Uniontown attorney John S. Cupp Jr. has been an Odd Fellow for nearly 32 years.
He now heads the state organization, as grand master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.
Membership is a family tradition. His grandfather, Charles Victor "Vic" Cupp, joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodge in Bruceton Mills, W.Va., in 1899. Cupp and his late father joined together at a 1975 rally in Connellsville. Cupp also had an uncle and a great-uncle in the organization.
Cupp belongs to the Connellsville Lodge. His wife, Emilie J. Cupp, also is a member of the Grand Encampment.
The International Order of Odd Fellows fraternal society is open to both men and women. Cupp serves as chief executive officer and sets policies and programs for the state organization, an intermediate management unit for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His term expires next June.
His goals are to recruit new members and "make our organization a bit more clear." To those ends, he has developed a recruitment packet and sheets that explain degree work, and he is researching scholarship about the organization. He also is developing administrative manuals.
The Odd Fellows seeks "to teach members lessons of religion and morality through degrees," Cupp said. The organization does not require belief in a specific religion, just in God.
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows formed in 1819 in Baltimore. Cupp said members trace the organization's history to that time and place, although the Odd Fellows' ancestry goes back to England and an 18th-century ritual.
The original members provided a form of life insurance and, although the origin of the name has been lost, Cupp explained that the members' contemporaries "believed it odd that one person would look out for another."
He hopes his efforts and the work of others result in increased numbers. "We have an aging population and need new members," he said.
Cupp believes the old organization can help to cure social isolation.
"Members of society are less inclined to join anything (now) than in the last 100 years," Cupp said. "It's easier to sit back and let someone entertain you than to do it yourself. Odd Fellows and other fraternal organizations challenge you.
"We're becoming a much less personal society," he added. "The Internet has taken people from meeting people. People who want to meet with people who are amiable and interesting, this is for you."
Cupp said he hopes the tides will turn back to the situation as it was in the 1920s, when more than 210,000 Pennsylvanians called themselves Odd Fellows.
"Perhaps we will see a resurgence," he said.
Larger text
Smaller text
Print this article
E-mail this article
