Centennial Memory #100: Founder's Cross Recipients

To celebrate the DeMolay Centennial, PA DeMolay will be observing 100 memories worth celebrating that took place within the DeMolay Chapters and Jurisdiction of Pennsylvania.

The Founder’s Cross is an award that was given out by the Founder of DeMolay, Frank S. Land. "Dad" Land gave the award to several deserving individuals who were loyal to him and to the Order of DeMolay. Below, you will find the proper description of the award, according to the 9th Edition DeMolay Handbook:

"The Founder's Cross is the most prized and highest distinction that could possibly come to anyone connected with the DeMolay movement. 

The award is not a Supreme Council honor but was a personal recognition by the late Dad Land of those whom he desired to honor for their personal, consistent and conspicuous loyalty and service to him in making the Order of DeMolay the greatest youth movement of its kind in the world.

The award was established in June, 1937, and only 135 were presented up to Dad Land's death on Nov. 8, 1959. The Founder's Cross is now officially retired."

Of the 135 awards given out, 11 of them were given to representatives of Pennsylvania DeMolay. Here are the names of the Pennsylvania recipients:

Louis U. Strassburger - Germantown 12/15/1937

Kendig C. Bare - Lancaster 6/22/1939

James N. Deeter - St. Mary’s 6/22/1939

William A. Hoffman - Beaver Falls 6/22/1939

W. I. Hurst - Johnstown 6/22/1939

Wilbur L. Minich - Harrisburg 6/22/1939

James A. Wieland - Pittsburgh 6/22/1939

M. J. Bishop - Beaver Falls 10/27/1939

Paul M. Moore - Butler 10/28/1939

James N. Wilson - Erie 10/28/1939 Edward A. King - Pittsburgh 12/6/1956

Although the location of a few of them can not be accounted for, PA DeMolay is in possession of one, which can be found in the display cases at Patton Campus. Pilgrim Chapter is also in possession of one, which belonged to longtime Chapter Advisor, Wilbur Minich.

Until next time - "Dad" Joe Pullin

Keeping the Founder's Cross in the DeMolay Family

Today, we have a guest blog post from the original writer for the PA DeMolay blog, "Dad" Seth Anthony. Thank you "Dad" Anthony for contributing to the blog.
  

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog for PA DeMolay, but, something happened this past week that I just had to share and chime in on.

Before I left the Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation, I spent some time working to catalog and track down the known DeMolay Founder’s Crosses, presented by Frank S. Land to his most loyal supporters.  I’ve written several posts on this topic before, so take a minute to catch up if you haven’t read my previous entries:

• Finding the Founder’s Cross
• Walt Disney, DeMolay, and the Founder’s Cross
• Who Cares About History? Part One
• Who Cares about History? Part Two

Over the last week, a Founder’s Cross was spotted on eBay, with the auction ending on Sunday night. I found the auction within hours of its posting and got the word out to key members of DeMolay International, in hopes of keeping the item within the fraternity. The jewel belonged to “Dad” Harry Weiss, of the State of Washington. The final bid for the auction was $3,750. Yes, you read that right.

To be clear, the jewel is not made of any precious metal and does not contain any gem stones. While nicely designed, there is no intrinsic value to the jewel itself. The medal went for this kind of money because of its historical context. This, to me, is horrifying. 

While I own several pieces of DeMolay regalia, I don’t own a Founder’s Cross (and never will.) I fully admit I’m a regalia nerd. I can’t explain my attraction to it, but it’s something I’m passionate about. PA DeMolay, traditionally, has been very conservative in regards to wearing regalia – and I too fall into that camp. However, I find some measure of satisfaction in finding old, unusual, or historically significant pieces of regalia and adding them to my collection or securing them for display with PA DeMolay. I’m also lucky in that I was asked to serve on the DeMolay International Ritual and Regalia committee so that I could lend my expertise in this area. Unfortunately, by discussing and bringing light to the Founder’s Cross problem, I fear I’ve only made it worse.

The sale of this Founder’s Cross, for that large of a sum, is very disconcerting to me. We witnessed a piece of our history being sold to the highest bidder. This is the third in as many years that this has happened.  To anyone outside of DeMolay, this piece has little value. Weis was not a well-known man and he didn’t have a following otherwise (such as Disney or Mayo.) We, as Brothers, bid against each other to get the jewel to that level… and to what end?

I don’t know who won the auction. I can only hope that it was someone affiliated with DeMolay in Washington. My guess is that it wasn’t. What I do know is that they spent $3,750 to get the item when they were, assuredly, bidding against others within the Fraternity (whether in the US or abroad.)

As we approach the 100th Anniversary of our Order, we should be working to preserve our history and build up our assets as an organization – not as individual collectors trying to obtain the “holy grail” of DeMolay. 

For this reason, I’m going to ask the leadership of DeMolay International to consider creating a more formalized DeMolay Museum, where artifacts, such as Founder’s Crosses, may be donated and preserved for future generations. 

If you have a Founder’s Cross, or another important physical piece of DeMolay history, please, I beg you, don’t keep it in a private collection for only you to enjoy. Placing the piece on permanent loan or donating it outright, to DeMolay International, a DeMolay Jurisdiction, or an appropriate museum is the right thing to do. 

If you’re curious as to the location of the Founder’s Crosses, check out this list that I prepared that details every Founder’s Cross that we know of. 

https://pademolay.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/founders-cross-listing-updated.pdf

If you have additional information regarding the location of any of these jewels, please email me at sethant@gmail.com. I intend to update the list in the coming weeks.

~ Frat!

“Dad” Seth Anthony

Walt Disney, DeMolay, and the Founder's Cross

Today's blog post is one of the most exciting I've ever been able to make.

Previously, on this blog, we've talked about Walt Disney's membership in DeMolay and shared with you some correspondence he wrote about the organization. A couple of weeks ago, I posted my research about the Founder's Cross, of which Walt Disney was a recipient.

Now, thanks to the work of some fellow researchers, we've secured photos of Bro. Disney's Founder's Cross and membership card. These are in possession of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, CA.

These pictures are absolutely amazing and credit for them is due to Mr. Ed Brucker (who's son is a member of Missouri DeMolay) who has been assisting me with tracking down information regarding the Founder's Cross. I'd also like to offer public kudos to "Dad" Tom Varner, of Virginia, who has been compiling biographies of several recipients (with hopes of having a book of biographies available at some point.)

This is what researching DeMolay history is all about - Brothers working together to make discoveries about our past and preserve them for the future!

Frat! ~ "Dad" Seth Anthony

Finding the Founder's Cross

Here we are at Day 3 of Blog Week, and this is a doozy.

This post has been in the works for several months and I'm excited to be able to share it with you. I also hope that all of you out there in DeMolayland can help me with this project. It's something I've become quite passionate about and I hope to be able to complete in the years to come (yes, I said years; it's that big of a project!)

Previously, on this very blog, we've talked about the Founder's Cross. For those that may not know what a Founder's Cross is, we'll take the description from the 9th Edition DeMolay Handbook for our starting point:

The Founder's Cross is the most prized and highest distinction that could possibly come to anyone connected with the DeMolay movement.

The award is not a Supreme Council honor but was a personal recognition by the late Dad Land of those whom he desired to honor for their personal, consistent and conspicuous loyalty and service to him in making the Order of DeMolay the greatest youth movement of its kind in the world.

The award was established in June, 1937, and only 135 were presented up to Dad Land's death on Nov. 8, 1959. The Founder's Cross is now officially retired.

It was with that tiny block of text and a failed eBay auction, that my journey began. Over the course of my years with PA DeMolay, I've worked to recover and locate a couple of Founder's Crosses (with little success, sadly.) Knowing of my passion for this subject, "Dad" Labagh swung by the DeMolay International Service and Leadership Center in Kansas City, MO, during his last visit. He went on a hunt for information relating to this honor. With the help of Dad Frank Nordstrom, Director of Education for DI, he located a file full of typewritten papers, detailing the known recipients of the Founder's Cross.

These documents contained more information than has ever been publicly available about the Founder's Cross and the men whom Dad Land chose to honor. I devoured this information and quickly began digitizing it, putting it into a spreadsheet so that I could get a better grasp on what I was working with. The first thing I immediately noticed was the number of awards - 137. As stated above, it was thought that Land gave out 135 during his life. However, we now know that the final tally was 137. This breakthrough would be the first of many.

After digitizing the data, I began researching every person listed. Some were easy to find, as they were very prominent citizens. Others, however, have remained highly elusive. Several names only contained initials and a last name, along with a city of residence, making tracking very difficult. I persisted, eventually researching every person on the list. Now, my attention turned towards verifying what I had found and locating as many of the jewels as possible, in an effort to prevent them from coming up on the auction block or being lost to history.

With my initial investigations complete, I wrote a letter to every Executive Officer from a Jurisdiction wherein a Founder's Cross was presented, asking them to help me reconcile the information and locate the jewels. Several responded, sometimes with corrections, sometimes with more information, and in a few cases, with the locations of the jewels.

Speaking of which, the jewels themselves have turned out to contain some interesting historical nuggets as well. While at DeMolay International, "Dad" Labagh discovered a Founder's Cross jewel in the file with the documents. It was supposed to have been presented to William B. Massey, of Missouri. Massey was an involved Scottish Rite Mason and served as the Sovereign Grand Inspector General for Missouri, which is probably how Land knew him so well. The interesting part, however, is that the jewel designated to go to Massey contains the 1949 DeMolay emblem (the one we use today.) All previously known versions of the jewels used the logo from the 1930's. This indicates to us that Land had at least two "strikings" of the jewels done, one prior to 1949, and one after.

With all of this research done, I'm now turning to you, the general DeMolay public, to help me with my research and hopefully locate more of these pieces of history. If you'd like to help, or if you'd like to view the data, you can click here to download a .pdf copy of my master spreadsheet.

If you can offer any more information, such as the location of a jewel, or biographical details of a recipient, please email me at webmaster@pademolay.org. Together, we can work to restore a piece of DeMolay's history for future generations.
Frat! ~ "Dad" Seth Anthony