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A Dream Come True
I was excited and overwhelmed last spring when Mable offered me the
opportunity to speak to you about our beloved seven founders and their lives in
Mt. Pleasant.
Our founders were the original ones to use the theme, “Dream and grow in
P.E.O!” Dreamers and visionaries, ordinary and extraordinary all at the same
time; these Iowa Wesleyan students who were initially consumed by a co-ed
rivalry, almost from the beginning “desired a more lasting relationship.”
We’ve all read Out of the Heart and know the basics, but what else can the 1903
white history, Winona Evans Reeves’ books, and RECORD articles tell us about
our seven? It is my goal to share some facts and stories about the founders that
perhaps you don’t know. Obviously, to set the stage there will need to be some
overlap with the familiar.
I want to recount biographical information. I’ll leave discussions of their complex
personality traits, diversified priorities, as well as most of their many motivational
quotes, for your additional reading.
In the interest of time, may I assume you will recall o n your own tonight the
backdrop of our story – the first liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River
to grant a college degree to a woman, the mighty progress of post-Civil War
industrial development an railroad expansion with its corollary of changing ideas
and attitudes, petticoats and long underwear, music boxes, isinglass base-burner
stoves, back porch pumps, John Ruskin’s Essays, Harper’s, and Little Women
hot off the press. Iowa had been a state only 27 years.
At the cornerstone laying ceremonies for the P.E.O. Memorial library, April, 1927,
Mary Allen Stafford paid homage to P.E.O’s hometown, “It was here in beautiful
Mt. Pleasant that the associations and loving friendship of the seven ripened into
our beloved Sisterhood.”
Five of our founders were born in southeastern Iowa; Ella Stewart in Pittsburg, a
village on the well-traveled Des Moines River, in Van Buren County: Hattie
Briggs in Troy, a little further west just over the line in Davis County; Franc
Roads, I Henry County in the village of Marshall (now called Wayland), Mary
Allen and Alice Bird I Mt. Pleasant.
When Rev. I.I. Steward was appointed financial agent of the Mt. Pleasant
Collegiate Institute in 1852, Ella’s family moved back to Mt. Pleasant to live in
one of the two two-room apartments in the upstairs of the Institute Building, what
we now called Pioneer Hall. Rev. I.I. Stewart previously served as President
Elder of the Mt. Pleasant Methodist Circuit and pastured the Asbury Methodist
congregation in the early 1840s.
Ella lived in parsonages all over south east/central Iowa. She knew Effie
Hoffman Rogers well from their time in Oskaloosa 1861-63. However, it was
from Keokuk that her mother, Mary Stewart, returned to Mt. Pleasant on August
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15, 1864 to bury her 58 year old husband. She decided to move the family back
to Mt. Pleasant and to the prospects of better schooling. She was responsible for
five children in the household and another one soon to be born. She was 42 at
the time. Apparently the best opportunity available to her to earn a living was to
open a boarding house near the railroad and near the campus.
We have an account from Mr. H. I. Stewart (the little brother who would have
been five years old at the time of the founding) when he recalls being shoved into
the tree “to pick cherries for Miss Briggs, Miss Roads, and beautiful Sue.” He
called himself the “errand boy.”
Hattier, too, was the daughter of an itinerant Methodist preacher and wife. They
moved to the Methodist parsonage, then one block north of the northwest
campus stile in 1863. Hattie had a younger brother who enrolled at IWU in 1869.
His name was James Ancil Briggs. He was admitted to the bar and joined a law
firm. Just like Hattie, he died about age 27 – just three years after Hattie, who
died at age 27. Another brother was Abington J. Briggs who married Alice Cary
Brooks, who later would become first president of Nebraska State Chapter and
Briggs Kramer, an 1895 charter member of Iowa Chapter AV.
Mary Allen and Franc Roads were both born in Henry count; Mary in Mt.
Pleasant and Franc in Marshall. We don’t know when Nancy and Addison Roads
moved to the county seat. Mr. Roads and Mr. Allen were Mt. Pleasant
businessmen. The Allens lived in at least three Mt. Pleasant homes. The Allen
home you will see on the tour is where they were residing in 1869 and where
many early meetings were held. However, according to this property’s abstract
the home was sold in 1872 and the Reuben Allen’s moved to Douglas County,
Nebraska. The Roads apparently stayed around because both were buried, in
1906 and 1901 respectively, not too far from Franc’s marker on the Elliott plot.
Franc’s sister, Leona Bowman, lived in Mt. Pleasant as well and took an active
part in the life and times of Chapter Original A.
Here might be an appropriate place to answer why we see two spellings of the
Roads name. It is spelled ROADS on Franc’s Wesleyan records. Winona Evans
Reeves explained in the August 1948 RECORD, that about the turn of the
century, Franc herself began spelling it Rhodes, just why no one seems to know,
she may have found it so spelled in genealogical records. Editor Reeves writes
that as long as she spelled it RHODES, so did the RECORD. After Franc’s
death, her family not wishing to lose her identity with them, asked that whenever
Mrs. Elliott’s name appeared in print, that it should be spelled ROADS.
Alice Bird’ father was the first physician in Henry County. Alice had many sibling
and niece connections with our P.E.O. story. These family names are woven
throughout., the histories of Iowa Wesleyan College and the Methodist Church in
Mt. Pleasant.
We think of Alice Virginia Coffin as being a southern belle when she arrived to go
to school in Mt. Pleasant. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1848, and to
post Civil War minds, that was south. However, her parents, Martha and
Matthew Starbuck Coffin, were staunchly opposed to slavery and in Alice’s very
first year, they moved to her paternal grandfather’s farm in Salem, Indiana.
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Seven years later, in 1855, or at about the time Rev. Stewart was raising money
to build Wesleyan’s Main Edifice, Matthew Coffin moved this family to what he
hoped would be greener pastures on the promising wild western prairies of
Newton, in central Iowa. In partnership, Mr. Coffin opened a dry goods store. In
an involved story of repeated misfortune, Mrs. Coffin and a a two week old baby
boy died in 1857. Alice was nine and her older sister, Mary Francis, was
fourteen. There were also two younger brothers, Charlie and Mattie. The
children went to school in Newton. At the beginning of the War Between the
States, in 1861 Mr. Coffin was appointed Superintendent of Transportation of
Troops and Supplies on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. He brought his children
to Mt. Pleasant. We don’t know where they boarded then or if they lived
together. Alice was the only one of the Coffin siblings to graduate from Iowa
Wesleyan University. We know that she boarded with Mrs. Stewart, but that
couldn’t have been until after 1864. She had completed her high school or
preparatory work from Howe’s Academy, a private school, where she studied
with Alice Bird. These girls were often referred to as the “two Allies.” Franc and
Suela were also at Howe’s Academy, but in younger classes.
Marie Suela Pearson’s father was also a physician. He moved his wife, son, and
daughter to Mt. Pleasant from Cleveland, Ohio in 1861 to their new home, a
lovely showplace graced by Victorian landscaping. Suela was ten years old
when they came to Mt. Pleasant.
Mary, or Mame as she was called in college, Alllie, Allie, Ella, and Franc entered
Iowa Wesleyan University in the fall of 1865. Hattie came in the fall of 1866 and
Suela in the fall of 1867.
Per me to read to you a college recollection of 1868, written by Alice Bird Babb in
1923. This gives you a glimpse into their college biographies even before the
founding date. This might provide a background for their read approval of Alice
Coffin’s suggestion of our emblem, the star.
We seven girls were not only together in ’69, but during the college years
and during select school years, and the first public school years, even
farther back than the “Wide Awake” procession of ’69. We attended
college in a Methodist school at a time when even flowers were scarcely
worn on bonnets, when the word “dance” was uttered in a whisper and
cards were inhabitants of barns. In 1868 it was predicted that on a
certain night in February the starts would fall, just as they had fallen fifty
years before and when our young mothers were allowed to stay up all
night and stir the apple butter in the great iron kettle in the open.
I have heard my mother say, that every minute she was afraid the starts
would fall into the apple butter and spoil it. But bless you, those lovely
stars disdained the apple butter more than the apple butter disdained the
stars and vanished into pure ether before reaching the earth. Our class,
including the seven to –be originals, asked Dr. Burns, who taught
astronomy, if we could sit up all night and watch for those stars. We told
him that for the reputation of the college we should do so. He said we
were right and that every one of us could watch from our homes, and
report next day what we saw. We told him this was not what we wanted,
to stay at home alone, but we wished to come up to the college and be
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together, and – but we did not have to say this – have a regular old time
of it. After awhile, to get rid of us, he reluctantly consented. So, as Harry
Lauder would say, “At ha’ past tin by the clock,” we met in Ruthean Hall.
The boys first made a rousing fire in the stove with wood at $2 a cord;
then we ate a substantial lunch which we girls had prepared; then Dillon
Payne, the immaculate, husband of one of our P.E.O’s today, suggested
that we sing “Weevilly Wheat.” Of course he did not dare suggest that we
dance; that would be wicked, but in those days when one sang “Weevilly
Wheat” we just had to dance the Virginia reel’ no difference whether we
could dance or not. We could not sing “Weevilly Wheat” without dancing
the reel, and we sang the old dance tune so long, and saw so many starts
in each other’s eyes, that to this day, not one of us knows whether the
stars fell from heaven or not.
The next day in astronomy class, Dr. Burns sat at his table with his hand
over his mouth; he was a handsome man and when he held his hand
over his mouth there was lurking under it a smile; he asked for our report.
Hattie Briggs told of the blear-eyed Arcturus, how much crosser than
usual his cross eyes looked; Franc Rhodes was certain that “the dipper”
leaned too much on one side, (in these days she would say that it did not
believe in the 18th amendment); Mary Allen was certain there were but six
stars that night in the Pleidas, and so we all reported. Dr. Burns still sat
with his hand over his mouth. He lived in what we called the old
academy, and I was as certain that day as I am more certain today, that
he knew the whole story, that he was listening to the trip of “Weevilly
Wheat” and saw the star of hope and happiness shining above us
youngest.
Almost as confirmation, when writing about the fiftieth anniversary in 1919, Franc
indicates the choice of the star had much to do with their study of astronomy
during the year.
It will remain a mystery to know who of the Pleiades were not invited to join
Libbie Brook’s I.C. Sorosis. It is an understatement to say these seven felt “put
off” by her encroachment and audacity to come over from Monmouth College for
one year only to expand her secret society. This girlhood one-up manship
resulted in if they all weren’t asked, they would “form a society of their own.” This
was their beginning; but it soon became a dream to perpetuate friendship.
We don’t have those precious notes and minutes from their first meetings, when
they thought and talked and planned about “how to be.” I’ve often wondered if
the girlish distress signal was planned to help the vivacious Suela avoid awkward
beau problems!
We can take a few brief glimpses into their Society life from some early minutes.
Since one of the very first decisions was to grow beyond seven, these early
minutes record other names and responsibilities. In the very first minutes
Original A has (April 16, 1870), we read: “Alllie Coffin and Ella Stewart to
procure a meeting room.” These minutes concluded with “moved to adjourn to
meet with Allie Coffin.” Now that leaves us with a puzzle. Alice’s biography
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written by her niece, Stella Skiff Jannotta, in 1940, says that after graduation
(June 1869) Alice taught in Des Moines. Would she be around ten months later
to regularly attend meetings and be a hostess? And where would she entertain –
she didn’t have a home in Mt. Pleasant: she boarded with the Stewarts. So, if
that were to be the place for the meeting, why wouldn’t the minutes reflect being
at Ella Stewart’s who was teaching in Mt. Pleasant at the time? Perhaps it can
be explained as an error made by the recording secretary because in the minutes
of the very next meeting (April 30, 1870) they met at Allie Bird’s! (The more we
change, the more we stay the same…either there are errors in the minutes or a
change from the printed yearbook!) The next minutes say “hall – none procured;
report received, committee discharged.” In the July 16 minutes, it was
announced the next meeting would be in the Allen Mansion. Sure enough, July
30 minutes find them there meeting with Mame and her sister, Cassie. It was
moved and carried that at an upcoming picnic, Allie Bird was to make a speech,
and Ella Stewart was on a committee of three to arrange for the music. Oh yes,
one other action item from those minutes; it was moved and carried to have
refreshments at every meeting.
Continuing early minutes work on this picnic for several meetings. It isn’t clear if
it ever happened. One issue was whether the Seminary girls could join them. All
first minutes speak to paying the bill to Mr. Crane for additional pins. On August
13 Allie Bird reported the debt paid. The next meeting was to begin at 3:00 p.m.
sharp with the sharp underlined. There must have been some trouble with
promptness!
As girls do, this group of seven some times rather naturally subdivided into
Hattie, Franc, and Mary as the “triamese twins” and Allie Bird and Sue, and Allie
Coffin and Ella. There are numerous recountings for recitation performances on
campus and in the community offered by the team Allie Bird and Sue. Allie Coffin
and Ella lived together so that was a natural. Hattie and Mary’s backyards
joined.
However, here is a sidebar story also about the very close friendship of Ella and
Alice Bird. For some reason, probably a “school girl fancy” according to Editor
Reeves in the December 1927 RECORD, Alice and Ella traded pins. When Ella
Stewart was buried, Alice Bird’s pin was on her shoulder. Shortly before Alice
Bird Babb’s death she sent Ella’s pin, which she had worn for so many years, to
the Memory Room, feeling it should be kept there for its historic value. ) When
Mrs. Babb was buried, she wore the pin of her daughter-in-law, Lottie Allen
Babb.) Think how close they were. Ella was the on to give the first oath t Alice
who in turn gave it to Ella and the others.
The September 16, 1871 minutes indicate the meeting was held in the home of
Sister Stafford with Stafford underlined, calling attention to her new married
name. Rev. Charles Stafford and Mary Allen were married on July 4, 1871. We
don’t know how long they stayed in the area or where; within the year, their first
Methodist charge was twenty five miles west in Fairfield.
This brings us to what happened next in all their lives after June 1869. We know
Ella Stewart had dropped from accredited class work in the previous year or two.
Probably she audited classes as her home duties and piano teaching allowed.
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Certainly she had been around to make the apron appearance into Chapel late
January 1869 with the others. Because Ella needed to help her widowed mother
support the household, she taught private piano and instrumental music, and
gave art lessons in the surrounding area. She taught in Mt. Pleasant High
School 1875-77.
Ella’s teaching was not as lucrative as it needed to be to continue helping
support her mother. She approached the father of her dear friend, Lulu Corkhill,
as he ad been a close friend and Methodist associate of her father. Rev.
Thomas E. Corkhill offered Ella a position as a teacher at the Iowa State Training
School for Boys that he was helping to establish in Eldora, Iowa. Ella went to
teach there in 1883. She devoted eight years to the welfare and benefit of those
students. One of her dear friends from Mt. Pleasant, Belle Cook Miles, was the
wife of the School’s superintendent. Ella had carried Bell’s P.E.O. invitation to
her in 1879 when they were both in Mt. Pleasant. Incidentally, Belle is the first
married woman to be initiated, her Chapter A enrollment number is #162! Her
picture hangs in the Mt. Pleasant exhibit room vault.
Ella, from Eldora, and Alice Coffin (who lived later in Chariton and finally in
Newton) often would return to Mt. Pleasant to visit Mother Stewart, the Babbs,
and others. Alice spent time again in the Stewart household to regain her
strength, however, she died at age 40 in Newton in hot July, 1888, almost ninety
years ago. Once Ella went to Ottumwa to visit the Staffords when they were
preaching at the Methodist Church there and had just moved into the new
parsonage.
In 1892 Ella left Eldora and returned to Mt. Pleasant also to recuperate from
illness and loss of strength. She hoped to return to Eldora, but wasn’t able. Ella
died in 1894. We know the location of the home where she and her mother were
living at that time, but it no longer stands. Her aged mother continued to live
there until her death in February, 1909.
After graduation, Hattie moved with her parents to Ottumwa where she taught
music and art. Soon Rev. Briggs was again transferred –this time to Knoxville.
There Hattie met Henri Bousquet and they were married January 12, 1873. They
were the parents of two sons, one to die at the age of six. I’ve found no record to
suggest Hattie ever returned to Mt. Pleasant after her marriage and before her
early death in 1877.
In 1869 when the other six went on to other endeavors off-campus, Suela, of
course, stayed in college. She didn’t graduate until 1871; other Initiates of ’69 in
her graduating class included her dear friend, Ella Killpatrick Dinwiddie, Ione
Ambler, Ida Champ Ferris Corley (Lillian and Ellen’s relative). Charles L. Stafford
and Joseph Edmund Corley were also in this class. In the minutes of the
meeting on December 17, 1870, Sue Pearson was appointed to assist the
committee on toasts for the planned Sidereal Soieree. That would have been an
appropriate use of talent.
Of the friendship of Ella Dinwiddie and Sue, this was the impetus for the lovely
gold and diamond medal or badge that Suela presented Iowa Wesleyan in the
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early 1890’s to be awarded to the best group of Student Cadet Corps in the
annual competitive drill.
According to Alice Bird’s recounting of the Sidereal Soiree, December 26, 1870,
in the Reeve’s history, all seven founders were in attendance. In the March
RECORD, 1927 there is the recounting of the list of attendees of another party at
the Brazelton Hotel. This is not recorded in minutes and Stella Clapp thinks it
could have happened in the summer of 1871. All founders names are again
listed. Maybe this was shortly before Suela left Mt. Pleasant. Following Sue’s
graduation her parents took her and Will to Washington, D.C. to further their
educations. The original chapter members did not see her again.
Alice Bird Babb taught for three years in high school. Many of her pupils later
became her sisters. She was always working on a play or readings for church,
community, or college benefit. In her later years, she could still remember the
characters in the plays she had coached at this time, the caste, and recite many
of the lines. Dr. John Wheeler engaged Alice to fill the chair of Latin and Greek
and teach elocution at Wesleyan in 1872. In a delightful story about her teacher,
Frances Wheeler Wilcox, the president’s daughter, tells in the Dec. RECORD of
1936 about her pre-school lessons in elocution when her father enrolled her in
the five o’clock late afternoon class held in the Old Main chapel. According to
Frances, Alice no longer taught after her marriage to W.I. Babb in October, 1873.
The marriage service was performed by IWU President Wheeler. (Mrs. Clapp
says she held the chairs until 1876. I rather doubt that as son Max was born in
July of 1874.) In the year following their marriage Judge Babb began service on
the Iowa Wesleyan board of trustees which continued until his death in 1925.
(Alice’s father and both sons have also been long-term trustees.) Alice remained
in Mt. Pleasant until Judge Babb’s business responsibilities took them to Aurora,
IL in 1906. Alice hated to leave her beloved hometown. She always retained her
membership in Chapter A.
It was not as a reference to an incendiary device that Iowa Wesleyan University,
a coeducational institution, was nicknamed “match factory.” Just as the Babbs
were a collegiate romance, so was the courtship of Franc Roads and Simon
Elliott, son of a well-loved teacher and author who had twice been president of
IWU. Simon is named as Franc’s escort in several listings for parties in the
Wesleyan years and the three years after graduation when Franc was teaching
at the Mt. Pleasant High School. They married in 1872, a year before the Babbs.
At that point, they moved t Lincoln, Nebraska where Simon opened a china store.
Probably, it was there Franc perfected her china painting skills; samples may be
seen on display in our Old Main exhibit room vault. In all her travels and
subsequent moves, Franc did not dimit from Chapter A. She did return to Mt.
Pleasant, however, on many occasions to visit her parents, her sister and family,
and certainly Mary, Ella, and Alice.
While we are talking about college romances, Ella Stewart wore the Beta pin of
classmate and biographer extraordinaire, Dillon Payne. Alice Virginia Coffin, of
course, was paired with Will Pearson, Suela’s brother who graduated from IWU
in 1868. Both of these couples were ill-fated. We do not have the details of the
estrangements, but we do read that these disappointments tempered the futures
of Ella and Allie with an indelible stamp.
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This brings us back to the Stafford household. This faithful itinerant Methodist
family lived in at least ten Iowa cities. In 1891 they returned to Mt. Pleasant for
Dr. Stafford to become president of their alma mater, Iowa Wesleyan University.
At that time the Staffords lived in the second block south of what is now the
Memorial Building. Upon her returned to Mt. Pleasant, Mary rekindled her
interest in the sister hood and began a period of very active service in much
wider circles. In 1899, the Stafford again assumed conference responsibilities
and pastorate work. In 1905 Mary Allen dimitted to Chapter B, Bloomfield, where
they were assigned at the time. They retired in 1917 after serving the church in
Muscatine and remained there. According the Original A’s General Enrollment
Book, Mary is the only founder to “dimit.”
The four founders who lived into the twentieth century eventually enjoyed wide
P.E.O. homeage and opportunities to speak and write about P.E.O. topics and
interests at meetings, conventions, and in the RECORD. However, let me
highlight a few points of earlier P.E.O. involvement with Chapter A and the
Sisterhood at large. Probably with the exception of Suela, the other six founders
were officers at one time or another. In one of Alice Bird Babb’s reflections, she
remembers she was president the first three years; the early minutes don’t seem
to support this. With no previous minutes mentioning election of officers, Ella
Stewart signed minutes as president March 22, 1874.
In 882 Ella Stewart, along with early initiate Ione Ambler, were appointed as a
committee to make a list of all founders and members to be placed in the “book”
with the Constitution. Subsequently it was voted each new member would write
her name on the list in the book.
In 1887 Alice Virginia Coffin wrote greeting to the convention being held in Albia
while she was ill and staying with Ella and her mother in Mt. Pleasant (once
again.) Ella wrote to this convention as well but read her letter in person. Her
topic was the organization of the Sisterhood.
Alice Bird Babb and two others wrote the original burial service in 1890. There is
a personal note to this date for Alice because she had just suffered through her
own loss of her daughter, Clarabelle, age 7,
Alice Bird had composed the first Constitution and was also on the great
Revision committee in 1893.
For a few years in the early nineties, Ella, Mary and Alice Babb were all together
again in Chapter A.
In 1895 the first biennial convention of Supreme Chapter and incidentally, the
first one held outside Iowa, was held in Omaha. The four living founders were
made life members and exempt from dues.
In the 1897 convention of Supreme Chapter and incidentally, the first one held
outside Iowa, was held in Omaha. The four living founders were made life
members and exempt from dues.
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In the 1897 convention, it was suggested for the first time a memorial to the
founders be placed at Iowa Wesleyan. Also at the convention, it was voted that
an installation service be prepared. Alice Bird Babb was one of two appointed to
that committee.
Mt. Pleasant hosted two conventions of the Sisterhood both on anniversaries. At
the twentieth anniversary in 1889, the convention met on the third floor of the
Saunders bank building called P.E.O. Hall. Mrs. Babb, in an opening meeting,
spoke on “Justice.” A reception for all guests was held in the home of Sen.
James Harlan.
In 1909, on the fortieth anniversary, convention of Supreme Chapter met in the
Presbyterian Church. The opening meeting was held in the current IWC Chapel
Auditorium. Mary Allen Stafford offered devotions. Alice Bird Babb gave the
address of welcome. Oklahoma State Chapter received its charter from the
hands of Mary Allen Stafford. Mrs. Babb, Mrs. Stafford, Mrs. Reeves, and Mrs.
Lulu Corkhill Williams were invited by the college president during the convention
to present one of the daily chapel devotions to the students. There were tours of
Old Main and the music room was shown.
With Alice Bird Babb remaining in Mt. Pleasant the longest, she really endeared
herself to her sisters in Chapter A and the college Chapter AJ, subsequently, S.
To list all their works together would be impossible. She was often the buffer
between the two chapters. Alice recommended the difficult decision for the IWU
collegiate Chapter S to disband and become the Greek letter sorority, Beta
Chapter, Alpha Xi Delta, in 1902. (Charter received by Iowa rand Chapter at
convention I 1903) At the anniversary banquet (or what we call Founders Day
now) in 1902 Chapter A surprised Alice with a jeweled emblem. It is on display in
the Old Main exhibit room vault. We have letter expressing her deep gratitude
and appreciation.
The three founders who are buried I Mt. Pleasant each had services conducted
from the Methodist Church. Ella Stewart’s funeral in 1894 was held in the old
Asbury Church one black east of the town square and conducted by Dr. C.L.
Stafford. The funeral procession walked to the Old City Cemetery and was made
up of many P.E.O.s from both Mt. Pleasant chapters, her many former students,
from music lessons and her Sunday School classes, her many friends.
The same could be said of the attendance of Alice Bird Babb’s service in 1926
and Mary Allen Stafford’s in 1927. Much has been written about each occasion.
Both of these services were held in the Methodist Church on Main Street.
In the Old Main Memory Room which had been opened in 1922, memorial
services conducted by Chapter Original A were held for Franc in 1924, Alice in
1926, and Mary in 1927. A memorial candelabrum had been presented by
Martha McClure in June 1924 for candlelighting services. (That tribute to
founders was begun in 1914.) Floral sprays of yellow and white for P.E.O., and
purple and white for Wesleyan were placed on the door.
When Franc Roads Elliott died in 1924 at the Chicago home of her son, her
ashes were scattered over the rose garden in Jackson Park, an area she loved
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very much and could see from her window where she lived at the Windemere
Hotel. In 1952, on the centennial anniversary of her birth, a memorial marker
was placed on the Elliott plot in Mt. Pleasant’s Forest Home Cemetery by a
committee authorized by Supreme Chapter. This location is at the top of the hill
east of the Babbs and the Staffords.
Marking our founding site has been very important to P.E.O. Both Alice and
Mary were present for the ceremonies in 1917 that placed the bronze tablet in
the music room in Old Main and established the Memory Room. Alice Babb
Ewing, Alice’s daughter, did the unveiling in the Chapel Auditorium ceremony
and both founders offered remarks.
We treasure the photos and newspaper stories we have about the planning and
building of the Memorial Library on campus in 1927. Three occasions
commemorated this process. Dr. and Mrs. Stafford came from Muscatine in both
January and in April for Mary’s participation in the groundbreaking and the laying
of the cornerstone. During the cornerstone proceedings, Alice Babb Ewing
placed in the box the deed to her parents’ private library donated to Iowa
Wesleyan Motion Pictures were taken of the activities at this event. I wish we
had them today.
Unfortunately, as we know, Mrs. Stafford died in July before the building was
dedicated debt-free in September. A memorial service honoring all the founders
was held in connection with this dedication. All their graves were decorated with
flowers at the same time in Mt. Pleasant, Newton, Pella, and Cleveland where
Suela Penfield had been buried in 1920. As there was no marker at the time for
Franc, Leona Gowman, her sister, placed Franc’s flowers on the Mt. Pleasant
graves of their mother, Nancy Roads, the seamstress who had helped with the
aprons in 1869,
In a sense, the founders did all return to Mt. Pleasant once again. Special
portraits were commissioned by Supreme Chapter to hang in Memorial Hall of
the P.E.O. Library. A special train came to Mt. Pleasant on September 21, 1929
from Supreme Convention just adjourned in Chicago. There was an impressive
ceremony to unveil these portraits. Fro example, Regina Bird Twinting presented
her sister, Alice’s portrait, given by California State Chapter. Dr. Stafford offered
the closing prayer and benediction. BILs did the cemetery and city tours that
time.
This is a very brief sketch of the founders, their times as girls and women in Mt.
Pleasant. We’ve taken a fast trip from 1869 to 1929. However, their story
encompasses time and timelessness; measured years and unmeasured good.
We must continue to learn about our founders for “by their fruits, we will know
them.” These Pleiades caught a rising star. . . and their dream came true.
Program give by Elizabeth (Liz) E. Garrels
Iowa State President at P.E.O. Conference 1996
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F-78
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