A legend of love

On a hot day in August last year, student trustee Casey Cox and his bride, Melissa, recited their vows at the Rose Well House on campus.\n"I am afraid to say that we never kissed there before our wedding kiss," Cox said. "So we didn't partake in the tradition."\nThe tradition that Cox refers to involves a 99-year-old custom that has been around campus since 1908. Campus tour guides reference the open-air pavilion, located between Maxwell Hall and Wylie Hall, as a romantic tradition in IU history, peaking at Valentine's Day.\nA custom of the Rose Well House says a woman is not a true college "coed" until she is kissed within the structure at midnight as the 12 chimes of the Student Building clock ring out, according to a manuscript in the IU Archives titled "Traditions of IU" by Marvin Shamon.\nFor women, the curfew on campus used to be 11 p.m. So being out at midnight, the manuscript says, was "risky."\nCox and his wife met as undergraduates at IU. They both thought Bloomington would be the best place for them to marry because of their involvement in the University.\n"I have seen pictures of weddings performed at the Well House," Cox said. "We married on the 12th. But on the 11th the weather was warmer and awful, but by Saturday morning it was gorgeous and worked out very nicely."\nKen Gros Louis, chancellor and vice president of academic affairs, said the Rose Well House was known as a place for couples to be engaged.\n"I know a lot of students over the years that have been engaged or asked to be married in the Well House," Gros Louis said.\nCox is one of the most recent students to tie the knot there, Gros Louis said.\nAt one time, there was an organized walk near Kirkwood Hall during which freshman women strolled at midnight to gain the privilege of being called "coeds." But when the Rose Well House was constructed, the kissing concept took over that tradition.\nTheodore F. Rose, a member of the board of trustees in 1908, presented the Rose Well House to the University as a gift to his graduating class, but he didn't have the romantic tradition in mind.\nProfessor Arthur Lee Foley of the physics department designed the Rose Well House. As a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, Rose recommended the construction be based on the outline of the octagonal Beta badge.\nBeta fraternity brothers would propose to their girlfriends in the Rose Well House.\nFamiliar territory for dating and courting, the Rose Well House was also known as the centralized place on campus to meet people. Dates would walk through the woods nearby, an act that was seen as a courting method before its construction.\nBesides just a tradition of kissing, the stone windows to the Rose Well House were originally windows to the Old College Building. The windows were situated on the original campus site, according to the manuscript.\nFirefighters used the fire cistern -- a structure used for holding liquids, usually water -- to fight fires, which once "plagued" the University. There is now a water fountain inside the Rose Well House, but it only offers a trickle of water. Often, in the warmer months, people came to the Rose Well House to give away glasses of water from the fountain, as well as to sell five-cent glasses of lemonade.\nWhile Cox himself did not practice the traditional kiss with his wife prior to their marriage, he hopes the conscious awareness of the tradition will remain in others so the history can live on.\n"Campus legends are important in furthering the culture and student life in the university," Cox said. "I hope there are still some students that perpetuate the legend. It is important to the existence of our identity as a university"