Mom Brought a Keg of Beer Home for Us

An unconventional fraternity housemother brought a fresh approach, along with beer.

Upon arriving at the University of Kansas (KU) in the fall of 1978, as an incoming freshman, I joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE, commonly known as, “Teke”) fraternity as a pledge. Established in 1942 at KU, the Teke house was the most recent fraternity to appear on campus; all other fraternities had been at KU for many years prior to that time. Being the “new kid on the block,” albeit a veteran of more than thirty-five years on campus, perhaps fostered a less traditional approach to fraternitizing (I would have gone with fraternizing, but that’s an actual word, and I thought it would be more fun to make up a new word).

Our fraternity house back then was an A-frame, ski-lodge-looking kind of place - likely built a good fifty years or so after most of the other houses on campus. And, another one of the fraternity’s distinctive features was its housemother, Elaine Hill.

Fraternities and sororities have long had this quaint tradition of including in the house a “housemother,” typically a widow in her 70’s, whose role was to provide sort of a grandmotherly shoulder to cry on, and to offer sage advice borne of a lifetime of experience in the real world, to young men and women living in the house.

Elaine - “Mom Hill”, as housemothers were then characterized - did not fit that mold. Elaine was a youngish divorcee (Googling her reveals that she was forty-two years old in 1978), who had already been on the job for five years at that point (Hey, it was the early ‘70’s, right? Standards and mores were being discarded left and right).

Mom Hill didn’t retreat to the sanctuary of her small apartment in the evening - she often joined fraternity members in the common-area TV room, usually with a beer, or a glass of wine in hand. And, as with many housewives, whose children were off to school during the day, she secured a job - in her case, managing a liquor store located not far from the house. This job offered synergies to me and my fraternity brothers - you guessed it: beer! I can recall Mom Hill coming home from work at the liquor store more than once with a keg of beer in tow, in the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle (a/k/a “VW Bug”). Ed. note: The woman pictured atop this column, hoisting a beer keg, is not Mom Hill - the picture is clearly of more recent vintage, and research performed in order to determine whether or not this woman ever worked as a housemother in a fraternity house were inconclusive.

The VW Bug was quite a quirky, and distinctive vehicle, and by the late 1970’s was becoming a fairly rare sight in Lawrence. The Teke house at that time featured not just the one Bug, but three. In addition to Elaine, one of my fraternity brothers who played in the (award-winning!) KU Marching Band with me, and who played the bass drum, and another fraternity brother who had an artificial leg, were Bug owners. It was quite entertaining watching Tag try to stuff his bass drum into the back seat of that car. And, I seem to remember Tom coaxing his car to run, while racing alongside it, door open, utilizing his one natural leg, and his other, artificial one, in order for it to achieve operational status; but, I can accept that I might instead have dreamed that scenario - it seems a bit far-fetched, no?

The VW Bug, for those of you who have learned of the exploits of serial killer, Ted Bundy, was also his vehicle of choice. Now, I’m not casting aspersions on my three old friends, and their choice of vehicle; each of them had their quirks though, which aligned in some cosmic way with their vehicular choice. Driving a baby-blue, AMC Pacer Wagon in those days myself, I clearly have no leg to stand on here (no slight intended to my friend, Tom). Rather, I fault Ted Bundy’s choice of a getaway car - isn’t the window-less, white, panel van the “go-to” option for serial killers?

Elaine also dated occasionally, and sometimes introduced her gentlemen-friends to us. Her cozy relationship with a local banker may have benefited the Teke house, inasmuch as our tight budget sometimes needed tweaking; perhaps this banker was offering financial management advice to our housemother, perhaps not.

Elaine had varied interests, and I recall that she was a jazz aficionado. In fact, I know that I joined her and others a couple of times at Paul Gray’s Jazzhaus, in downtown Lawrence, to see such jazz performers as, Doc Severinsen, and Phil Woods. I venture to guess that she was likely the only housemother in that scene - widows in their 70’s were unlikely to visit Paul Gray’s.

Needing a ride to the Kansas City airport one holiday, Elaine was kind enough to offer to drive me. We grabbed a couple of beers, and headed off to the airport in her VW Bug (hey, it was north of the city, and thus, more than an hour away; it’s very important to stay hydrated on long journeys). This was well before the time of GPS devices, and Google Maps directions, but we knew where we were going. . .theoretically. We missed the turnoff to the airport in Kansas City, and had to circle back quickly. I can remember racing into the terminal, after Elaine dropped me at the curb, and arriving at the departure gate a full ten minutes after the plane was to have left. For some reason the plane was still at the gate, and I was able to climb aboard, and make my flight. A couple of factors worked in my favor that day, including: the Kansas City airport is a very compact airport, with very few departure gates; and the time-consuming, 9-11-inspired, security steps were not yet in place back then.

Elaine enjoyed participating in campus events, including attending KU football (likely for the award-winning band, because the football team was usually non-competitive) and basketball games (a team which a KU graduate can actually boast about). One event that she disdained was the annual Christmas Tea, conducted to honor the services provided by fraternity and sorority housemothers. I may be paraphrasing here, but my thirty-year-old recollection of her response to this annual invitation was, “No way I’m going to hang out with those old biddies!”

Thanks, Mom Hill, for a unique and enjoyable housemother experience.