Congratulations All Around!

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Congratulations are in order!

My Syracuse friends were celebrating Coach Jim Boeheim’s 1,000 win. He is a graduate of Syracuse where he became a member of the Delta Upsilon chapter.

Boeheim

Jim Boeheim during his years playing on the Syracuse basketball team.

***

Yesterday, Super Bowl LI dominated the twitterverse.  The first time I saw it written like that it took my brain a few minutes to realize the game wasn’t being played on Long Island and that LI referred to it being the 51st Super Bowl. My favorite part was the coin toss. The Pi Phi and the Deke did a great job with it! (Barbara Bush went to Smith College where there are no NPC organizations, but in her post-White House years she became an alumna initiate of the Texas A&M chapter of Pi Beta Phi.)

***

Bill Belichick, the coach of the winning team, is a Chi Psi. He was initiated in the chapter at Wesleyan University, the second chapter of Chi Psi.

***

The Association of Fraternal Leadership and Values Central Conference took place in Indianapolis over the weekend. Kudos to the winners of the Order of Omega Case Study Competition. They are from Washington State University and they generously donated their $250 prize to the Circle of Sisterhood Foundation (https://www.circleofsisterhood.org/). What a wonderful way to celebrate winning!

***

On February 6, 1911, a birth took place in Tampico, Illinois. The young boy’s early years involved moving around from one small Illinois town to another. He entered Eureka College with a little luck and a little chance. There he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon chapter. His experiences at that college and in that chapter stayed with him his entire life. Would anyone have imagined that the TKE would someday be the 40th President of the United States? When Ronald Reagan died, the Eureka College TKE Chapter President was on the invitation list.

The Ronald Reagan statue at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan.


 

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter and Instagram @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

Posted in Chi Psi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Delta Upsilon, Eureka College, Pi Beta Phi, Syracuse University | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Congratulations All Around!

Louise Pellens and Design for a Sorority House

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

In researching the previous post about Louise Pellen’s scrapbook (see http://wp.me/p20I1i-3tX ), I came across a copy of her University of Illinois thesis Design for a Sorority House. 

From Louise Pellen’s undergraduate thesis

The thesis was one of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Architectural Decoration. The Instructor in Charge was Newton A. Wells who earned a Bachelor’s and a Master’s from Syracuse University. He was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity.

The lower signature is N. (Nathan) Clifford Ricker. In 1875, Ricker, as a student at University of Illinois, became the first graduate of an American architecture program. After graduation, he founded the Department of Architecture at his Alma Mater. He also served as Dean of its College of Engineering. When he was a student, the University had but one men’s fraternity, Delta Tau Delta which was founded in 1872; he was not a member of it. However, Ricker was a fraternity man. He became a charter member of the Acacia chapter at Illinois when it was founded in 1906.  He was also instrumential in the founding of Alpha Rho Chi, an architecture and the allied arts professional fraternity. Ricker was honored as the first of the organization’s eight Master Architects. His daughter Edith graduated from the architecture program and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta chapter at Illinois.

Pellens became an initiate of the Illinois Zeta Chapter of Pi Beta Phi in the fall of 1905. Perhaps she used her experience as a resident of the new Pi Phi chapter home at 807 South Third Street in Champaign when she wrote her thesis. The foundation for the Pi Phi house was poured at the end of the Spring 1905 semester and it was finished by August. According to a history of the chapter written for the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing:

By standards of the day, the house was substantial and commodious. It had 18 rooms – three halls, reception-room, living-room, den, dining room, kitchen, pantry, maids’ room, eleven bedrooms and a laundry. It housed 15 chapter members and a chaperon, Mrs. Dicken. The patronesses gave the chapter a mission dining room set consisting of two tables, buffet and two dozen chairs. Each occupant paid $8 a month in room rent, and each member living out of the house contributed $2 a month towards the rent bill. The house rules were made by the chapter.

Her thesis problem read, “It is desired to build a chapter house for a sorority at a State University which is located in the central northwest.” The house she designed was to sleep 22 women and a chaperone. It was to be a modest home because it would be built and maintained by the chapter members.  Some of the interesting tidbits about the design include:

The chief problem in a sorority house is to get a first floor plan which is ordinarily divided into several small reception rooms, but may occasionally be thrown into one large room suitable for dancing….In the rear of the basement are located the furnace room, fuel room, vegetable room, and laundry, which are accessible either from the kitchen or from the outside by a ground level entrance….Behind the den is a telephone room…as freshmen answer the telephone, as a rule, it is not necessary to have it near the servants quarters….A refrigerator is built into the store room, with access for ice from the back porch; and as the walls of this room are packed with sawdust, making it impervious to heat, the place is practically a cold storage room. By means of this, provisions may be bought in wholesale quantities and preserved here.

Louise Pellens, from the Illinois Zeta composite, 1908

After graduation, Pellens worked as a Draftsman with Wildwood Builders in her home town of Fort Wayne, Indiana. She spent the following year working for Walter Burley Griffin in Chicago. After a few years, she began a career teaching the mechanial arts at Rockford High School in Chicago. There is evidence that she spent the summer of 1921 working for the Interstate Commerce Commission as a temporary structural engineer. Her teaching career ended in 1950 at Austin High School in Illinois. She died in 1969 in Phoenix, Arizona.

The current home of the Pi Beta Phi chapter, at 1005 South Wright Street was purchased in 1921.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

Posted in Acacia, Delta Upsilon, Fran Favorite, Kappa Alpha Theta, Pi Beta Phi, Student Life and Culture Archival Program, Syracuse University, University of Illinois | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Louise Pellens and Design for a Sorority House

Of Dance Cards and Scrapbooks

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Yesterday, the Student Life and Culture Archives at the University of Illinois posted a link to a scrapbook in its collection.  As one who has been on the Illinois campus and has studied the history of its fraternities and sororities, it was easy for me to get lost in the scrapbook. I imagined the campus as it looked in the early 1900s. Among my favorite pictures was one of what I presume to be Pi Phis in a tree. They climbed that tree wearing skirts and heeled shoes.

From the Louise Pellens Scrapbook, University of Illinois Student Life and Culture Archives

There’s an invitation from the Omicron Chapter of Chi Omega to attend a four o’clock tea. It was sent through the mail and the address consisted of “Pi Phi House, Champaign.” There’s also a full page handout explaining the freshman hazing that went on between classes (it was typical at most colleges, not just Illinois).

From the Louise Pellens Scrapbook, University of Illinois Student Life and Culture Archives

And there were dance cards galore. I am often asked about dance cards. They are often for sale on eBay, probably taken from scrapbooks such as this one, and sold to make a greater profit on the individual pieces than on a scrapbook itself (criminal in my mind, but so be it).*

From the Louise Pellens Scrapbook, University of Illinois Student Life and Culture Archives

The dance card was given to a woman attending a party, banquet or dance, as a way to keep track the man with whom she would dance. The dance card has a line for each dance and the man would write his name beforehand. Dance cards, known by the French name programme du bal or the German name Tanskarte were propular in 19th century Vienna. They were also popular in collegiate culture of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Examples in the scrapbook range from the seemingly hand-crafted to the elaborate leather embossed.  Sometimes they had attached small thin pencils to make the process easier on the men who signed the dance cards. 

 

From the Louise Pellens Scrapbook, University of Illinois Student Life and Culture Archives

 

Another example of a dance card, not from the Pellens scrapbook. This is a Panhellenic Formal dance card.

Another example of a dance card, not from the Pellens scrapbook.This is a Monmouth Duo (Pi Beta Phi and Kappa Kappa Gamma) dance card, 1961

For more pictures of the scrapbook belonging to Louise J. Pellens, University of Illinois, Pi Beta Phi, Class of 1909, see http://ow.ly/mLcP308wTsZ

*A reader of the blog sent me this info, “I am a vintage dancer (1860s-1920s ballroom) and the dance card is not only essential to keeping track of our ever-changing partners, it’s a delightful souvenir (as it was to these girls). Only one company still makes those tiny pencils.”

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

Posted in Chi Omega, Pi Beta Phi, University of Illinois | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Of Dance Cards and Scrapbooks

A Weekend Sharing Sisterhood

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

January is a popular time for Greek-Letter Organizations (GLOs) to hold workshops for incoming chapter officers. Pi Phi’s College Weekend started on Friday. 

There are two Hyatt hotels at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. As I was waiting for my roommate to pick me up and take me to a lunch with old friends, I remembered the weekend that was spent with P.E.O. friends at one of the airport Hyatts. At a large table in an upper floor conference room with soundproof windows, we discussed, agonized, challenged each other, and formulated a plan while watching planes take off and land. I smiled as I thought of that weekend and those special friends.

Aside from the Friday afternoon trip to a wonderful French cafe, the entire College Weekend was spent in windowless rooms; I never once noticed the lack of sunshine. I was among dear old friends, although some of them I had just met. They were my sunshine!*

My experience was not unique. I am fairly certain the same thing was happening at other GLO chapter officer events all across the country. I hope all who attended these various weekend events will take to heart the lessons they learned. May they work on making the good better and the better best.**

My friend, the Chi Omega Archivist Lyn Harris, took a trip to visit the Chi Omega chapter at Mizzou. There she participated in a very special initiation. Emma Millard is a descendant of Chi Omega founder Jobelle Holcombe. In Lyn’s own words:

Miss Jobelle never married, so all of her relatives who are Chi Omegas are nieces. Emma Millard is 5th generation. Her sister Ellis and her mom Ellen were both National Model Initiates at Convention 2014 and 1988. Grandmother Mary Gardener was also in attendance this weekend. I hand carried Jobelle’s badge to be used in the ceremony as well as Jobelle’s Founders Ring, which I put on a chain for the chapter president to wear. The family gave Emma 121 white carnations, representing every year their family has been a part of Chi Omega.

 

 

How wonderful for Emma and her family. Miss Jobelle is smiling down on you all!

Emma Millard with her sister, mother, and grandmother

* A special shout out to Hope at West Virginia University. Even though you weren’t there, you brought me some sunshine, too. And you, too, Jessie! I know that was the first of many conversations we will have.

** And let’s hope that some of those GLO chapter officers who don’t get it left with a better picture of expectations and may those few make the mediocre good.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

Posted in Fran Favorite | Tagged , | Comments Off on A Weekend Sharing Sisterhood

A Toast on Kappa Alpha Theta’s 147th!

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Today is Kappa Alpha Theta’s 147th birthday. I’ve told the story of Bettie Locke and her three friends many times. Search “Kappa Alpha Theta” in the search box and you’ll find scores of blog posts about Theta and its founding at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University).

In looking for something to write about today, I read through the March 1917 Kappa Alpha Theta. This story about the Alpha Upsilon Chapter at Washburn University caught my eye:

The stunts which impress Alpha Upsilon just now as being the most clever are stunts for raising money. Probably other chapters have tried bazaars, silver teas, selling old paper, tin foil, et cetera; but last winter we had a far more original stunt. Dr. Crumbine asked us one day, if we would like to earn thirty dollars (more than $600 in 2017 dollars) —perhaps you know of Dr. Crumbine. He has several distinctions: besides being prominent in medical circles and secretary of the Kansas state board of health, he is our Violet’s father. Of course, we were only too glad to accept his offer, and immediately divided the fraternity into ‘shifts,’ each girl giving several afternoons when she was least busy.
When the first group went down to the State house, Dr. Crumbine said he wanted us to help him get out the Baby Bulletin. Don’t be misled, we were not to help edit it! He took us down into the basement to a room stacked on all sides with the pamphlets. We were to fold a circular, slip it in the bulletin, place this in an envelope and seal the envelope. The money was what they had figured a man accustomed to the work, would earn. We had lots of fun while we worked, but even with that, they told us we finished in less time than they had figured. Needless to say, we have our application in for any such work as may come up in the future.

Violet Ruth Crumbine was a charter member of the chapter and she went on to serve as the chapter’s President. She helped write a toast  which appears in one of the early songbooks.

Loving Cups and their accompanying toasts were popular when this was written in the early 1900s. Given her father’s stance on common drinking cups, I think the drinking may have been symbolic.

Her father, Dr. Samuel Jay Crumbine, was a public health pioneer. Reducing the spread of tuberculosis was one of Crumbine’s goals. He targeted the use of the common drinking cup and led a campaign to stop spitting in public. He helped make the fly swatter a common household item and encouraged the killing of flies to stop the spread of disease. He also rallied against common towels.  In 1954, the Samuel J. Crumbine Consumer Protection Award was established in his honor.

 

Posted in Fran Favorite, Kappa Alpha Theta | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A Toast on Kappa Alpha Theta’s 147th!

@NPCWomen with the Army of Occupation in Coblenz

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

The photo below is a gathering of National Panhellenic Conference women enjoying lunch in January of 1920. It was taken in Coblenz, Germany. When the French occupied the city after the first World War, they used a “C” in the name. Koblenz is on the banks of the Rhine River where it meets the Moselle River.  

The meeting took place in the YWCA Hostess House, the former Hotel Trierscher Hof. The women were the guests of “Miss Robey, a YWCA secretary and a member of KKΓ.” (“Miss Robey” could have been any of the University of Oklahoma Kappa Kappa Gamma Robey alumnae, as described in a 1919 Key, “Winifred Robey, B.A . 1913, who was schedule clerk in Ordinance Department at Washington, D. C., but is now in service overseas; Roberta Robey, B.A. 1914, who is state executive for women’s work in United War Work Campaign, and Lucille Robey, B.A. 1915, who is in an Army School of Nursing at Camp Jackson, South Carolina.)

3627 - coblez wwI after pan

The article accompanying this picture has the title “Pi Phis with the Army of Occupation.” At that first meeting there were 24 women from 24 different colleges representing eight NPC organizations. Some were wives of military personnel. One was “visiting in the big Base Hospital distributing candy and toilet articles and cheer to the bed ridden patients.” Another, with the Salvation Army, was a “Salvation Lassie in a Recreation Hut and Canteen at Coblenz. Another was a Red Cross worker in a “Recreation Hut for convalescent soldiers at the Base Hospital.”  It was noted “many of our members are giving their whole time to Army Welfare and Rhineland Commission Secretarial work and as nearly all the officers wives are members of the Allied Woman’s Club sewing two afternoons a week for charity and holding occasional sales teas and dances to raise money for materials.” 

The Panhellenic’s first president was Nellie Kellogg Van Shaick, a Pi Phi alumna of the University of Michigan chapter whose husband was a Colonel. At one of the club’s subsequent meetings,  “it was Mrs. Van Schaick’s turn to entertain. She talked about her recent ten day visit in Berlin as she is the only Army woman who has been fortunate enough to get a pass to go there.” 

Another member of the club, Alpha Chi Omega Ola M. Wyeth, in a letter dated March 10, 1921, noted:

The work here has been most interesting and very well worth while. There are about 15,000 American soldiers on the Rhine and the American colony is further augmented by many wives and families hundreds of civilians connected with the welfare organizations and such. While the library is primarily for the soldiers it has always been free not only to other Americans but to our Allies who are here, British, French, and Belgian representatives connected with the Rhineland Commission. The library has a central collection of about 40,000 volumes with as many again scattered in the Y huts branch libraries, et cetera. Coblenz is the center and contains most of the troops but many small towns in the vicinity are also garrisoned by our troops and must be provided with recreation. I have had a staff of five regular workers, two enlisted men, and seven Germans, so you see we could turn out a good deal of work. Incidentally, we never get caught up. Besides supervising the work in the main library, I have had to make periodic trips of inspection to outlying points to see that the books were being properly cared for that the supply was adequate. You would not believe that books could wear out so quickly. Books a month old which have caught the boys’ fancy look as though they had been through the war. Then too, the boys read so eagerly and so constantly that they are forever calling for an exchange of collections and it has always been great fun to see them gather around the box when a new collection was sent out and opened up. The schools maintained by the Army inspire the men to serious use of the library as do also the examinations for West Point for commissions, etc. I feel I deserve little credit for my work here as it was all organized and in good working order when I arrived and I have simply carried on.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

 

Posted in Fran Favorite, National Panhellenic Conference, University of Michigan, University of Oklahoma | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on @NPCWomen with the Army of Occupation in Coblenz

The P.E.O. Sisterhood Turns 148!

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

P.E.O., the Philanthropic Educational Organization, founded at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, celebrates its 148th birthday today. It was founded by seven young women. About a month earlier, Libbie Brook, who had previously been enrolled at Monmouth College, across the Mississippi River to the east but transferred to IWU. Her sole purpose was starting another chapter of her women’s fraternity, I.C. Sorosis. She was successful in late December 1868 and she founded the second chapter of what is today known by its original Greek motto, Pi Beta Phi.  According to legend, not all of the seven P.E.O. founders were asked to be part of Brook’s group, so they started a society of their own.

Lulu Corkhill was not one of the seven founders of P.E.O., but she may as well have been. She grew up in Mount Pleasant, the daughter of a Methodist minister. She was initiated in March 1869, several weeks after P.E.O. was founded. She was 14 at the time.

She said of those first meetings in Mount Pleasant, “Everything was of such vast importance, everything was so secret. When and where we held our meetings were of as much secrecy as was our oath. And for revealing an officer’s name – that would have been an offense worthy of expulsion. As I look back I can but smile as I recall how careful we were to go down side streets and double on our tracks, and separate ourselves into groups of one as we neared the place of meeting, lest any idle onlooker should detect more than one girl going into a house on the same afternoon and should guess that the P.E.O.s were having a meeting.”

In 1882, a P.E.O. convention was held in the Methodist parsonage of Corkhill’s father, Dr. Thomas E. Corkhill, in Bloomfield, Iowa. She later reflected on that meeting at which she served as hostess, “As I have tried to recall early days, I have come to realize as never before, how really important our every day life is, and how much it means to those who come after us. We who were early P.E.O.s lived those days and did not think them of enough importance to write them down, and did not try to remember events, and how eagerly those records are sought today. Thus the small events of today may be the great things of tomorrow.”

Lulu Corkhill Williams wearing her star in her hair.

Both the Pi Phi and P.E.O. histories describe the rivalry between the two groups in the early years. They are described as  “mortal foes,” yet they “respected the steel of the other, for the societies were made up of much of the same type of girls. In Iowa Wesleyan they couldn’t even belong to the same literary societies; they had two societies in later years. The two boys’ fraternities (Beta Theta Pi, founded 1868, Phi Delta Theta, founded 1871 and perhaps Delta Tau Delta active 1875-80) had to be very careful in the way they divided their dates and their attentions.”

Knowing of this rivalry, I was quite surprised to run across a page in a 1914 Arrow of Pi Beta Phi. It was an obituary for Emma Kate Corkhill. Lulu, the P.E.O., had a sister who was a Pi Phi. Both were initiates of the chapters at Iowa Wesleyan. Emma Kate graduated in 1889 and 1892; she earned both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s. She taught at her Alma Mater for a year, at Simpson College for seven years, and at Lawrence University for the remainder of her life.

When Emma Kate died in a Chicago hospital on December 13, 1913, her funeral services were in Mount Pleasant. Her Pi Beta Phi sisters “met the family at the station and opened rank, at the church while the funeral cortege passed through both on entering and leaving the church. Warm tears were on many faces for this gifted woman had an especial place in many hearts among those who had known her from her childhood.” It was noted by one of the members of her chapter that Emma Kate’s “place in the faculty of Lawrence, her place in her sister’s (Lulu’s) home, her place in Pi Beta Phi will long remain a vital tribute to her worth as a woman of heart, of intellect and of true spirituality.” I suspect the rivalry wasn’t that strong if loving sisters could chose to join a “rival” organization.

Emma Kate Corkhill is buried with her parents in a Mount Pleasant, Iowa, cemetery.

Lulu Corkhill married Hemmerle B. Williams, who coined the term B.I.L., the husbands and significant others of P.E.O. members. He is known in P.E.O. circles as “the original B.I.L.” His wife served as Illinois State Chapter President and today her name is carried on in Illinois State Chapter’s Lulu Corkhill Williams Friendship Fund. The fund was created from funds left over from the 1934 convention. More than $1,756,000 has been awarded to 1300+ Illinois women and men facing financial difficulty.

To purchase a copy of this book about Lulu Corkhill Williams and her family, visit https://peoillinoismarketplace.square.site/s/shop

Happy Founders’ Day to my P.E.O. sisters!

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

Posted in Beta Theta Pi, Fran Favorite, Iowa Wesleyan College, P.E.O., Phi Delta Theta, Pi Beta Phi | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The P.E.O. Sisterhood Turns 148!

Female U.S. Senators and Their Sorority Affiliation – 2025 Edition

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

A number of female United States Senators are members of National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) and National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) women’s fraternities/sororities. I suspect there are a greater number of sorority women who are or have been state senators. This is the list of women who have served in Washington, D.C. and not in the state capitals.

Alpha Gamma Delta

Kelly Loeffler, Georgia (R), 12/2019-12/2020

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Lisa Blunt Rochester, Delaware (D),  1/2025-

Kamala Harris, California (D), 1/3/2017-1/2021, when she became the first woman and sorority woman to serve as Vice President of the United States

Alpha Delta Pi

Ashley Moody, Florida (R), 1/2025-

Chi Omega

Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas (D), 1/3/1999-1/3/2011

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee (R), 1/3/2019-present

Katie Britt, Alabama (R), 1/3/2023-present 

Delta Delta Delta

Elizabeth Dole, North Carolina (R), 1/3/2003-1/3/2009

Delta Gamma

Mary Landrieu, Louisiana (D), 1/3/1997-1/15/2015

Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire (R), 1/3/2011-2017

Delta Phi Epsilon

Barbara Boxer, California (D) 1/3/1993-2017

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Angela Alsobrooks, Maryland (D), 1/2025-

Carol Moseley Braun, Illinois (D), 1/3/1993-1/3/1999

Delta Zeta

Maurine Brown Neuberger, Oregon (D), 11/9/1960-1/3/1967

Gamma Phi Beta

Jocelyn Birch Burdick, North Dakota (D), 9/16/1992-12/14/1992

Deb Fischer, Nebraska (R), 1/3/2013-present (She’s a P.E.O., too)

Kappa Alpha Theta

Nancy Landon Kassebaum, Kansas (R), 12/23/1978-1/3/1997

Claire McCaskill, Missouri (D), 1/3/2007-1/3/2019

Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts (D), 1/2013-present*

Kappa Delta

Jean Carnahan, Missouri (D), 1/3/2001-11/25/2002 (She’s a P.E.O., too)

Kappa Kappa Gamma

Kirsten Gillibrand, New York (D) 1/26/2009-present

Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia (R) 1/3/2015-present

Pi Beta Phi

Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Texas (R), 6/14/1993-2013

Lisa Murkowski, Alaska (R), 12/20/2002-present

Sigma Kappa

Margaret Chase Smith, Maine (R), 1/3/1949-1/3/1973

 

The unaffiliated women, as far as I can tell, in order of when they first served.

I could find no sorority membership information on the following senators. I’ve included their educational institutions, in case someone has additional informatiion.

Rebecca Latimer Felton, Georgia (D), 11/21/1922-11/22/1922, Methodist Female College

Hattie Wyatt Caraway, Arkansas (D), 12/9/1931 – 1/3/1945, Dickson Normal College

Rose McConnell Long, Louisiana (D), 1/31/1936-1/2/1937

Dixie Bibb Grave, Alabama (D), 8/20/1937-1/10/1938

Gladys Pyle, South Dakota (R), 11/9/1938-1/3/1939, Huron College

Vera Cahalan Bushfield, South Dakota (R), 10/6/1948-12/26/1948. Stout Institute, University of Minnesota, Dakota Wesleyan College

Eva Kelly Bowring, Nebraska (R), 4/16/1954-11/7/1954

Hazel Hempel Abel, Nebraska (R), 11/8/1954-12/31/1954

Elaine Schwartzenburg Edwards, Louisiana (D), 8/1/1972-11/13/1972

Muriel Buck Humphrey Brown, Minnesota (D), 1/25/1978-11/7/1978, Huron College

Maryon Pittman Allen, Alabama (D), 6/8/1978-11/7/1978, University of Alabama

Paula Hawkins, Florida (R), 1/1/1981-1/3/1987, Utah State University

Barbara Mikulski, Maryland (D), 1/3/1987-2017, St. Agnes College

Dianne Feinstein, California (D), 11/10/1992-2023, Stanford University (when no sororities were there)

Patty Murray, Washington (D), 1/3/1993-present

Olympia Snowe, Maine (R), 1/3/1995-2013, University of Maine

Sheila Frahm, Kansas (R), 6/11/1996-11/6/1996, Fort Hays State University, University of Texas

Susan Collins, Maine (R), 1/3/1997-present, St. Lawrence University (Phi Beta Kappa)

Maria Cantwell, Washington (D), 1/3/2001-present, Miami University

Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York (D), 1/3/2001-1/2/2009, Wellesley College

Debbie Stabenow, Michigan (D), 1/3/2001-present, Michigan State University

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota (D), 1/3/2007-present, Yale University (when no sororities were there)

Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire (D), 1/3/2009-present, Shippensburg University

Kay Hagan, North Carolina (D), 1/3/2009-2015, Florida State University (although she may appear on several lists, my sources tell me she is no longer a member)

Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin (D), 1/3/2013-present

Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota (D), 1/3/2013-2019

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii (D), University of Hawaii at Manoa (Phi Beta Kappa), 1/3/2013-present

Joni Ernst, Iowa (R), Iowa State University, 1/3/2015 -present (She’s a P.E.O.)

Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire (D), Brown University, 1/2017-present

Tammy Duckworth, Illinois (D), University of Hawaii, 1/3/2017-present

Catherine Cortez-Masto, Nevada (D), University of Nevada-Reno, 1/3/2017-present

Tina Smith, Minnesota (D), Smith College, 2018-present

Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mississippi (R), 2018-present

Martha McSally, Arizona (R), 1/3/2019-2020

Jacky Rosen, Nevada (D), 1/3/2019-present

Krysten Sinema, Arizona (D), 1/3/2019-present

Cynthia Lummis,Wyoming (R), 1/3/2021-present

Laphonza Butler, California (D), 2023-present

Elissa Slotkin, Michigan (D), 2025-

*This just became known in summer 2017 by way of this photo: 

Notice the GWU banner with the Kappa Alpha Theta “kite” next to it. Although she had been marked as “lost” in the KAT database, she has now been found.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com. 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Posted in Fran Favorite | Tagged , | Comments Off on Female U.S. Senators and Their Sorority Affiliation – 2025 Edition

Orville Redenbacher, Alpha Gamma Rho

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

January 19 is National Popcorn Day. Who knew? Did you know that Orville Redenbacher was a real person as opposed to Betty Crocker. Redenbacher was also a fraternity man. In fact, on a visit to the former Alpha Gamma Rho house at SIUC, I spied a framed picture of him in the dining room.

Born in Brazil, Indiana, on July 16, 1907, Redenbacher grew up on a small corn farm. As a child, he peddled corn and used those earning to attend college. He graduated from Purdue University and was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho. In 1988, he was inducted into his fraternity’s Hall of Fame. Although he hit it rich in fertilizer, it was popping corn that was his passion and ultimately led to greater fame and fortune.

The city of Valparaiso, Indiana, where he spent much of his professional life, honored him with a statue  near the gateway to Lincoln Park on the south side of Highway 130. The statue was created by artist Lou Cella. It was unveiled at the 2012 Valparaiso Popcorn Festival. The city’s first Popcorn Festival took place in 1979 and Redenbacher often served as Grand Marshall for the accompanying parades. In 1988, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater.

Although Redenbacher died in 1995, his iconic image and name is owned by ConAgra Foods, so he lives on in grocery store shelves and in commercials.

Statue of Orville Redenbacher in Valparaiso, Indiana by Lou Cella (image courtesy of Rotblatt-Amrany Studio)

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

 

Posted in Alpha Gamma Rho | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Orville Redenbacher, Alpha Gamma Rho

Farewell to an Astronaut and a Policewoman

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

On December 14, 1972, Apollo 17 lifted off from the moon. Its mission commander Gene Cernan, Phi Gamma Delta, was the last astronaut to walk on the moon’s surface. The initiate of Phi Gam’s chapter at Purdue University took his Phi Gam badges on his missions . The items now reside at the fraternity’s international headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky. Captain Cernan died on January 16, 2017 at age 82.

A Pi Phi friend who is a pilot has a grandson who is also a pilot. That young man was encouraged by Captain Cernan and has his signature in his logbook. Before the young pilot began his first solo cross country flight, Captain Cernan told him,”If I can do it, so can you!” As the young pilot’s mother said, “Great heroes don’t just do great things; they encourage others to do great things, too. Thanks for encouraging my young pilot! You will always be our hero.”  

***

Sadly, we mourn one of those brave people who went to work and never came home. They are those who promise to keep the public safe, often putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us. Debra Clayton, an Orlando, Florida, policewoman, was killed in the line of duty on January 9, 2017. She was a member of the Psi Theta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. My condolences to her family, friends, co-workers and sorority sisters.

Master Sergeant Debra Clayton

***

A new semester begins, incoming chapter officers take on leadership duties, and some attend GLO leadership workshops. To those beginning a new adventure as a chapter officer, I give this unsolicited advice – soak up the knowledge, get buy in from fellow exec board members, roll up your sleeves and get to work. 

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2017. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/

Posted in Alpha Kappa Alpha, Phi Gamma Delta | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Farewell to an Astronaut and a Policewoman