Weekly update: Making a splash (quilt included)

Ready to go

The 114th convention of the Illinois State Chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood was in Schaumburg this weekend. That's about 45 miles from home so I didn't have to leave until 9:30 on Friday morning. For three years I've been on the Lulu Corkhill Williams Friendship Fund committee, this past year as chairman.  LCWFF provides grants to Illinois women and men experiencing temporary financial difficulty. Local P.E.O. chapters recommend recipients to the three-person committee. The needs are great and the grants are appreciated.

This year's theme, "Make a Splash! The P.E.O. Ripple Effect" was carried out with surfboards, starfish, and flip flops.

Chapters decorated flip flops with short summaries of how they made a splash during the year.

I decorated my chapter's entry.










P.E.O. founder Alice Coffin visited us, in the person of reenactor Lynn Rymarz.   Alice was a school teacher who never married. She grew up a Methodist but changed to Episcopalian because she loved to dance!

Lettie Corkhill Cunetto and Debbie Corkhill Cortopassi gave a workshop about their Great-great Aunt Lulu Corkhill Williams.  Lulu became a P.E.O. in March, 1869, just two months after P.E.O.'s founding. She was the first initiate.  After college she helped charter chapters in Iowa. She and her husband Hemmerle moved to Illinois where she again chartered chapters and organized the Illinois State Chapter.  The Friendship Fund was started with money left over after the state convention in 1934. (Since then $1,756,000 has been awarded to 1,319 Illinois women and men.)

Many of you remember the New York Beauty quilt that took me all of March to make.  It was the backdrop for the LCWFF display. "Stars in her crown" refers to the time that Lulu, age 15 in 1870, wore her P.E.O. star pin in her hair.  She wrote later that she didn't know any better, but she did it again (about 25 years later, probably in jest).





Each of the 40 chapters that sponsored a Lulu recipient this year got a tiara with a gold star (and the chapter letters).

 There are 8 yellow stars appliqued on the quilt -- for the seven founders and Lulu, the first initiate.
(My t-shirt lists the original seven.)

 A LCWFF recipient was among the speakers at the Projects Dinner Saturday evening. Angie is a single mom of two daughters who is going to nursing school and working full-time at a suburban hospital. She used her grant to help buy a new car -- reliable and safe transportation.  The chapter that sponsored her has generously helped out in other ways, too.

Committee members Pat and Laura have become friends.  Pat is the new chairman.


Sue is a double sister -- she and I share Alpha Gamma Delta as well as P.E.O.


It was an honor to serve on the Lulu committee. I learned a lot. I am grateful to all the P.E.O.s who sponsor candidates and generously contribute to the fund.