Lucinda Smith Buchan on Pi Beta Phi’s Giving Day

Posted on April 27, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Pi Beta Phi was founded on April 28, 1867, at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, by 12 young women. Ten of them gathered in the southwest bedroom on the second floor of a home owned by “Major” Jacob Holt. The two who could not make the gathering agreed to abide by whatever the others decided to do. Their intention from the beginning was to create a fraternity for women based upon the men’s fraternity model.

A second chapter was founded at Iowa Wesleyan University in December 1868. On April 1, 1873, a chapter was established at Kansas University in Lawrence, Kansas. For #WHM2018, I wrote a post about Flora Richardson Colman, a charter member of the chapter who was the first female graduate and Kansas University’s first valedictorian. Today, I am writing about Lucinda Smith (Buchan), an 1890s initiate of the chapter who served as Grand Treasurer of Pi Beta Phi from 1893-98. Today is Pi Phi Giving Day and Lucinda Smith Buchan is connected to one of the first instances of fraternity women, in their grief, pooling their “pin money” to help other women.

Lucinda loved a Phi Kappa Psi named Fred E. Buchan. He had graduated before her and was a member of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers (akin to the National Guard of today). The United States became involved in the Spanish-American War. The war began on April 21, 1898. The men from Kansas headed west to fight on the Asia-Pacific front of the war.

Lucinda Smith

 

Lucinda Smith is in the middle and she is surrounded by her Kansas Alpha sisters.

If you look closely you can see Fred Buchan’s Phi Psi pin to the right of her arrow.

In June 1898, the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers were called to San Francisco for service in the Philippines. They had one day’s notice, according to an article that appeared in The Arrow. Ida Smith (Griffith) was appointed to fill her sister’s term as Grand Treasurer. Lucinda and Fred quickly married and the ceremony took place at the home of relatives in San Francisco. 

An account in the November 2, 1899 Topeka State Journal  told this story:

The officers were not permitted to have the company of their wives on the transports and separation seemed inevitable. But the Kansas girl had pluck. With the wife of another officer, she became a stowaway on the Indiana, and although the government tried to prevent it, she journeyed as far as Honolulu on the way to Manila before she was parted from her husband. Though compelled to leave the transport, she followed Capt. Buchan within a few day on the regular steamer and shared his lot up to the time of her death.

Lucinda Smith Buchan died in Manila on April 17, 1899. The Lawrence Pi Phis sent a telegram to Grace Lass Sisson to tell her the sad news.

It reads: “News received of Lucinda Buchan’s death in Manila no particulars.”

Captain Buchan immediately left Manila with his wife’s body hermetically sealed in a coffin. It took him more than a month to bring his young wife back to Lawrence. Funeral services were held at the Trinity Episcopal Church and she was buried in Oakhill Cemetery.

Edith Huntington Snow, a Kansas Alpha, wrote about Lucinda:

She possessed the qualities most needed in fraternity life – loyalty, enthusiasm, good judgement and tireless energy for work, with the sort of loyalty which is as unfailing in time of reverses as in the day of greatest prosperity….Forceful, reserved, and yet responsive, she was at once the dignified, efficient council member, and the interested, sincere and sympathetic friend.

The Arrow had several pages on her death including this account by a KU professor:

Tp honor her memory, her chapter established a $200 loan scholarship, at a time when these financial aid opportunities were few and far between. The amount is about $5,500 in 2018 dollars.

Captain Buchan became a career Army man, serving in two wars, and rising to the rank of Colonel. After his journey to Lawrence to bury his wife, he returned to service. In 1901, he married Laura Conger. They had two daughters and he died at the age of 58 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery along with his second wife. (The courtship of Laura and Fred is a fascinating story in and of itself – it involves the Boxer Rebellion and two young people who suffered tragic first marriages, but you’ll have to research that on your own.)

 

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Calling All GLO Personality Pets

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

This is a lighthearted post because I need one. I think we all need one.

One day, when I arrived at the Pi Beta Phi Archives, a little stuffed dog was waiting for me. On another visit, the dog had a horsey friend. I put them on a shelf and didn’t give it much thought. Note that the label has been cut off of the dog and the horse, too.

When I visited the University of Kansas Pi Phi chapter last week, one of the decorations adorning the refreshment table was this cousin of the Pi Phi HQ animals.

And this doggie had the label attached.

It was made by Collegiate Manufacturing Company in Ames, Iowa.

My Chi Omega friend Lyn Harris just sent these pictures. How adorable!

And here’s one from a display at Kappa Delta HQ, courtesy of Lyn Harris (Chi Omega and Kappa Delta HQs are located in Memphis.)

If there are any other fraternity or sorority Personality Pets out there, please send me pictures and I will include them in this post.

 

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“We Walk By Faith And Not By Sight” – Saying Goodbye To Barbara Pierce Bush

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

I’ve been out of touch this weekend. It was spent in Lawrence, Kansas on a quick visit with family and old friends and some new ones, too. I celebrated Pi Beta Phi Founders’ Day with the University of Kansas chapter.

On the ride home, with my husband driving, I used my phone to catch up on the events I missed. For those of you who watched Barbara Pierce Bush’s funeral, either as it was happening, or as I did via Youtube, here are a few more Greek-related items.

Barbara Pierce Bush’s parents, Marvin Pierce and Pauline Robinson Pierce, met at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her father was a Beta Theta Pi and her mother was a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma. Barbara Bush was made an honorary alumna of Miami University. 

Pauline Robinson Pierce, Barbara Bush’s mother, a Tri Sigma

Marvin Pierce, Barbara Bush’s father, a Beta Theta Pi

Susan Garrett Baker, who spoke at the funeral service, is an alumna of the Texas Alpha Chapter of Pi Beta Phi. She was one of Barbara Bush’s Pi Phi friends. As an alumna initiate of Pi Beta Phi, Barbara Bush had the opportunity to choose which chapter she wished to be initiated into and she chose Texas Eta, the chapter at Texas A&M, where her husband’s Presidential Library is located.

Barbara Bush with Texas Eta members. What a great sport she was donning a t-shirt.

President George H.W. Bush, a Delta Kappa Epsilon, wore socks adorned with books to honor his wife’s advocacy of literacy.

A group of granddaughters did one of the readings during the service and Barbara Bush,  the daughter of Laura and George W. Bush, read one alone. She and her sister Jenna are members of Kappa Alpha Theta, as is their mother Laura. George W., a Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Laura Bush, were the second President and First Lady initiated into Greek-letter organizations as college students. (Lucy and Rutherford B. Hayes were alum initiates. Grace Goodhue and Calvin Coolidge were the first President and First Lady initiated as college students.)

In the upper photo, Barbara Bush is pictured with Kay Brock, Sarah Ruth “Sis” Mullis, and Beth Beatty, Pi Beta Phis who served on Grand Council, when they attended a Houston literacy event.  Barbara Bush was initiated by Sis Mullis in 2002, the lower photos are of a note written to a Texas Eta member.

 

 

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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.

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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