Gravely Speaking

Frazier Cemetery, Harrison County, Iowa

Ordinarily a post like this would attempt to unlock the mystery of the marker.  In this case, the letters P.E.O. are to remain a secret, the members of the organization are not to devulge what the letters stand for.  After some research on several Websites and blogs several theories were floated.  One blogger wrote that her mother’s P.E.O. meetings were on Wednesday nights and because her father had to cook on those nights, her father handily nicknamed the organization “Papa Eats Out“.  Other bloggers suggested less tongue-in-cheek names, such as, “Protect Each Other” and “People Educating Others“.

Though the meaning of the letters isn’t clear, what is known is that P.E.O is a philanthropic educational organization that was founded by seven Iowa Wesleyn College women students–Mary Allen Stafford, Ella Stewart, Alice Bird Babb, Hattie Briggs Bousquet, Franc Roads Elliott, Alice Virginia Coffin, and Suela Pearson Penfield–at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on January 21, 1869.  P.E.O was the second sorority established in the United States. 

P.E.O. has grown to 250,000 members with chapters around the United States and Canada now headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa.  The P.E.O. International Website lists six endeavors that the organization funds, as their Website states, to help “women reach for the stars“.   

P.E.O. funds the Educational Loan Fund for women who need financial assistance; International Peace Scholarship for women from around the world pursuing an higher education degree who want to study in the United States or Canada; Program for Continuing Education to provide need-based grants to women the who have had their education interrupted and are returning to support themselves and their families; Scholar Awards to provide merit-based scholarships for women pursuing doctorial degrees or post-doctoral research; Star Scholarships which grants $2,500 awards to graduating women on their way to college; and Cottey College, a liberal arts college established by P.E.O in 1927, at Nevada, Missouri.

Frazier Cemetery, Harrison County, Iowa

The mission statement of the Fraternal Order of Eagles reads:

The Fraternal Order of Eagles, an international non-profit organization, unites fraternally in the spirit of liberty, truth, justice, and equality, to make human life more desirable by lessening its ills, and by promoting peace, prosperity, gladness and hope.

Founded February 6, 1898, by six Seattle, Washington, theater owners John Cort, John W. and Tim J. Considine, Arthur Williams, Mose Goldsmith, and Harry Leavitt organized as “The Order of Good Things”.  Within two months, in April of the same yer, the fraternal order changed its name to The Fraternal Order of Eagles and adopted the American bald eagle as their emblem.

The Eagles organize local chapters into aeries, so named for the nests of eagles which are usually high and difficult to access.  Nearly since their inception, the Eagles have lobbied for causes important to the organization, such as the creation of Mother’s Day in 1904, later in the 30s for Social Security, and in 2006 to keep the two words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.  The Eagles also contribute to many charities, such as, St. Jude’s Hospital, a Disaster Relief Fund, Diabetes Research Center at the University of Iowa, Art Ehrmann Cancer Fund, D. D. Dunlap Kidney Fund, among others.

Clear Creek Church Cemetery, Bloomington, Indiana

 Women’s groups of Eagles began forming as early as 1927, the first in Pittsburg, Kansas.  By the time The Fraternal Order of Eagles officially passed bylaws creating The Ladies Auxillary in 1951, hundreds of them already existed.

Frazier Cemetery, Harrison County, Iowa

Lakeview Cemetery, South Haven, Michigan

The Daughters of Rebekah metal marker above depicts the dove resting on the three links of the chain with the letters F, L, and T, in the center of the links above the letter R nested inside the crescent moon with seven stars.

The women’s auxiliary organization for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was founded September 20, 1851, and originally called the Daughters of Rebekah, later changed to Degree of Rebekah.  The organization’s main symbols are:

• The Beehive represents collective industry
• The Moon and Seven Stars represents the order of the universe of God and nature, and the value of regularity in all worthy undertakings
• The Dove represents peace
• The Lily, an emblem of purity, symbolizes the purity of character, of thought, of word, and of action

On the metal marker below, appears the crescent moon with the seven stars and the dove, a sprig of a white lily, with the letters D and R woven together.

Lakeview Cemetery, South Haven, Michigan

On the metal marker below, the crescent moon with the seven stars cradles a dove over an entire white lily, instead of a sprig, with the letter “R” signifying Rebekah to the right.

Waterbury Cemetery, Waterbury, Vermont

Below is the spartan Daughters of Rebekah metal marker that displays encircled the three links over the letter “R”.

Eldridge Cemetery, Burlington, Vermont

Old Brick Reformed Church Cemetery, Holmdel, New Jersey

Motto: Our Country                                                                                                                 Creed: Principals, Not Men

The Junior Order of United American Mechanics, founded May 17th, 1853, in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, had its origins in a faternal group called The United American Mechanics, which was founded in 1845.  The JOUAM became independent in 1885.  It was a secret and political organization formed to combat the influence of the wave of Irish Roman Catholic immigrants into the labor market. All members were to be male, white, between the ages of 16 and 50, favored a separation of church and state, supported a free and public education, and professed a belief in a supreme being. 

Eventually, the organization began to open up membership to a diverse population including women, African Americans, Jews, and Roman Catholics.  They also began issuing insurance to protect workers who were injured or to pay death benefits.  The organization had a membership of over 200,000 at its zenith at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Nearly from the beginning of the organization’s founding, the Junior Order of United American Mechanics set out to support charities, especially those for children.  In the late 1890s JOUAM built an orphanage in Tiffin, Ohio, and a second one in Lexington, North Carolina, in 1929.  Today, JOUAM supports many charities foused on Lupus, Cerebral Palsy, and scholarship programs.

The primary symbols are an arm holding an hammer, the square and the compass set in the center of a shield.