Founding Member(s) Still Alive?
 

I was just wondering if any fraternity or sorority's founding member(s) were still living. My fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, still has the priviledge of having Donald Terwilliger as our eldest living brother and only surviving member of the 14 illustrious men who gave the world our Fraternity on December 16, 1925! He was born in 1907 on July 13 (which is also MY birthday :)) and remains very active with our fraternity to this day. GO APO!!!

www.geocities.com/apoku_99 Kappa Upsilon chapter
www.apo.org Alpha Phi Omega
www.ecu.edu East Carolina University

"In founding Alpha Phi Omega, not only was a new fraternity formed, but also an entirely new type of fraternity was formed....dedicated to serving others..."

-Donald Terwilliger, Founding Member, APO

Ours Are Alive and Kickin
 

The initial founders of Gamma Sigma Sigma are still alive and well...I had the honor of talking with them at our Convention last summer!

These are are founders who attended The Drexel Institute, who went on to found our sorority with representatives from 7 other colleges/universities.

Margaret "Peg" Zimmerman
Barbara Ferraro
Marvyn Glover

They were honored as our "Golden Gammas" in light of our upcoming 50th Anniversary! :D

Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority
Celebrating 50 Years of Service, Friendship & Equality: 1952-2002

If any of our founders were still alive, they'd probably be almost 190 years old :) But I'm not really sure which of our founders was the longest living... that would be interesting to know. I know of one that was still living in 1884 and would have been about 70 years old at the time -- Stephen J. Field, who was a supreme court justice. He is probably one of the longest living DU founders, but there were 29 others so I'm not sure.

Our Founders are alive and well. :) They spoke at our national convention in September. It was amazing to meet these womenderful women who founded our sisterhood. I will never forget that experience.

M.V.

Nope. They're dead and gone. My chapter founders are still around. :)

ZTA has no more living founders (we were founded in 1898). Our local chapter founders are still alive though (1971).

Likewise... AEPhi's founders are long gone, but my chapter founders (myself included :D ) are all alive and well!

It'd be wonderful if any of our founders were still alive, but Georgia Otis Chipman, the last living Alpha Gamma Delta founder, entered Chapter Grand on August 17, 1981.

The last of the TKE founding fathers passed in the 60's.

Delta Phi Epsilon was founded on March 17, 1917. Over seventy years later when I pledged, three of the five founders were still alive. While I was in college, one of them died. We wore black ribbons around our badges to honor her. When I told one of my friends in Alpha Phi what the ribbon meant, she was surprised and said that her founders had died over fifty years earlier.

All but 1 are alive
 

All but 1 of Iota Phi Theta's Honorable 12 founders are still alive.

(The Hon. Charles Briscoe is the 1 founder who has passed on)

To learn more about them, read The Divine Nine or visit our National Website.

THe last one died in the early 70s.

My sorority was founded in 1987. All of my Founders are still living. :) In fact, at our annual Hermana Retreat this past summer, I got to room with one of my Founding Mothers. It was GREAT!! There's nothing like hearing why your organization was created straight from the mouth of someone who created it. I learned so much about what it took to found SLU and then some. It was amazing. I truly felt honored.

Not only that, but since we were on the same team for all Hermana activities, I really got to hang out with her and just chill. That was so much fun. I'll never forget it. :D

Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858, and my chapter in 1862. I guess the answer to the question is obvious.

Founders
 

Our honorable fathers past away some time ago, the last of the Founding 4 died in '77. Our Founding Fathers for our chapter is alive and kicking. I should know I am one of them :)

May our ideas and Brotherhood last throughout the ages!
D

The 6 Women that Founded Alpha Delta Pi are not living. We were founded in 1851!

My fraternity was founded in 1839...needless to say none of the honorable founders are still alive, except in our memory.

Even my chapter founders would be well over a hundred years old now. The Beta Psi chapter was founded in 1900!

Wow, a chapter that's 100 years old, that's a lot of history. Has the chapter been active the entire time?

d

Unfortunatly, no.

We have gone inactive twice.

Once during WWII, b/c a large majority of the brothers went off to war. A second time in the early-mid '90s, b/c of some legal problems...

Even today a good number of brothers are in the Air/Army National Guard, or the Air/Army Rotc. I'm in the rotc myself.

you know, I've heard that it was quite common for fraternity men, and some sorority women to be in the national guard or army rotc kind of programs in the 70's and 80's. BUT, when I think about it, a lot of my brothers are in the national guard, army reserves and/or some ROTC program now. So are a lot of other fraternity men in other orgs on my campus. Is this common on a lot of college campuses?

d

I really don't know if it's common...

On my campus I would lean towards no....b/c there is a LOT of drugs on campus, and that doesn't mix well with the military.

The Beta Chapter of Delta Tau Delta at Ohio University was founded in 1862 and has been in continuous operation ever since. One hundred forty years and still going strong.

The Gamma chapter was established at Jefferson college, which later merged with Washington College to form the Washington and Jefferson College. Been active since 1842.

Coramoor,

If you're talking about a Delt Chapter, that would be difficult since the fraternity wasn't founded until 1858.

Let me quote my bro. here.......Gamma Chapter of Beta Theta Pi is the longest continuous fraternity chapter in the world.

ZZ

Thanks for the clairification. I guess the confusion probably had to do with when the comments were posted.

Sorry, my fault.

Well none of my fraternity founders are still alive, we may have found out that one of the founders of our chapter is alive, by coincidense i was looking throught the phone book and stumbled upn his name, we havn't gotten a hold of him yet or even if it is him, i mean our chapter was founded in 1939, he was going for his PhD so he would be quite old, who knows though, it'd be pretty cool to have a founder around to share in his wisdom eh?