McGuffey House and Museum

"...Mrs. Hepburn, her daughter Miss Etta Hepburn, and Miss McKee had chosen it…The bush, which furnished the first Beta rose, grows on the front porch of the Western Female Seminary” (The Miami Student, June 1889).

The specific variety of rose selected is believed to have been Queen of the Prairie, an old-fashioned climbing pink rose. It was incorporated into the Great Seal of Beta Theta Pi. Today, the only known specimens of this rose in Oxford can be seen on the west wall of the McGuffey House and Museum. Two bushes were planted along the wall in October 2015 with funds donated by Drs. Ed and Sue Jones in memory of Sue’s mother, Eva M. Clement. Sue, former professor in The School of Education, serves as a docent at the Miami University Art Museum and the McGuffey House and Museum. Her husband, Ed, is a Wichita State Beta and Professor Emeritus from Miami’s Department of Teacher Education.

The front porch of the McGuffey House features wood Tuscan columns likely added during the mid-1920s when the Roudebush family purchased the property. Over the years the front porch columns, made of curved vertical staves, or boards, began to deteriorate, especially at the base. Contributing to the decay of the wooden columns was water wicking upward into the columns where they were in contact with the poured concrete porch floor. Because concrete sweats and holds moisture, it was less than an ideal material to be in direct contact with wood.The new columns are made of a sturdy composite fiberglass material. Miami’s Carpenter Shop staff removed the old columns and installed new composite fiberglass columns. The new columns, designed by staff in the Carpenter Shop, mirror nearly exactly the profile of the original columns. Ideally, it would have been preferable to install new wood columns, but a decision was made to introduce synthetic materials that in the long run will have a longer life expectancy while maintaining the aesthetic integrity of the house.