Improved Order of Red Men ... (?)

While researching the life of George Chafee, I was reminded about the I.O.R.M., a fraternal organization that organized a Middletown chapter in 1897.

The group is Improved Order of Red Men (I always thought it was the international order, but I was wrong!). The Middletown group was the Arawana Tribal Council.

I planned to write about it in past tense until I discovered the I.O.R.M. still exists on a national level. Although the membership is down to 38,000 national members, there were more than half million before World War II. Connecticut still has 10 active tribal councils, including one in Killingworth.

The organization's current website explains that the Red Men engage in "customs, terminology, and rituals, which are patterned after early Native Americans."

George A. Chafee was a tribal member and so was my grandfather, Robert E. Molander. He never rose to the rank of sachem, chief, or keeper of the wampum, but he might have participated in weekend encampments, where he and his brethren could carry out their interpretation of Indian life.

Women could join the Degreee of Pocahontas, organized in 1885, nationally, and 1897, in Middletown, to participate in the club's activities.

The Improved Order of the Red Men was established in 1834 in Maryland. They claim direct connection to the Sons of Liberty, who dressed as Indians to dump the tea in Boston Harbor. In 1886, the organization identified who could be members:

"Sec. 1. No person shall be entitled to adoption into the Order except a free white male of good moral character and standing, of the full age of twenty-one great suns, who believes in the existence of a Great Spirit, the Creator and Preserver of the Universe, and is possessed of some known reputable means of support.^"

In other worlds, real Indians need not apply. (I assume that the restrictions against native people has been lifted.)

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the I.O.R.M. drew many respectable businessmen -- much like the Masonic Order and the Shriners did. The clubs were a way to make political and social connections while doing good works in the community.