Fraternizing with Alpha Delta Phi

The third in an occasional series about where John Bellairs lived during his time in Chicago.

No, John Bellairs was not a member of any social or professional fraternal organization, from what we can tell.  Yet, one may ask why he once lived in a University of Chicago fraternity house.

The Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity House (5747 South University Avenue) is a building at the University of Chicago.  Bellairs and Bernard Markwell were residents here during the summer of 1962. While neither were associated with the fraternity, it is assumed the house was being used as an all-purpose summer residence for students, graduate or otherwise.

I suppose at this point we're curious whether anyone else is around to confirm whether fraternity houses were used in this manner, or if anyone remembers staying here during the time period.

While there, Markwell wrote his master's thesis “Disreali and the Coalition War, 1853-55” on legal pads which Bellairs later typed on his portable typewriter [1].

The University of Chicago Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi began in 1896.  The house, completed in the fall of 1929, has a plain Gothic design and was built of Indiana limestone that matches the architecture of the university quadrangles [2].

Resources

[1] Correspondence with Bernard Markwell (2003).
[2] "The Chicago Chapter".  AlphaDeltaPhi.org.