Delta Kappa Epsilon - University of Alabama

Fall 2017 Newsletter

Psi Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon at the University of Alabama

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Sighs of Psi 5 FROM THE HISTORIAN Dead Man Jimmy Lyons '70 arises with the assistance of Preacher Billy Ezell '69. Group photo from March 27, 1971 Undertakers. Starting in the early 1900's and lasting until the 1950's, an annual Undertaker's Ball was held by the Oklahoma Negro Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association, as part of its annual convention and celebration in Tulsa. 4 In 1909, noted poet T. S. Eliot wrote a poem called "Opera," which has as its closing lines, "And I feel like the ghost of youth/ at the undertakers' ball." The poem was written as a negative criticism of an opera by Richard Wagner, Eliot finding the opera "no more meaningful than something as extravagantly meaningless (and repugnant) as a ball for, of all people, undertakers." 5 It seems Mr. Eliot didn't share the same lighthearted view of such an event as the Dekes and their festive forebears. In 1920, a song called "At the Undertakers' Ball" was written and copyrighted by two men in Chicago. That same year, in a published short story entitled "Samson-1920 Model," we find the following quote: "He was in a disgruntled frame of mind, and with face wreathed in gloom, he looked like an appropriate subject for grand march leader at the annual undertakers' ball." 6 So, we humbly inform our readers that the idea of an "Undertakers' Ball" did not in fact originate with the 1957 Psi chapter. Alas, we were not even the first college fraternity to stage such an event. We found two accounts, from 1952 and 1955, of two fraternities at other universities staging Undertakers' Balls, several years before our inaugural event. 7 A quick Google search for "Undertakers' Ball" reveals quite a few instances of the term being utilized since the inauguration of Psi's tradition. Most other events us- ing the name generally seem to be centered on Halloween. The term also appears in the popular culture in film, fiction, contemporary music and even in connection with professional wrestling, centered around a particular pro wrestler named "The Under- taker." The Delta Pi Illinois chapter of DKE started holding an Undertakers' Ball in 2014, inspired no doubt by their Southern brethren. As for Psi, it appears that Undertakers did not promptly become the chapter's signa- ture event after it's 1957 debut. In fact, the second DKE Undertakers apparently was not held until five years later, in 1962, and the third three years after that, in 1965. Since 1965, Undertakers has been held every other year. Existing chapter records in- explicably do not include records from 1957, so we have no chapter record of that first 1957 Undertakers. Existing records for 1958-1961 make no mention of Undertakers, nor is Undertakers mentioned in DKE's entry in the University's annual Corolla year- book or any of Psi's "chapter letters" in the Deke Quarterly from 1957-1961. Under- takers is first mentioned in a chapter minute book record for March 21, 1962, with an entry stating, "The rush party the weekend of April 10 will be the 'Undertakers' ball." On April 11 of that year it was noted that Brother Ed Langus '64 had been elected to be the "corpse" for the ball. 8 Undertakers also got its first mention in the Deke Quarterly in 1962, and was first mentioned in the Corolla in 1966. 9 Thereafter, it began to be mentioned regularly in the minute books, the Quarterly and the Corolla in the alternating years in which it took place after '65. So, it apparently took about a decade after its 1957 debut for Undertakers to become "the" Psi Chapter defining social event. The oldest Undertak- ers photos we have in the Psi Archives date from 1969, some of which appear with this article. Hopefully, further research will uncover the ultimate origin of the concept for an Un- dertakers' Ball. Personally, we would be pleased to confirm that the idea originated in the ancient Carnival traditions of France, since a substantial portion of the Psi mem- bership is rooted in Gulf South communities where Old-World Carnival and Mardi Gras traditions remain strong. While the concept of an Undertakers' Ball may not have originated in the Mansion on the Hill, we can all take pride in knowing that our chapter seems to have taken this idea to its loftiest and most long-lived heights. We have little doubt that much of the usage of this idea and name since 1957 has been inspired by our own biannual event, which is clearly known far and wide. We all owe a debt of gratitude to those Psi men of 1957 for finding an idea and staging an event that so perfectly fits into so much of what Psi is all about. Perhaps the living members of that special group of Dekes could honor us with their presence at the next Undertakers' Ball. If anyone has photos or stories that they would like to share from the Undertakers' Balls of yesteryear, particularly in its earliest incarnations, please send them, and we will do our best to publish them in future issues of Sighs of Psi. In the Bonds, T. Semmes Favrot '82 New Orleans, La. Alumni Historian sfavrot@cox.net 1 See Sighs of Psi, Spring 2017, page 7. 2 I highly recommend Brother Simmons' fascinating book, The Man Called Brown Condor. 3 "Life in Paris," Daily Missouri Democrat, April 10, 1875, via GenealogyBank.com. 4 "Funeral Home Revives Undertaker's Ball Tradition," Tulsa World, 11/21/2001. 5 T. S. Eliot: The Making of An American Poet, by James E. Miller, Jr., page 73. 6 Catalogue of Copyright Entries, P.3, V.15, p.6765; Argosy Allstory Weekly magazine 7 See 1952 Tulane University Jambalaya, p. 275; Abbo, Ruth (1955) "Where Else but at College?" The Iowa Homemaker: Vol. 35: No. 7, Article 3; http://lib.dr.iastate. edu/homemaker/vol35/iss7/3. 8 Psi Minute Book, Psi Archives. 9 Deke Quarterly, November 1962, Vol. 80, No. 1, page 117.

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