The Passing of a Kappa and a Phi Psi Sweetheart
I regret to inform you that Virginia Stelle (Rollins chapter) passed away recently, about two weeks after a fall in her apartment. She was 93, and her funeral was at Saint Mary's Church, in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, on January 12th. I regret that I learned of her passing today, as I would have attended.
I met her at a few of Phi Kappa Psi's Grand Arch Councils. She was a long time friend, and companion, of the late Earnest Garbe (Phi Kappa Psi, Columbia University chapter.) She was a perfect lady and a delight to be with.
She, like Ernie Garbe, represented a New York, that I thought was a fictitous creation of old Hollywood, until I met them. There was a time when affluent members of New York society were both genteel and egalitarian in nature. They spoke with an almost extinct accent. One that was clearly from New York, but that predated the influence of Irish and German immigrants from the mid-19th century on. Their manners were deliberate, proper, and of great confidence. I got the feeling that they would have been perfectly comfortable in the presence of royalty, yet too American, in our meritocratic and democratic traditions, to ever live among the European elite for any prolonged period.
I last met Virginia at the 1996 Phi Kappa Psi Grand Arch Council in Chicago. She wore her Kappa key above her heart. She spoke of Kappa with great fondness. Virginia represented Kappa Kappa Gamma better than most could ever imagine. Many Phi Psis knew her, and considered her to be a friend, and one of our finest sweethearts. She is greatly missed.
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