Some preferred to spend their free time making music, including Hildebrandt, who in addition to being a math professor played the organ at area churches, and Hayden, who played the piano. One year a group of Apostles specialized in learning African American spirituals. They also participated in outdoor activities. "They took walks together. That was considered very German," said U-M pediatrician Mark Hildebrandt, son of T. H. Hildebrandt. Three Apostles owned a horse together, while several others shared a canoe. Some Apostles vacationed together. They also jointly owned pets. Group photos identify a dog named Gomez living at the State Street house, later replaced by a Mike.

Periodically the Apostles extended their entertainments to invited guests, doing so on a lavish scale. It gave them a good excuse to invite women they were courting as well as to repay hospitality they had received from married friends. They sent out formal invitations to "At Homes" to which recipients were expected to RSVP. They hosted a number of dances at Granger's Dance Studio, at the Packard Academy and the Michigan Union. One soiree at the Union included a live band, refreshments and six card tables. The Churchwardens, a rival bachelor organization of unmarried instructors, repaid hospitality by inviting the Apostles to its yearly dance at the Washtenaw Country Club on Packard. Transportation was provided by a special interurban car hired for the occasion.

The Churchwardens also challenged the Apostles to a foot race that became an annual event at the Washtenaw Country Club. The two groups also vied on the baseball diamond. After World War I, when the two groups merged, the baseball games continued with the opposing team made up of married faculty—the previously mentioned "henpecked husbands." An undated newspaper article relates the story of the Apostles' practicing for the big game with neighborhood kids 12 or so years old, and getting beaten soundly. A picture taken at one of the games helps explain why: The Apostles are all wearing suits and ties and dress shoes.

The Apostles were more adept at intellectual sports than physical ones. The archives are full of silly/clever items: a resolution that a holiday known as "Uncles Day" be established; phony telegrams from such well-known people as Al Capone and the English royal family; a "hereto unpublished translation of an ancient manuscript relating to the Acts of the Apostles"; pieces written in German and Latin; and some clever cartoon drawings.

A phony legal brief indicts Hale for such crimes as "playing the instrument known as the pianola in a vile and boisterous manner, thereby causing much anguish and pain amongst his colleagues."

An ad for a great remnant sale states "owing to our unprecedented success in disposing of our various lines of bachelors this year, and as the season is now drawing to its close, we propose to offer the remainder of our stock at sacrifice prices." The piece went on humorously to describe the Apostles' leading candidates for matrimony. Members left the group for a number of reasons, such as the economic constraints of the Depression or because they left town for jobs elsewhere for reasons of economy. But the most common reason for leaving was marriage. A core group remained confirmed bachelors, however, and died as Apostles.

The first question people ask today when told about the Apostles is, "Were they gay?" Although some may have been homosexuals, that lifestyle was certainly not part of their declared or perhaps even conscious mission in the early 1900s.

In his doctoral dissertation, I Have No Genius for Marriage: Bachelorhood in Urban America, 1870-1930, historian Peter Laipson '00 PhD says American bachelors in that era became either consumers or creators of "domestic environments" that provided them "both the amenities and affectional relationships characteristic of home." The bachelor's "domestic ideology," Laipson says, was "characterized…by an absence of women [and] by an emphasis on the volitional nature of binding ties" among the men. Many single men experienced "a profound tension," he says, between their twin desires for close friendships and for individual freedom. As a result, "bachelor domestic ideology simultaneously facilitated homosocial camaraderie and preserved men's independence," Laipson says.

As far as sexual inclinations went, most seem to have been heterosexual, but slow-starters. Kellum married at the late age of 56, but had a family of four children and two stepchildren.

Like many Apostles, Preston Slosson had gone to an all-male Ivy League college, in his case Columbia. A member from 1924 until he married in 1927, Slosson wrote in his autobiography, A Teacher's Report Card: "I always liked the girls I knew, and those I did not know I thought a pleasant background; but, tho an ardent girl-watcher, I was a rank failure as a girl-catcher. I had no small talk, I had never learned to dance, and most of my schools had been for boys only. So my S. Q. (social quotient) was decidedly low."

When a member became engaged, the Apostles would host an announcement dinner "as a prelude to his retirement." It provided a chance for more rhyming. When chemistry Prof. Floyd Bartell got engaged, Robbins wrote a poem that said in part "…our friend Bartell/had pledged his hand and heart and limbs/forever to Miss Lawrence Simms." Referring to the couple's courtship, he continued:
It shows us clearly, I'll assert,
that driving a car's a dangerous sport.
A man, a maid, a car, a moon,
then wedding bells for two, some noon.

The Apostles' archives at the Bentley Library include numerous notes from the wives of ex-Apostles for wedding presents. Alexander Ziwet, according to a memorial in historian Arthur Lyon Cross's papers, "contributed freely to the customary apostolic wedding gift but also gave a beautiful individual present; yet to my knowledge he never attended a wedding."

Ziwet was a charter member and remained an Apostle even after retirement and failing health. His memorial says, "Although a generation the senior of the other oldest members and although he usually had little to say, he was such a courteous and interesting listener that he constituted a most harmonious element in an organization composed largely of younger bachelors. ... Until recent years on request he would linger a bit for a hand of skat or a rubber of bridge, until failing health obliged him to discontinue the practice. Advancing years and failing eyesight led to the inevitable relinquishment of all diversions until his only recreations were walking to and from his meals at the Apostles club."

When a member left, his replacement was chosen by the remaining members from the ranks of unmarried men at the University. Faculty directories of the day were slender booklets with notation "(m)" identifying the ineligible people. Sometimes married men were let in on a temporary basis while their families were "sojourning abroad," as Robbins put it. Visiting professors coming without wives also were eligible to be Apostles during their stay in Ann Arbor.

The Apostles lost many members during World War I. The three ROTC members who joined did not make up for the 10 who left for various military duties. But the club recovered after the war by merging with the Churchwardens, whose membership also had shrunk. World War II was a different matter. So many Apostles left for war that it was hard to keep the house going. Kellum, the last Apostle treasurer, wrote in his 1943 report that one room had been vacant all year and two more for part of the year, that food prices were up, and that it was hard to get competent help. "I paid the bills, but had to take out of surplus," he noted. Finally, the remaining Apostles had no option but to sell the house. Former Apostle James Hart (Political Science) wrote in December 1944, after hearing about the group's fate, "As a young bachelor—I am still a bachelor but no longer young!—I got a great deal out of the associations at the club and shall never forget those days. I still consider myself in spirit a member, and hope that the club is not permanently dissolved. Such an organization is a great thing for unmarried faculty members of whom there will probably be more . . . at present [than] in normal times."

Hart may have been right that there were more unmarried men right after the war than at normal times, but other factors had come into play. After World War II, the whole social structure that made being a bachelor such a defining state changed. Throughout the country and beyond, the social divide between the sexes became less gaping. At Michigan, evidence of the changes included the opening of the Michigan Union to women and the merger of the activities of the previously segregated female Michigan League and male Union. The 1960s made social life and living arrangements more casual. Cooking and housework became the province of both sexes. The existence of a group like the Apostles shows how different life was in the first half of the now past century.