Chapter AZ Founders Day Program – January 18, 2014By Carol Umsted, Chapter President

(Compiled from programs by Mavis Ness, D, PSP, Jan 18, 2010 and Gladys Bain, AJ, January 21, 2013, and information from the P.E.O. Record.)

Happy _____ birthday to all of us! As our chapters celebrate the anniversary of the founding of our Sisterhood, we marvel at the accomplishments that were sparked by seven young women. Those seven were very progressive women in 1869, and each possessed elements of unusual strength of character which continue to inspire us. As graduation from Iowa Wesleyan College approached, they felt the need to perpetuate their friendship, and our P.E.O. Sisterhood is the result. Our annual recognition is most appropriate for many reasons including the wisdom the Founders displayed in establishing the goals that continue to challenge us. I believe our Founders would be pleased with all the good things we are doing today in a world that is very different from the one they knew.

I know they would also be interested in what we do together to have fun because social events were frequent in the early days of P.E.O. This is evident on page 64 in Out of the Heart: “Few sets of [early] minutes failed to mention parties either past or in the planning stage. There were many socials, simple and sometimes impromptu affairs, with programs and refreshments. There were taffy pulls, sleigh rides, picnics, oyster suppers, dinner parties, receptions, banquets, the strawberry party for parents, the Calico Party, the elaborate Sidereal Soiree and many more. Each chapter needs to instill in its members a desire to be involved, and the fun and warmth of our relationships are a means to accomplish this goal.

We honor our Founders with each bonding experience, and a chapter that truly enjoys time together can best accomplish the broader goals of the Sisterhood.

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Chapter AZ Founders Day Program – January 18, 2014By Carol Umsted, Chapter President

(Compiled from programs by Mavis Ness, D, PSP, Jan 18, 2010 and Gladys Bain, AJ, January 21, 2013, and information from the P.E.O. Record.)

In 1869, there was no such thing as a telephone. There were only 500 high schools in all of the United States and fewer than two hundred between the ages of 18 and 21 went to college. Emma Willard, the first American woman to publicly support women’s higher education, persuaded a male college student to teach her each day what he learned. She then tried to persuade the New York legislature to allow for education of girls. They were unmoved so she opened her own school. The men “in the know” claimed women’s brains could not handle learning and would come down with a brain disease if allowed to do so.

Into this scenario entered seven young women. The place – Mount Pleasant, Iowa – not New York or California, but the edge of the frontier, Heartland U.S.A., 30 miles from the Mississippi River and the Illinois state line. Many pioneer families were drawn to the area of Mount Pleasant which had been promoted as a cultural center, a center for civilized living. Seven young women, each with her own attributes and talents to contribute started it all in that year – 1869.

These Founders are living today in the lives of thousands of P.E.O.s to whom they have “thrown the torch!”. They will live, on and on, in the hearts of tens of thousands of future P.E.O.s who will share the legacy they have left to us, a legacy of aspiration toward the highest womanhood to be attained by unselfish service to their fellow beings. That statement was from a December 11935 P.E.O. Record article by Erma Hollen Underwood, Chapter I, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

So we have memories of purpose and love from those seven dear, dear sisters. Those wonderful friends who decided to find a way to keep their friendship intact even though they would be miles apart after college graduation.

These girls, ages 17 to 20, were all bright and intelligent, full of spirit, natural born leaders and loyal friends. Perhaps fate had a hand in the fact that they were all students at Iowa Wesleyan University at a time when women were beginning to envision more for their lives than being wives and mothers. The hard back-breaking, mind-numbing days of the frontier were past. The terrible upheaval of the Civil War had been over for four years. There was now time to think of improvements in society, of making the good things better.

In 1919, Alice Bird Babb, reminiscing about the founding of P.E.O., wrote these words: “It was the age of vision, reconstruction not only along national lines, but reconstruction of thought, minds, and souls. Women’s clubs were demanded, they came just at the right time. It was strange soil for them to grow in, our lives were rigid, our paths straight. Economy was the order of the day, but like Alpine flowers blooming in the snow, they bloom all the more luxuriantly because of the rigidity of the atmosphere.”

There had been talk on campus of the formation of a sorority ~ later known as Pi Beta Phi. Some of the seven had been approached about joining the new chapter, but not all. What then could be more natural than for one of the seven loyal friends to say, “Let’s have an order of our own.”

No, it was not remarkable that they should have decided to form a society. What is remarkable is that it survived its simple beginnings as a college society to grow into an organization that today is

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celebrating its _____ birthday. Why did it survive? Why did the young women who were invited to join take it with them when they left school rather than leave it behind as an outgrown collegiate idea?

Each founder brought her own special gift and made it an integral part of the foundation of P.E.O. They decided their club must have a purpose and be a service to others. It should also have a religious background. They decided it must have music, as music adds to every phase of life. It must include a deep love and interest in each other ~ friendships. And it should have a serious cultural background and also have the ability to improve oneself. They thought it should be an organization like no other, with a distinctive name.

From Franc Roads: (* PEO member walks in with basket containing art and painted china)

P.E.O. gets its vision and progressiveness. Art was her life-long interest. She was a woman ‘ahead of her time’. She painted china for her husband’s store later in life. When the seven young women were formulating plans to announce to the college, their newly founded society, they needed to come up with a dramatic way to do this. Fran Road’s mother designed the apron and while their pins were being made, helped each of the girls to cut and make their own apron. The bib had the left side higher than the right. It was held in place by their P.E.O. pins. The aprons were worn over their ‘after the war’ style dresses of strong material with hoop skirts.

From Alice Bird: (* P.E.O. member walks in with basket containing books)

P.E.O. gets its literary inclination. She became a noted speaker and writer of her day.

From Hattie Briggs: (* P.E.O. member walks in with tea tray)

P.E.O. gets its homemaking tendencies. She had a rare quality of making everyone near her feel comfortable.

From Alice Coffin: (* P.E.O. member walks in with small blackboard and chalk)

P.E.O. gets its interest in education. She was the kind of teacher that the girls copy and boys silently worship. She also suggested the star and planned the design for the pin.

From Suela Pearson: (* P.E.O. member walks in with basket of music books)

P.E.O received its traditions of gaiety and charming sociability. She was an excellent musician and she could also act.

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Chapter AZ Founders Day Program – January 18, 2014By Carol Umsted, Chapter President

(Compiled from programs by Mavis Ness, D, PSP, Jan 18, 2010 and Gladys Bain, AJ, January 21, 2013, and information from the P.E.O. Record.)

From Ella Stewart: (* P.E.O. member walks in with home canned foods in basket)

P.E.O. gets its desire for social service. Her life was dedicated to seeking out the needy, the aged, and the infirmed. She helped by visiting, reading and preparing food for others.

From Mary Allen Stafford: (* P.E.O. member walks in with gavel and Roberts Rules of Order)

P.E.O. gets its poise. She also stressed the importance of proper procedure in conducting business meetings and the necessity of good order.

These were the gifts our founders brought and cemented together with the qualities of faith, love, purity, justice and truth, with a very liberal dash of loyalty to one another.

Love, which is the greatest virtue symbolized by our star, is never out-of-date or out-of-style, and the supply of love is never in surplus. But patience, understanding, kindness, acceptance, humility and all those qualities the Apostle Paul tells us are inherent in the word love, are as essential to our survival as they have ever been.

If the love and acceptance we share as sisters, helps us to face the problems of this world with a little more courage, if it helps us to live our lives with a little more sanity, if it helps us to reach out to others with a little more faith and hope, then we are making a great contribution to society. When you learn what our beginnings were, what high ideals these seven founders had, it makes us realize what we must live up to ~ to carry on the dreams and ideals of our sisterhood and our founders.

In 1914 Fargo, North Dakota Chapter D proposed a resolution that there be an official Founders Day established. The resolution to adopt the custom through the entire sisterhood of observing January 21 as Founders’ Day was unanimously adopted at the organization of the Convention of North Dakota State Chapter in 1914. It was carried by Miss Chrissie Budge to the Supreme Chapter meeting in California in 1915, and was there adopted without change. The resolution was dated May 3, 1915. Since that date, every chapter makes Founders’ Day an important date on its calendar. This is why we come together on a date as close as possible to January 21st of each year, weather permitting, to remember with lots of LOVE our seven Founders.

Summary: Skit is written to remind us of our founders and their original gifts to our sisterhood. It describes the founders; their personalities and life work and gives insight into the gifts of love that make P.E.O. the unique organization it is today.

Chapter AZ Founders Day Program – January 18, 2014

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By Carol Umsted, Chapter President(Compiled from programs by Mavis Ness, D, PSP, Jan 18, 2010 and Gladys Bain, AJ, January 21, 2013,

and information from the P.E.O. Record.)

Materials: P.E.O. members (in the skit) wear P.E.O. aprons, if you have them. Use a different person for each founder or a narrator can portray Mary Allen Stafford wearing a shawl, using a cane, sitting in a rocker as she tells the story.

There were props for each ‘Founder’ to show as their story and ‘gifts’ were being read. (Note by each name referencing their prop.)Props:

* Franc Roads ~ Tray with painted china and art supplies

* Alice Bird ~ Basket with literary books

* Hattie Briggs ~ Teapot, cups and saucers on a tray with napkins

* Alice Coffin ~ Small blackboard and chalk

* Suela Pearson ~ Basket with music books

* Ella Stewart ~ Basket with home-canned foods

* Mary Allen Stafford ~ Gavel and Roberts Rules of Order

Chapter AZ Founders Day Program – January 18, 2014Page 5 of 6

By Carol Umsted, Chapter President(Compiled from programs by Mavis Ness, D, PSP, Jan 18, 2010 and Gladys Bain, AJ, January 21, 2013,

and information from the P.E.O. Record.)

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