A Piece of Pi Phi History

We sat in a small, family-owned lunch spot in Carbondale, Illinois, as members of the Southern Illinois Alumnae Club passed around a silver spoon from the Fraternity’s Centennial celebration in 1967. The alumna brought it to the gathering in hopes that it would find its way into the Fraternity archives. There’s a good chance since club member New York Alpha Fran Desimone Becque serves as Pi Beta Phi Fraternity’s Archivist and Historian.

In 1979, Fran won the Fraternity’s international Chapter Service Award and serving the Fraternity has been a way for her to pay back some of the faith that Pi Phi had in her since college. In 1993, she became a Director. Fran was the first Director of Undergraduate Programming (which changed to Director of Collegiate Programming during her tenure), Director of Academics, and Director of Fraternity Education. She then became Archivist in 1994 when Alabama Alpha Annette Mitchell Mills retired and became Historian in 2003 when she left the Director ranks. It was an easy decision for Fran because this is what she loves to do.

Of course, I had to ask Fran to share some of her favorite items she has come across while working in the archives.

In the 1990s, the Fraternity was given access to items stored at the home of Past Grand President Amy Burnham Onken, Illinois Epsilon, in a barn in Illinois. There were various correspondence boxes including a postcard of the chapter officers from Vermont Beta. On that postcard, First Lady Grace Goodue Coolidge, Vermont Beta, had signed her name when she served as chapter secretary. Can you believe this postcard was hanging out in a box for decades and not displayed for us all to see?

Another story is from a few years ago. Fran was in need of an empty box of a certain size, so she began to transfer archive items from one box to another to empty the box she needed. In one file, in a box not yet catalogued, was a document from 1890. The letter was from a group of women from the University of Chicago petitioning to start a chapter on campus. There were already two Pi Phi women on campus, and a number that wanted to join the sisterhood. Alas, at the time, we did not have the support of the University of Chicago Dean of Women, as Greek-Letter organizations were not allowed on campus. Fortunately for us, Pi Phi chartered our Illinois Kappa Chapter in 2013. “To find correspondence at the moment we were going to start a chapter there, more than a 100 years later, is incredible,” Fran said. “Sometimes things find me in the archives.”

Whether it was a glass bud vase that belonged to Founder Fannie Whitenack Libbie, a complete set of cards from a 1920s recipe box or Founder Clara Brownlee Hutchinson’s gold pocket watch, there are so many things Fran can share stories about! But she is always looking for more things — including items from you! Each item tells our history, including the things people gave one another or purchased when they were in college.

As sad as I was that our time together was coming to an end, it was the last thing Fran said to me that left me glowing. Unsurprising for most of us who have met her, Fran’s favorite quote is from another piece of Pi Phi history, a song: “The joy of having known you will last our whole lives through.”