Sigma Sigma Sigma was founded on April 20, 1898, at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia (now Longwood University). The founders are Lucy Wright, Margaret Batten, Elizabeth Watkins, Louise Davis, Martha Trent Featherston, Lelia Scott, Isabella Merrick, and Sallie Michie.
On April 14, 1904, Mabel Lee Walton was initiated as a charter member of the Sigma Sigma Sigma chapter at Randolph Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her life was dedicated to advancing her sorority. She was Tri Sigma’s third National President and she served for 34 continuous years, from 1913 through 1947, and she was named President Emerita in 1956.
The December 1913 Triangle contains a greeting from Walton and its words are as true today as they were more than a century ago. They can also be applied to all of us who wear badges of sisterhood. She wrote:
TO THE SORORITY:
A word of greeting at the beginning to officers, chapters, and alumnae!
A Sigma Sigma Sigma never outgrows her usefulness to her Sorority — has this occurred to you? While she is in school she is a very influential personage. She is one of a number that forms a unit — which unit makes a chapter — a part of a whole. And if that girl does not play an important part in chapter affairs the fault is largely hers.
After leaving school a Sigma Sigma Sigma becomes an individual member. She acts entirely for herself. If she fails in this obligation which she deliberately took upon herself, the fault is wholly hers.
If every girl who wears the Sigma Sigma Sigma emblem would work earnestly for her Sorority, what a mighty band we would be! What a force we could prove to the sorority world! One member can never take the place of another — YOU have a work no other can perform. If you fail to do your part, the duty falls on other shoulders, willing, perhaps, to do extra work, but the question is, are you willing to stand by and see others doing what you know you should do yourself?
Let this mark a new era for the Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority. Let each one do her part in the upbuilding of her Sorority. Success, unbounded success, will be our reward! Is not this a priceless prize worth working for?
Mabel Lee Walton
