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It's hard to explain to Greeks who have never had a House Mother just how special these women are. This story helps...

Subject: Lincoln fraternity members shave heads to support ailing house mom

The Associated Press
September 17, 2003

Lincoln fraternity members shave heads to support ailing house mom

By COLLEEN KENNEY, Lincoln Journal Star

LINCOLN, Neb. -- This big window is the best in the frat house for
girl-watching.

That's the only reason these guys hang out here, says Shirley Wasserburger,
sitting in her little housemom's apartment at the front of the Alpha Tau
Omega house.

Paul and Dan sit on the old flowered couch. Jeff, Chad and Joe sprawl on
the floor.

"You just want to look out my window and watch the girls walk by, don't you?"

"No, Mom," said Joe Furmanski. "It's because it's just easy to visit with you."

Mom smiles.

"Yeah. Sure. Sure."

Since 1981, Wasserburger, the longest-running housemom in the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Greek system, has helped the boys of ATO handle life on
their own.

She's been there for postage stamps and Scotch tape and light bulbs. She's
reminded them of tests and class times. She's taught them dining-room
etiquette - wearing caps or swearing earns a look from those famous dark
brown eyes.

She's helped them with the laundry and with the girls.

"We always go through Shirley to make sure our girlfriends are good
enough," says Jeff West of Omaha, house president. "She's like our mom away
from home."

Now her boys are helping her.

Wasserburger has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.
Chemotherapy has left her bald, so her boys decided to go bald, too. They
don't want her to feel like she's the only one around the house with no hair.

About 27 of them - a third of the guys, plus a friend from the Fiji house
next door - shaved their heads recently on the front porch. They carried
Wasserburger's rocking chair out there so she could watch.

They got $130 in donations from people walking by.

"We're giving it to you," West says.

"No you're not."

She looks away for a moment at something outside the window.

And no, she says, those aren't tears.

She first got cancer five years ago. It came back in April. Her doctor told
her that she's going to have to have radiation treatments again, 15
straight days of it. And she knows that'll make her tired.

Wasserburger has three grown children. She won't tell her age. But for a
clue, she says, her youngest is in her early 40s.

Before coming to the ATO house, she lived in Crawford, a town in northwest
Nebraska. She was divorced and worked for the city for years. After her
kids were out of the house, she missed being around kids, so she applied to
the ATO house.

People in Crawford thought she was crazy.

"You're what? You're going to 'Animal House'?"

The movie had come out a couple years before. She wasn't sure what to expect.

"But I wasn't afraid. Of course, I was a lot younger then."

Wasserburger shuts her door at 10:30 each night. But the boys all know they
can always knock.

The homesick freshmen. The jokesters. The young men seeking advice from a
woman they know has heard it all over the years as she's sat in her chair
by this big window.

"These guys keep me young," she says. "I don't know where I'd be right now
without them."

'Yeah," West says. "We keep her young - and she grows us up."