Alice Bird Babb

Alice Bird Babb (May 8, 1850 – November 21, 1926) was a professor and one of the founders of the P.E.O. Sisterhood. She worked with the sisterhood for 36 years. In 2022, a Wyoming chapter held a play in which members portrayed her and the six other founders.

Personal life Babb was born on May 8, 1850, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, to Wellington Bird and Sarah Thornton. Her father was a physician in southeastern Iowa from 1849 until he died in 1897. Babb was educated in public schools, Howe's Academy, and then Iowa Wesleyan University, where she graduated from as an honor student in 1869. She married Washington Irving Babb in 1873 and they had four children. She moved to Aurora, Illinois, in 1906. Babb died on November 21, 1926, in Aurora.

Career On January 21, 1869, Babb and six other female students at Iowa Wesleyan University founded the P.E.O. Sisterhood. Babb wrote its constitution as well as its oath, was the first of them to take the oath, and was the first president of the first chapter. Babbs said that she wrote the oath in the "Holy of Holies", in reference to a spare bedroom. On August 27, 2022, P.E.O. Sisterhood members in Wyoming acted out the founders of the sisterhood with members portraying the seven founders.