Frances Buell Olson
MASTER BUILDER OF FRATERNALISM
Since its inception in 1873, Degree of Honor’s success has been defined by women’s leadership. Certainly, that legacy has been the result of innumerable capable and compassionate women, but one among them remains extraordinary: Frances Buell Olson, Degree of Honor’s first National President.
It would be impossible to tell Degree of Honor’s story without telling Olson’s story. For, as one St. Paul newspaper articulated in 1931, “To understand the strength of Degree of Honor, one must know its president, Mrs. Olson, who almost single-handed, took it in its infancy and reared it into the efficient network which it is today.”[1]
Though it may seem difficult to imagine that Degree of Honor could attribute so much to a single woman, consider again that same article:
“It is difficult to say whether Mrs. Olson adopted the Degree of Honor, or the Degree of Honor adopted Mrs. Olson, so close is the relationship.”[2]
EARLY LIFE
Though our archives have not revealed how it was, or exactly when Frances Buell Olson came to be involved with Degree of Honor, one thing is certain: Her rise was meteoric.
Olson was born in Lake City, Minnesota in 1870 to English parents, but spent the majority of her life in the capital city of St. Paul.[3] After graduating high school, she completed a year-long business course and settled into teaching.[4] Olson was unsatisfied, however, and within a few years turned to the excitement of newspaper work.[5]
Her work in the news industry afforded her the opportunity to refine both her natural talent for sharp analysis and her entrepreneurial spirit. By 1897, Olson undertook the development of The Degree of Honor Review – a periodical she created to connect Degree of Honor’s thousands of members.[6] A resounding success, The Review was, within two years of its establishment, adopted as the official publication of the Association.
By 1900, her involvement in Degree of Honor grew deeper, and she was elected Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota. Just four years later, she was elected an officer of the Superior Lodge, Degree of Honor’s governing body.[7] But in 1908, the story truly begins to unfold.
UNCHARTED TERRITORY
On June 12, 1908, Frances Buell Olson was unanimously elected the Superior Chief of Honor — a vote that placed her at the helm of Degree of Honor’s fate.[8] The Association was, at the time of Olson’s election, still recognized only as the women’s auxiliary to the Ancient Order of United Workmen (AOUW) – the world’s first fraternal benefit society.
While that heritage had once been proud, by 1908, many members of the Association saw it as a tether. For years preceding her election, Olson had extensively studied the problems plaguing many fraternal societies of the time.[9] She and several other adept women within Degree of Honor grew concerned that the AOUW was verging on instability. They believed that the AOUW’s leadership was shortsighted, that their governance was in disarray, and most critically, that their inadequate assessment rates could inevitably lead to their financial ruin.[10]
As Olson took office, her voice was one of defiance: She called for a complete severance from the AOUW.[11]
History fails to deliver a parallel example of the significance of Olson’s desire for an independent female order. Though hundreds of fraternals had formed between 1868 and 1908, never had a female social auxiliary risen to supersede its parent order and become independent — much less when the parent order was the oldest and once-largest fraternal benefit society in the world. This simply hadn’t been done.
Unfazed by this uncharted territory, Olson negotiated the AOUW’s complete and amicable acquiescence within a year and a half. On December 10, 1910, Degree of Honor finally became an independent fraternal benefit society.[12]
That same day, Frances Buell Olson was reelected – again unanimously – for a second term, assuming the new title of National President. As she took the podium to address her beloved independent Association, Olson made it clear that she was only getting started.
A MODERN ASSOCIATION
Immediately following her reelection – now untethered, and with the passionate support of her membership — Olson outlined her vision for the future. She had two objectives which, if achieved, she believed would unify Degree of Honor and elevate the Association to its highest potential.
Her first undertaking was what The Fraternal Monitor, a contemporary fraternal publication, described as “a feat recognized as the maximum of fraternal achievement.”[13] Olson wanted the dozen Grand (state) Lodges of the Association to adopt National Fraternal Congress-approved premium rates for all members, old and new.[14]
Adopting these sound assessment rates was at the core of Olson’s decision to break from the AOUW. Inadequate rates were plaguing – and ruining – many formerly successful fraternals; they simply hadn’t based their rates on actuarial science and were crumbling because of it. Olson single-handedly managed to standardize rates across the Grand Lodges in less than two years’ time, ensuring Degree of Honor’s financial stability for the modern era. Of this accomplishment, The Monitor wrote: “This record alone speaks volumes for the great personality of this woman.”[15]
But Olson had a second goal.
DEGREE OF HONOR UNITED
Olson had achieved an independent order, and succeeded in modernizing rates to ensure Degree of Honor’s lasting solvency. But her biggest challenge was in unifying the hundreds upon hundreds of lodges that made up the Association. Taking yet another lesson from failed fraternals, Olson understood that no fraternal benefit society could survive if their lodges did not unite under a centralized, national authority – even her own.
Olson certainly had her work cut out: In the early twentieth century, each Grand Lodge essentially operated as a separate fraternal benefit society.[16] Every Grand Lodge insured its own members, issued its own insurance contracts, levied and collected its own assessments, paid its own claims and kept its own accounts.[17] Olson’s challenge was to persuade each Grand Lodge to surrender its ability to do business independently, and instead, come under the jurisdiction of the National Office.[18]
She set out to accomplish this goal in 1910. One by one, Olson persuaded each of the 15 Grand Lodges to acquiesce to her vision of a nationalized, unified Degree of Honor. Though it took 18 years of tireless effort to achieve, Olson accomplished this lasting unity in 1928. The impact of this undertaking on Degree of Honor’s success cannot be overemphasized. A 1931 article from the Minnesota Business & Professional Women’s Association stated:
“It is a recognized fact in the fraternal system that the Degree of Honor Protective Association is great because years ago Mrs. Olson started a campaign to unite the many state Degree of Honor organizations.”[19]
She “took up these burdens single-handed, and if she ever faltered, no one on earth became aware of the fact.”[20] This series of achievements, arguably unparalleled in fraternal history, earned her the well-deserved title “stalwart Master Builder of Fraternalism.”[21]
“EVERY INCH A MAN”
Frances Buell Olson was widely recognized during her lifetime as “a master builder with great vision.”[22] Though she achieved her goals of modernized rates and unification by 1928, her lifetime of work hardly stopped there.
Between 1925-1934 – the height of the Great Depression – when the world’s economy was in a shambles, Degree of Honor managed to grow its surplus by $3 million.[23] Under Olson’s 45-year tenure as National President, membership soared to well over 100,000.[24] Degree of Honor was extensively regarded as an organization “without parallel in the insurance field.”[25]
Beyond Degree of Honor, she “contributed largely to the great common cause of fraternal insurance.”[26] She served as president of the Minnesota Federation of Fraternal Women.[27] During her 45 years as National President of Degree of Honor, she held executive roles in numerous National Fraternal Congress committees, and in 1929 was the second woman elected the Congress’ president – a position that placed her, in every sense, at “the head of the fraternal system of America.”[28]
In considering Olson’s extensive list of successes, one can see why she once garnered a U.S. Congressman’s admiring exclamation that Frances Buell Olson was a woman who was “every inch a man.”[29]
A LASTING LEGACY
What more can be said of Frances Buell Olson? She was described as a master orator; as having a “deep vein of sympathy,” and a “clear form of expression reminiscent of skilled rapier thrusts.”[30] She delighted in driving automobiles and in sharing the company of friends.[31] She planned and built two apartment houses.[32] After being widowed less than two years into her marriage, she raised her late husband’s three children for fourteen years, and never remarried.[33]
Olson once said that her enthusiasm in Degree of Honor required no incentive, and her faith no encouragement.[34] Instead, she regretted only that she “had not more time and greater ability to give” to her work.[35]
As we reminisce on the legacy of Frances Buell Olson – on her lifelong labor of love in the “vineyard of fraternalism”[36] that still connects Degree of Honor’s members — let us remember her wise words from 1910:
“That we learn to be tender and to be kind to each other. To be able to bear trials bravely, to decide without prejudice, and to rise above suspicion; to look for the beautiful and the good in the common things about us; to let the sway of inward trust and peace rise to our lips and permeate our lives.”[37]
Footnotes:
[1] “National Headquarters of Degree of Honor in St. Paul; Order Built by St. Paul Woman,” Newspaper Unknown, Sunday, August 30, 1931.[1] “National Headquarters of Degree of Honor in St. Paul; Order Built by St. Paul Woman,” Newspaper Unknown, Sunday, August 30, 1931.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” in Builders of Fraternalism in America (Chicago: The Fraternal Book Concern, 1924), 61-67.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Photo History of Frances Buell Olson, 1954, Degree of Honor Archives.
[6] “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” in Builders of Fraternalism in America (Chicago: The Fraternal Book Concern, 1924), 61-67.
[7] Photo History of Frances Buell Olson, 1954, Degree of Honor Archives.
[8] Proceedings of the Superior Lodge, Degree of Honor, AOUW: Eleventh Stated Meeting (1908), 152-52.
[9] “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” in Builders of Fraternalism in America (Chicago: The Fraternal Book Concern, 1924), 61-67.
[10] Frances Buell Olson, “Report of the Superior Chief of Honor” (Lecture, Louisville, KY, December 6, 1910).
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Clara Bender, “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” The Degree of Honor Review, September 1936, 16-17.
[20] “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” in Builders of Fraternalism in America (Chicago: The Fraternal Book Concern, 1924), 61-67.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Clara Bender, “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” The Degree of Honor Review, September 1936, 16-17.
[23] “National Headquarters of Degree of Honor in St. Paul; Order Built by St. Paul Woman,” Newspaper Unknown, Sunday, August 30, 1931.
[24] Clara Bender, “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” The Degree of Honor Review, September 1936, 16-17.
[25] Ibid.
[26] “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” in Builders of Fraternalism in America (Chicago: The Fraternal Book Concern, 1924), 61-67.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Frances Buell Olson, “Report of the Superior Chief of Honor” (Lecture, Louisville, KY, December 6, 1910).
[35] Ibid.
[36] “Mrs. Frances Buell Olson,” in Builders of Fraternalism in America (Chicago: The Fraternal Book Concern, 1924).
[37] Ibid.