Grace Coolidge, Pi Beta Phi

[nyapbp]

Grace was indeed a dedicated Pi Phi. When she enrolled at the University of Vermont, she could have joined one of the established groups, but chose to be one of two freshman who petitioned for a Pi Beta Phi charter. The chapter was installed in her family home and early chapter meetings took place there. She served as Corresponding Secretary and was her chapter's delegate to the 1901 convention in Syracuse. There she met Anna Robinson (Nickerson), the delegate from the chapter at Boston University and a life-long friendship was formed. Anna Nickerson would later serve as the Fraternity's Grand Vice-President.

Grace was founder and first president of the Western Massachusetts Alumnae Club. She also served as a Province Vice-President. She attended the 1915 Pi Phi Convention in Berkeley, California and had to cut short her post-convention tour of California due to her husband's political activities. She and the women she traveled with, all but one of them from the Boston University chapter, started a Round Robin letter which lasted until the end of their lives.

In April 1924, Pi Beta Phi members gave the United States the official portrait of Grace. In it she is wearing a red dress and her Pi Phi arrow is upon it. The Eastern Conference was an event which took place during the unveiling. Carrie Chapman Catt, a member of the chapter at Iowa State was the guest speaker. Two of the founders, by then in their 80s, attended. More than 1,100 Pi Phis filed through the receiving line and all were greeted personally by Grace.

On Memorial Day, I reran a post about Grace's visit with some Pi Phi WAVES who were studying at Smith College. Grace then wrote to her Round Robin friends about the lunch.