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On January 10, 1899,
Three men rapidly converging on a rooming-house where two younger
men were awaiting them. These five men were going to meet at
the room occupied by Clarence A. Mayer and James C. McNutt.
Having now assembled at 504 East Locust Street in Bloomington,
Illinois, these five men formed the Knights of Classic Lore,
which grew to become Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. Let us now
consider who these five men were and what became of their lives
after they first met on that cold January night.
Click on the men to learn more about them.
Joseph
Lorenzo Settles was born November 2, 1871,
at the little town of Lexington, seventeen miles northeast of
Bloominton, Illinois. He had entered Illinois Wesleyan Academy
in the fall of 1896, being nearly 25 years of age, and completed
both the Academy and College courses, graduating from the later
in 1902. He must have been, at the age of 27, a freshman of
some four months standing; his short collegiate experience being
offset by his more mature age and his knowledge of conditions
at Wesleyan gained during his two years in the prep school.
Founder Settles worked at the Assistant Treasurer of the Methodist
Centenary Fund, and later moved to Los Angeles where he served
as the Executive Secretary of the Los Angeles Rotary Club. Settles
remained in Los Angeles until his death on February 15, 1943.
Owen Ison Truitt
was born at Spring Bay, Woodford County, Illinois, a tiny village
a few miles north of Peoria, on the east side of the Illinois
River, on November 20, 1868. He was therefore thirty years old
at the time of the founding. His secondary education was also
gained at the Wesleyan Academy. As he and Settles graduated
in the same class on June 19, 1902, they must have become well
acquainted both in the Academy and as fellow freshman in college,
whose life and experience at Wesleyan paralleled. Both were
in training for, and after graduation entered the ministry of
the Methodist Church, and both held student pastorates. Frater
Truitt subsequently served four pastorates all in the Central
Illinois Conference. On July 13, 1929, both he and his wife
were killed in a automobile accident. He was the first of the
Founders of "the Miracle Fraternity" to pass into the Chapter
Eternal.
Clarence Arthur
Mayer was born on May 18, 1879 at Mt. Pulaski,
Logan County, Illinois. Frater Mayer graduated from Illinois
Wesleyan in 1902. Mayer was the most colorful of the Founders.
He was a musician of great natural ability and exceptional training.
His field was the piano and pipe organ. In 1916 he and his wife
and Wallace Grieves founded the Springfield College of Music
and Allied Arts, of which he continued to be the director until
1926. Frater Mayer never ceased to be an active Teke and along
with Founder McNutt, laid down the eight criteria by which a
real Teke will always be recognized, and these epitomize the
actual creed of the Founders. When Clarence A. Mayer died on
August 8, 1960, Tau Kappa Epsilon lost not only a Founder, but
an inspiring leader and a pillar of greatness.
James Carson
McNutt, Frater Mayer's roommate, and was born
on June 13, 1878, in Herrick, Illinois. McNutt was the first
person whom Frater Settles approached with his plan for a new
fraternal organization. After graduation in 1901, Frater McNutt
taught school in Southern Illinois for a while, and then entered
Washington University School of Medicine, receiving his medical
degree in 1905. Dr. McNutt engaged in the general practice of
medicine, and in 1955, he received the Illinois Medical Society's
gold pin for fifty years of active practice. It is said that
in this fifty years Frater McNutt had delivered more than 4,500
babies. Frater McNutt kept an avid interest in the fraternity
he helped found, as manifested by attendance at Conclaves, by
speaking frequently at Founder's Day and other Teke banquets,
and by joining with the other Founders in addressing the Fraternity
at large. On May 19, 1962, this last of the Founders joined
those who had gone before, dying at the age of 83.
Charles Roy
Atkinson, who signed himself C. Roy Atkinson,
and was always called by his middle name, was born in Bloomington,
October 17, 1877, and resided in that city all his life. He
entered Illinois Wesleyan in 1896, and graduated in 1900.
He was therefore a junior at the time of the founding, and
scholastically two years in advance of his fellow Founders.
He was a quiet young man, but a fine singer, music being
the great accomplishment of his whole life. He had a leading
place in many church choirs of Bloomington, and at the time
of his death was director of music in the Sunday School of
the First Christian Church. He was official organist for the
Order of the Eastern Star, and he played for the various functions
of the Masonic Lodge. He was also chairman of the music committee
of the Kiwanis Club, of which he was a Past President and
Charter Member. Frater Atkinson met his death in an automobile
accident on September 14, 1930. A peculiarity of his funeral
was the absence of vocal music, for the reason that none of
the many persons with whom he had sung could trust themselves
not to break down during the service.
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