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SIGMA CHI ALUMS STILL CALL HER 'MOM'
By Bayard Stern
Managing editor, Florida State Times
Thousands of men call her Mom. Now those same men have started a scholarship in her name. Lois Fletcher became "Mom" Fletcher by being a fraternity house mother, friend and confidante.
At 87, Mom Fletcher is vibrant, and she still has a sense of humor. And fraternity members have raised more than $100,000 for the "Mom" Fletcher/Sigma Chi endowed scholarship.
"She's a wonderful person and strong as a human being can be in spirit," said Lyman Fletcher, who called her Mom well before he joined the fraternity. "She has met every challenge life has thrown at her and conquered it."
Before she was known as Mom, Lois Lyman, not yet Fletcher, came from Melbourne, Fla., with her sister to be a student at Florida State College for Women.
"I lived in Reynolds Hall, and some girls always wanted everything to be quiet," Fletcher said. "We had strict rules, too strict for me."
At FSCW Lois enjoyed dancing ballet, writing and swimming. She also earned scholarship money as a "dining room girl."
"My skills at waiting tables weren't very good," Fletcher admits 65 years later. "Each person had two tables, and they were served in a very formal manner. Ten people to a table. The trays were huge."
She managed and graduated with a social work degree in 1933.
She met her future husband, Ward Fletcher, on a blind date, and they were married for 21 years. They had four children, all FSU graduates.
Ward Fletcher had a military career, taught at West Point and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He went on to become an FSU math and science professor. In 1952, he died unexpectedly at the age of 44 of heart problems.
"We went to sleep with a father and woke up the next morning without one," Lyman Fletcher recalls.
His mother found a job at FSU's financial aid office and was the assistant director of student financial affairs until 1977. She did more than work for her family and be a loving mother. She also laid the groundwork for her future as a fraternity housemother.
"I used to ride and chaperone in the Leon High School band bus," Fletcher said. "No grown-up wanted to ride in that bus because it was so noisy But I was used to noise, so that didn't make any difference."
After her children finished high school, the band trips stopped and new chaperoning challenges awaited her.
"Lyman and David were in college," Fletcher recalls of her sons. "I walked into it. They both joined Sigma Chi. They needed chaperones for their dances, and I enjoyed doing that."
In the early 1960s, Mom Fletcher began to live, eat and sleep in a house full of fraternity boys, and she continued it for more than 20 years.
"They were more like sons than anything else," Fletcher said. "I knew a lot about what they were doing I overlooked some things. We all had a lot of fun.
"They would have parties, and I would go with them because they always had to have a chaperone. I learned a lot of different kinds of dances."
But going to parties was only a small part of her duties.
"Mom was truly a mother to a lot of young men," said Palmer Williams, a '68 graduate who is helping create the scholarship. "Any time someone was having problems, she was the adult to go to She helped some people out of trouble when their financial aid ran out. She gave money out of her own pocket. They didn't have to sign anything, just a hug and a handshake."
Lyman and David Fletcher, attorneys in Jacksonville, are also helping with the scholarship.
"She was always helping somehow," said Lyman Fletcher. "She has a very high moral character and is a solid member of the Trinity Methodist Church. She's from the old school and doesn't wear her morality on her sleeve."
Mom Fletcher's ability to touch young people's lives is coming full circle when those same people, now older, are donating money in her name.
They will ask, "Who is 'Mom' Fletcher?" and someone will smile and tell them. For information about the scholarship fund please call Tony Palmer at 770/541-4980.