When a friend asks for a favor, it’s hard for me to say “no,” because friends who can make me laugh are a treasure. So many months ago, I said “of course” to Elisabeth Long Young, a friend who was co-chair of the centennial celebration for the Pi Phi chapter at the University of Louisville. Her grandmother was a charter member of that chapter. Her sister and two cousins, the sum total of the grandmother’s granddaughters, are members of the chapter and were there on Saturday.
It was a joyous event and nothing was overlooked. I had not known that I would be spending last week in the Chicago area and so it was an added thrill driving in bumper to bumper Chicago traffic instead of the normally easy route east on I-64. She truly is the hostess with the mostest.
Thelma Knebelkamp (Long) as a collegian. The chapter founders were highlighted on tables through the room, but this was the table where her four granddaughters sat.
In October of 1925, 100 years ago, Pi Beta Phi, was 58 years old. Although Kentucky borders Illinois, the state in which the Fraternity was founded, Kentucky had more of a southern flavor and Kentucky Alpha was one of a few chapters in southern states. It was not the first, that honor goes to Louisiana Alpha at Sophie Newcomb College which is now part of Tulane University. I could take an educated guess and mention Dr. May Lansfield Keller, who served 10 years as Grand President, and had definite opinions about what constituted a first-rate institution, but that would be a talk for another day.
The women of Tri Xi must have been stellar. There is no doubt about that!
The December 1925 Arrow noted that the University of Louisville had recently moved to a new location and because of an increased endowment, it would likely expand greatly. In the spring of 1921, the establishment of Greek-letter organizations in the College of Liberal Arts was approved. On April 14, Tri Xi was organized. Its goal from the very beginning was a charter from Pi Beta Phi. Those Tri Xis, according to the report in the Arrow, “worked faithfully and steadily toward that end, overcoming their difficulties and meeting their problems with increasing enthusiasm, keeping ever before them their ideal – Pi Beta Phi.”
The Pi Beta Phi charter was approved by the convention body at the 1925 Lake of Bays, Ontario, convention held at the Bigwin Inn. The convention initiate that year was a Louisville educator, Emma Woerner, who was initiated into Ontario Alpha (the convention was in Canada, that was the closest chapter and that’s how convention initiates happened back then). The 1925 convention was Emma’s second Pi Phi convention. She had attended the 1906 Indianapolis Convention, 19 years earlier, presenting a request from the Black Cats at the University of Kentucky. (Usually when a local presented the request for a charter, all the “i”s had been dotted and the “t”s crossed and the group had the blessing of Grand Council. But sometimes things changed when the petition was presented at convention.) The motion to accept the petition and issue a charter was a negative vote, it was said, on account of the University of Kentucky’s rating at that time. So, Emma made that trip (luckily, she didn’t have far to travel) and left that 1906 Indianapolis convention feeling, no doubt, dejected and sad.
At the fifth session of that 1925 convention on Thursday, June 25 at 9 a.m., Mary Catherine Coll of Indiana Beta presented the petition of Tri Xi of the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky. There was discussion on the floor about the Tri Xi group. California Alpha moved that the petition of Tri Xi of the University of Louisville for a charter from Pi Beta Phi be granted. After the votes were counted, it was in the affirmative and Kentucky Alpha could become a reality. The goal that those Tri Xi women formulated in 1921 was going to come true.
The pledging of 28 Tri Xi members took place on October 8 with the Grand President, Amy Burnham Onken, doing the honors. A Cookie Shine followed the pledging ceremony.
On Friday October 9, following lunch, the women of Kentucky Alpha were initiated in the home of Emma Woerner, the 1925 convention initiate who likely spent 19 years wishing she could be a Pi Phi. After that the chapter was installed, an evening banquet followed. The very talented Ruth Wilson was toastmistress.
Among those charter members was a future Grand Council member, Helen Anderson Lewis. Ruth Wilson Cogshall, who was the toastmistress at the banquet, was a talented artist. Her watercolors of the founders greet me every time I enter the archives at HQ, and Ruth’s artwork can be found in many places – in fact she designed the logo and tote bags for the 1983 Louisville convention.
There was also a future Evelyn Peters Kyle Award winner, Thelma Knebelkamp Long. She was in her late 90s when she was honored for her lifetime of service to Pi Beta Phi. Her granddaughters followed in her footsteps. I remember very well that final banquet when their grandmother’s name was announced. The pure joy that they exhibited in getting to the podium is a favorite convention memory with the Price is Right “come on down” vibes. The Longs had a large role in the centennial. Their grandmother smiled down from heaven, no doubt.
The Landau sisters are two members whose names the attendees might not recognize. Sara Landau was an educator, economist, and feminist. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 1890. Her parents, who were Jewish, married in Poland and moved to the United States in the early 1880s. Sara had two younger sisters, Minnie and Mathilda. Sara played a tremendous role in the founding of the chapter. Her sister Mathilda was also a charter member.
In 1912, Sara was 22. That year she wrote in her dairy, “I’m determined to amount to more than one row of pins someday.” In 1916, she graduated from Bowling Green Business University in Kentucky. A year later, she enrolled in the University of Louisville, but she took some time off to work with the Red Cross in France. While an undergrad she was an instructor teaching commercial subjects. Sara studied economics – few women did that in that day and age. In 1920, she earned her bachelors and a master’s in economics followed a year later. It coincided with the founding of Tri X. Sara was the first president of Tri Xi and a force with which to be reckoned.
Sara was instrumental in leading the charge to become a Pi Phi chapter. The Landau sisters are charter members and were active in the alumnae club and the Arrows mention many of Sara’s many accomplishments over the years. Sara resigned from University of Louisville in 1928, in part because she felt that its president George Colvin was anti-Semitic.
Thelma Knebelkamp’s granddaughters and me
Thelma Knebelkamp Long’s granddaughters knew many of the chapter founders so it was wonderful to have that connection to the beginning of the chapter’s life. Pi Phi’s Grand President Jenn Plagman-Galvin was there, too. It was a fabulous celebration of 100 years.
Wine carnations followed me home.
