24 The Magazine of Sigma Chi • Fall 2017The Magazine of Sigma Chi • Fall 2017

The first Sigma Chi-owned chapter house, pictured above circa 1890, was built at Hanover College.

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Fall 2017 • The Magazine of Sigma Chi 25

What began as a personal project for Chris Barbera, HANOVER

2017, turned into one that will have a lasting impact on the

International Fraternity. When Barbera was an undergraduate, he began

researching where the original Hanover chapter house, which opened in 1890, once stood. It was destroyed by a tornado in 1974, and Barbera wanted to learn the exact location on the lot where the home was. After he located it, he and other chapter brothers unveiled a plaque on Oct. 1, 2016, noting it as the first chapter house to be financed and constructed for Sigma Chi. The plaque also recognizes Fifth Grand Consul Walter Fisher, HANOVER 1883, who led the financing of the house. Mark Dunning, HANOVER 1983, petitioned and secured approval for the recent creation by the Fraternity’s Monuments and Memorials Commission.

“It was very rewarding,” Barbera says of the project, adding that he began it because he thought knowing the exact site of the house could add to his chapter’s history and the General Fraternity’s as well.

The structure housed Sigma Chis from 1890 to 1917, until the chapter went dormant because of World War I. It was later sold to the college, and when chapter operations resumed in 1936, its members lived in another location. The chapter then moved into a new home in 1941 and yet another one in 1955. It has lived in the latter home since then, save for a few years in the 2000s when brothers resided elsewhere.

Over the years, generations of brothers spoke of the old chapter house, some visiting the empty lot where it stood, and once construction took place on or near the lot, some tried to ascertain where the structure had stood. Barbera was one of those who tried to learn exactly where the house was. By the time he entered college, the lot where the house stood was no longer on the outskirts of the college, where it had been before other buildings popped up in the area.

The November 1915 Sigma Chi directory only lists the structure as having been on College Drive, but

does not include a house number. Because of the construction in the area, gone are the steps that were once on the lot near where the house stood, making Barbera’s job trickier.

However, he is confident he has the location narrowed down well. He

examined aerial photos that showed the aftermath of the tornado, as

well as others from the 1930s and

For years, Hanover Sigs

have talked about marking

the site of their 1890 to

1917 chapter house, which

was the first within the

Fraternity to be financed

and built for a chapter.

That dream recently

became reality, with

a plaque dedicated on

Oct. 1, 2016, to recognize

the location of the house.

By Susan Lorimor

Left: Hanover chapter brothers Chris Barbera, 2017 and Mark Dunning, 1983, stand in front of the plaque at the site of their original chapter house in Hanover, Indiana, on Oct. 1, 2016. Barbera helped locate the spot where the house once stood, and Dunning petitioned and secured placement of the plaque.

Fall 2017 • The Magazine of Sigma Chi The Magazine of Sigma Chi

has lived in the latter home since then, save for a few years in the 2000s when brothers resided elsewhere.

Over the years, generations of brothers spoke of the old chapter house, some visiting the empty lot where it stood, and once construction took place on or near the lot, some tried to ascertain where the structure had stood. Barbera was one of those who tried to learn exactly where the house was. By the time he entered college, the lot where the house stood was no longer on the outskirts of the college, where it had been before other buildings popped up in the area.

The November 1915 Sigma Chi directory only lists the structure as having been on College Drive, but

does not include a house number. Because of the construction in the area, gone are the steps that were once on the lot near where the house stood, making Barbera’s job trickier.

However, he is confident he has the location narrowed down well. He

examined aerial photos that showed the aftermath of the tornado, as

well as others from the 1930s and

Left: Hanover chapter brothers Chris Barbera, Dunning, of the plaque at the site of their original chapter house in Hanover, Indiana, on Oct. 1, 2016. Barbera helped locate the spot where the house once stood, and Dunning petitioned and secured placement of the plaque.

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The Magazine of Sigma Chi • Fall 201726

1940s that displayed where the house once stood. Through his research, he determined where the house was. “I knew where it was at [prior to that], give or take 500 feet,” he says. “I think we have the plaque where it was give or take 10 feet.”

Barbera made a class trip to Washington, D.C., in May 2015, and visited Dunning; that is when memorializing the site of the original chapter house was the topic of discussion. “We talked about how cool it would be to put a plaque at the spot where the first chapter house was,” Barbera says.

The plaque stands in a grassy lot on the other side of a parking lot; potential clues to the house’s exact location were old chunks of concrete found on the site that could have been the steps. However, Barbera says it’s hard to tell if they are from the house; the area where they were found had been excavated for a building and they could have simply been left behind in the process.

Mike Graham, HANOVER 1995, says that after he graduated, he learned that the steps had been removed, and he was sad to hear it. He sat on them several times as an undergraduate as he visited the old chapter house lot. “I used to walk over there every once in a while and sit on the steps,” he says, adding that it was a place for him to get away and think or relax. “It kind of gave me comfort … It made me feel not alone.”

He says that while he was on the steps, he thought of the brothers who had gone before him who also had not done well on a test or who had girlfriend problems. However, Graham is quick to point out that he went to the steps in good times, too, when he simply wanted to be alone.

For Graham, it was like the physical representation of his connection to the old home was gone, though it is now replaced by the plaque. He says that when he was an undergraduate, his chapter also raised the idea of erecting a sign to mark the location of the original chapter house, and he was told that other classes had done the same thing, to no avail. Thus, when he learned that Barbera and others had not only brought forth the idea, but had received the green light to put the sign in place and have it dedicated, he was excited.

Working with those at Hanover College, Dunning secured permission from its president, Lake Lambert III, Ph.D., to place the

Above: On Oct. 1, 2016, Chris Barbera and then-Consul Jacob Baumann, both HANOVER 2017, unveil a plaque that was put into place to recognize the site of their chapter’s original chapter house, built in 1917. The plaque also pays tribute to Fifth Grand Consul Walter Fisher, HANOVER 1883, who led the financing of the house.

Below: On one side of the plaque that memorializes the site of the original Hanover chapter house in Hanover, Indiana, is a tribute to Fifth Grand Consul Walter Fisher, HANOVER 1883, who led the financing of the house. According to the Sigma Chi Quarterly, the predecessor to The Magazine of Sigma Chi, the chapter decided to purchase a site for the house in 1888 that overlooked Crowe Falls and the ravine at which the chapter founders had met in the spring of 1871 when they decided to push their efforts forward to obtain a Fraternity charter. Otto Matz, a Chicago architect, designed the home, which cost about $4,500 to build. Fisher, acting as trustee of Hanover’s chapter house association, issued 180 shares of stock for the

par value of $25 to finance the house. On Oct. 3, 1891, Fisher executed a declaration of trust stating that he held the property as a trustee for the stock owners, subject to the control of the owner or

owners of a majority of the shares. Brothers bought $2,300 of the $4,500 of stock and Fisher borrowed the remaining balance of $2,200 from a local

building association, according to the Quarterly. The house was furnished by the undergraduate chapter, and those who lived in it paid room rent to the chapter house association.

HONORING AN HONORING AN HONORING AN HISTORIC HOUSEHISTORIC HOUSEHISTORIC HOUSEHISTORIC HOUSE

give or take 500 feet,” he says. “I think we have the

memorializing the site of the original chapter house

on the site that could have been the steps. However,

excavated for a building and they could have simply

he graduated, he learned that the steps had been

Above: On Oct. 1, 2016, Chris Barbera and then-Consul Jacob Baumann, both , unveil a plaque that was put into place to recognize the site of their

chapter’s original chapter house, built in 1917. The plaque also pays tribute to Fifth

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Fall 2017 • The Magazine of Sigma Chi 27

plaque on campus. On April 8, 2016, the Executive Committee voted to give its approval to place the Hanover chapter site on the list of 14 monuments and memorials, which include monuments at the Founders’ gravesites and Sigma Chi International Fraternity Headquarters in Evanston, Illinois.

Dunning, Barbera and those involved in the creation of the plaque also raised $5,200, which was more than enough to pay for it and the dedication ceremony, held later that year in October. At the event, Lambert, then-Consul Jacob Baumann, 2017; Barbera; Jeff Studds, 1977; and then-Tribune Zach Gabbert, 2019; addressed the crowd. Dunning says 92 people were in attendance. Graham says he was sad he missed it, but he saw the photos online of the ceremony that his brothers posted.

THE RISE OF THE CHAPTER HOUSEYears before the first Sigma Chi-owned

chapter house opened at Hanover

College in the fall of 1890, other

chapters across the country were

renting and residing in their own living

spaces. Thus, the honor of establishing

the first Sigma Chi chapter house

goes to Sigs at the University of

Michigan, who rented a house in 1885.

The Northwestern and MIT chapters

followed in 1886 when they rented

their houses. Within a few years there

were also rented chapter houses at

California-Berkeley, Minnesota and

Southern California.

In 1882, the Gettysburg chapter

was the first to establish a fund

for the purpose of building its own

house. Other chapters followed by

establishing their fundraising efforts,

such as Albion in 1886 and Hanover

in 1888. These efforts resulted in the

first Sigma Chi-owned houses in the

early 1890s. Hanover was the first to

open such a house.

Yet, with all of this positive housing

activity, by the end of the 1800s there

was an ongoing debate on the merits

of chapter houses. Critics called them

“elitist” and claimed that chapter

houses would remove fraternity

members from the mainstream of

university life. The debate within the

Greek-letter community, however, was

overwhelmingly supportive.

The editors of The Magazine of Sigma Chi agreed and carried several

supportive editorials on the subject.

Following the opening of the Hanover

chapter house, the Albion and

Gettysburg chapters completed their

own “lodges” in 1891, but they were

essentially one-room meeting houses

with no accommodations. Over the

next several years, other chapters

joined in with construction of their own

structures and by 1894, the editors of

The Magazine of Sigma Chi asserted

that chapter houses were recognized

as necessary for the growth of every

fraternity, saying that chapters’ well-

being depends upon them.

As a final acknowledgement of the

growing importance of chapter houses

to the well-being of the Fraternity,

ninth Grand Consul and 13th Grand

Historian Joseph Cookman Nate,

ILLINOIS WESLEYAN 1890, proposed at

the 22nd Grand Chapter in 1895 in

Cincinnati that the Fraternity establish

a chapter house endowment fund.

Members voted to initiate the fund,

which provided $500 loans for the

construction or acquisition of chapter

houses. Today, Constantine Capital

Inc. makes use of Fraternity and

Foundation endowments by providing

loans of up to $250,000 for chapter

house improvement.

This abridged story originally appeared in the fall 2008 Magazine of Sigma Chi.

For Barbera, Dunning and other Hanover Sigs, the event was meaningful, capping many months of work to memorialize the site of their original chapter house. “I’m glad it had come to a conclusion,” Barbera says, noting that he learned an important lesson from his efforts. “It’s never too late to get involved in a project you find interesting.”

He also said in the speech he delivered at the dedication that the project allowed him the opportunity to see the bonds of brotherhood that are shared across the generations, as men he had never met before helped him in the process.

Above left: The original Hanover chapter house built in 1890. Photo courtesy of Hanover College Archives, PH3_Box9_F012.tif.

Above right: Those associated with the Hanover chapter sit on the porch steps in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of Hanover College Archives, A10524035.tif.

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