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DPU House mother Wanda Costin makes frat house a home
Steeped in tradition, the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house at DePauw University is a storehouse of history and memories nestled into its home on narrow Taylor Place.
The formal room is adorned with portraits of such distinguished alumni as Timothy Ubben (he of the Ubben Lecture Series), F.C. "Bud" Tucker (whose real estate firm still bears his name) and Roy O. West and Ira Blackstock, whose names are immortalized on campus facilities (Roy O. West Library and Blackstock Stadium).
The signature table bears the autographs of legendary Delts from as long ago as the 1930s etched into its wooden top.
The obligatory fraternity composite rests atop a decorative fireplace mantle with the carpeted seal of Delta Tau Delta laid out in front of it.
Wonderful relics and souvenirs all.
But helping make the fraternity house a home for 60 young men each of the past 19 years has been the mission of Wanda Hoover Costin, who came aboard as cook/house mother in 1995 and has been fulltime house mother since 2005.
That will all end this year for the 63-year-old Costin, who is retiring for health reasons and will be moving to Florida to be closer to her grandchildren.
An open house/retirement party in her honor is set for 1-5 p.m. Saturday, May 10 -- a fitting time, what with Mothers' Day on Sunday. The public is invited to the event at the Greencastle Elks Club hosted by U.S. Foods salesmen Bob Whilfing and Andy Lewis, whom Costin has known since she started as a cook at the Beta House in 1979.
What Costin has meant to the fraternity is apparent with her selection as 2013-14 winner of the Order of Omega Distinguished Service Award for service to fraternities and sororities at DePauw. She is said to be the first non-alumni, non-student winner of the honor.
Costin feels right at home with commotion and camaraderie of a house full of young men.
"I come from a family where mom and dad had 17 children and she raised four of her sister's kids."
That was in a small West Virginia town where her father worked in the coal mines and died at only age 53.
For Wanda, doctor's orders are dictating it's time for her to slow down.
"It's not my choice," she assured. "My retirement is based more on medical reasons. I had colon cancer last June, and so far it's not come back but my doctors want me to get away from stress."
So after Alumni Weekend in early June, she'll lock up the frat house. Retirement will then set in and she'll depart for Florida to join daughter Jennifer Watkins and her husband Dennis, intent upon spoiling grandchildren Matthew, 11, and Andrew, 9.
Her son, Ray Hoover, lives in Greencastle, and she has a stepson, Rob Costin and wife Tricia and their two girls, Courtney, 22, and Cassie, 12.
But the men of Taylor Place are her surrogate sons and grandsons as well.
Because of them she hasn't missed a Monon Bell football game or a Little 500 bike race in 18 years and has made hundreds of friends for life.
Not surprisingly, they tell her things they wouldn't tell their own mothers, sharing too much information and too many details of their personal lives at times, but nonetheless finding a sympathetic ear in Costin.
Among her cherished memories will be "just getting to know all the kids and watching them grow," she said.
"When they first get here," Costin mused, "they can be kind of backward but you get to see them grow into young men where they're ready to go out and face the world."
She said learning when to be stern with them and when to let them make their own decisions was a key to gaining their trust.
"The most crazy thing," Costin said, "they'll come and tell you everything they did partying the night before and all about their girls. They come and talk to you if they're having trouble back home of with their girlfriends."
But the boys have been there for her too, most notably when her husband Jimmy Costin died five years ago.
"The boys were so good to me when he passed away," she said, her voice cracking with emotion for the first time. "They all came to the viewing and the services. My minister couldn't believe it, he was just blown away."
Costin, who was named DePauw House Mother of the Year in 2009, is proud that she has been a part of restoring the Delta Tau Delta house to campus prominence.
"I've seen this house come from near the bottom," she said, noting that "getting the boys to realize it is their home" has been a huge factor in turning it around. That and $1.5 million in renovations the fraternity has put in over the past 10 years.
"We always get the award for having the cleanest fraternity house on campus," she added.
"I have just really enjoyed my time that Delta Tau Delta has allowed me to be here and run the house and take care of the boys," Costin said.
She's even taught them a few lessons in the process.
"Sometime I'd hear the boys talking at dinner about the townies, and I'd say, 'Hey, I'm a townie!'
"I want them always to respect the town of Greencastle," she said, noting that the fraternity sponsors a needy local family for the holidays, even as she decorates the house with five Christmas trees for the boys to enjoy.
Through it all, Costin has forged friendships with young men less than half her age.
"Lifelong friends?" she asks, repeating the question.
"Oh, I have. I really have."
And so, undoubtedly, have the men of Delta Tau Delta.