa Authors, Quill Club, Altrusa, Eastern Star, Sorosis Club, Theta Sigma Phi, Chi Delta Phi, Lotus Club, and she was the only honorary member of the Nebraska State Press Association.

She died in 1954 at the age of 74. In 1973, she was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. A report of the event in the December 1973 P.E.O. Record has a quote from Aldrich’s daughter, Mary Aldrich Beechner, who was a member of her mother’s chapter, “P.E.O. meant so much to my mother – more than any other organization she belonged to. I wish to share her honor with P.E.O.” Bertha Hill, Chapter CS, Nebraska, and former Nebraska State Chapter Treasurer, gave an address at the induction ceremony. Aldrich’s family presented a bust of Aldrich to the State of Nebraska.

Bess Streeter Aldrich’s book on a shelf in Kerr Lounge at the P.E.O. Executive Office

***

Did you know that Nebraska was P.E.O. first state chapter? Or that Hattie Briggs Bousquet’s sister-in-law was a president of Nebraska State Chapter? Did you know that those early State Chapters weren’t called State Chapters? To learn more about P.E.O. history, preorder a copy of We Who Are Sisters. 

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