Delta UpsilonCORNELL

Treasure Trove of Historical Documents Found 

In 2008 brother Ron Decker ’55 made an extraordinary discovery: He found boxes of chapter records that he, as chapter president, had removed from the house more than fifty years ago. The house was having major repairs done that summer, and he wanted to put them away for safekeeping.

The records date back to even before the founding of the Cornell chapter in 1869, and chronicle the organization of the chapter, the construction of the first chapter house, the devastating fire of 1909, the construction of the existing structure and scores of other events in the history of the chapter. They offer a unique glimpse of college life more than a century ago. 

After reviewing them, it's safe to say you will agree: Few fraternities at Cornell have as rich a history. 

Digitizing History

In 2009 Tony Cashen '57 and Kevin Bruns '57 began the process of digitizing the materials. In the gallery on the right you will find several dozen of the more important or more interesting images and documents.

Nearly all of the archival material was found in bound, legal-size minute books (with lined, blank pages), most of which likely had not been opened since probably well before Ron Decker '55 brought them home for safe-keeping in the mid 1950s.

Perhaps the most interesting find were the biographical profiles that were created by unknown contemporaries -- likely undergraduate or alumni association officers -- of four or five decades of alumni brothers. In these sketches, written in hand, the lives of DUs were chronicled -- their post-Cornell degrees, first jobs, careers, political appointments, marriages and deaths.

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