Gratia Countryman, Delta Gamma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Delta Gamma was founded at the Oxford Female Institute, also known as the Lewis School, in Oxford, Mississippi. The school was established before the Civil War and eventually was absorbed by the University of Mississippi. Delta Gamma’s three founders, Eva Webb Dodd, her cousin Anna Boyd Ellington, and Mary Comfort Leonard, all from Kosciusko, Mississippi, were unable to return home over the Christmas holidays in December of 1873. That is when Delta Gamma was founded but Founders’ Day is celebrated on March 15. Phi Delta Theta and Delta Gamma both celebrate Founders’ Day on March 15 and they share a member, George Banta, an initiate of both organizations.

Gratia Alta Countryman, the daughter of immigrants, was born on November 26, 1866. At the age of 15, she graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of Minnesota. There she was the first initiate of the Lambda chapter of Delta Gamma in 1883. She served her chapter as Secretary and President.

While at the University of Minnesota, she served as a First Lieutenant of Company Q, a military training unit for women. Company Q existed between 1886 and 1892.

Company Q, University of Minnesota, 1888-89

When the publication of The Anchora of Delta Gamma was put in Lambda chapter’s hands to produce, she became a member of the editorial staff. She later served as its Business Manager.

Countryman graduated in 1889 and was hired by the Minneapolis Public Library that fall. The library had not yet opened to the public. A 1892 Anchora reported that Countryman, “formerly at the head of the cataloging department of the public library of Minneapolis, has recently been appointed assistant librarian.” Her boss at the time was Herbert Putnam who later served four decades as Librarian of Congress.

Gratia Countryman is at the top. It was taken in 1892. She had worked at the library for three years. (Photo courtesy of the Minneapolis Public Library)

On Washington’s birthday in 1892, 30 Delta Gamma actives and alumnae met at Countryman’s home at 11 a.m. and had lunch and some of the women wore costumes. The party ended at 4 p.m. and the report noted, “what a good time we had!”

A Phi Beta Kappa chapter was installed at the University of Minnesota on December 13, 1892. Countryman was one of the eight women, four of them Delta Gammas, who were elected to membership.

She and three friends biked through England on her first trip to Europe in 1896. At the library she was promoted to head cataloger and assistant librarian to James K. Hosmer before she became chief librarian in 1904. She was the nation’s first female head librarian. However, her starting salary was one third less than what her male predecessor earned.

Countryman was elected Delta Gamma’s National Secretary in 1903, but due to her job responsibilities, she was unable to fulfill her duties and Lambda chapter member Lois Tenant served pro tem. Countryside is listed as Delta Gamma’s Secretary from 1903 to 1904.

The Minnesota Library Association was organized on December 29, 1891 and Countryman was its fifth President, serving from 1904 to 1905. She also founded the Minnesota Library Commission and was its Recording Secretary until 1918.

Countryman was a frequent speaker at events. On February 16, 1911, she was one of the speakers at a Minnesota Alumni event. She had spent several weeks during January 1911, on the east coast, “buying books for the new Walker library,” according to an Anchora report.

In 1912, she organized the Foreign Policy Association’s Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She served as its President until 1914.

The 1918 Gopher yearbook included this tribute to Countryman:

To head a library system as large as that of Minneapolis is a task worthy of the best of men. It is a Minnesota woman, Gratia Countryman, of the class of ’89, who holds that position. How well she has filled it is testified by the extent of the library activities in Minneapolis. Go down into any foreign district in Minneapolis and there you will find a branch of the Public Library. There you will find the children of our adopted citizens learning the ideals of American democracy from the best of teachers, good books. Gratia Countryman has made the Public Library a great, living institution for providing education and clean entertainment to the citizens of Minneapolis.

Countryman never married. However, she became guardian to a young boy, Wellington Wilson, who spent his days at the library. In May 1917, she wrote, “We have taken in a homeless little boy to live with us. He is nearly eight years old and bright and affectionate. We have grown very fond of him in the four weeks we have had him….If he turns out to be as nice a child as he seems, I may possibly want to adopt him.” He lived with Countryman, children’s librarian Marie Todd, and their maid at 3721 Girard Ave South. Adopting a child was a bold move for an unmarried woman of 50. Wilson later changed his name to Wellington Countryman and named his daughter Alta in his adopted mother’s honor.

The Inter-Racial Service Council of Minneapolis awarded Countryman the Civic Service Honor Medal for her work with immigrants. The following year her Alma Mater awarded her an honorary degree for distinguished public service, the first to be awarded to a female.

She served as President of the American Library Association in 1934. She was forced to retire from the Minneapolis Public Library at the age of 70 in 1936. During her tenure, the library’s collection grew to 400,000 books in 17 branch libraries and many library stations. Countryman died in 1953 at age 87.

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Nettie Wills Shugart, Delta Zeta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Nettie May Wills Shugart was born in Milton in Pike County, Illinois. She went to Nebraska as a young woman and graduated with a B.S. from Doane College (now University) in Crete, Nebraska. On October 11, 1906, she married Charles E. Shugart. As a graduate student at the University of Nebraska, she became a charter member of the Zeta chapter of Delta Zeta.

The chapter was installed by Alfa Lloyd Hayes, founder and National President, on Saturday, February 12, 1910. The festivities took place at the Shugart home at 2521 J Street. She was one of ten charter members and the chapter’s installation came as a surprise to the other nine sororities on campus. The charter member kept their application to Delta Zeta a secret until after the fact.

Shugart served as Delta Zeta’s Grand Secretary from 1914 until 1916. That year, she introduced the Legend of the Loving Cup. Shutgart was an artists whose medium was porcelain and china and she painted three handles cups for chapter that were installed in the 1910s and 1920s. According to the Delta Zeta website, the “three handles represent the love, the unity and the unbroken friendship which encircle members of Delta Zeta.” The chapter letters were painted on the inside. Several of the cups are on display at Delta Zeta headquarters in Miami, Ohio.

Loving cups painted by Shugart on display at Delta Zeta’s headquarters.

Shugart became the Big Sister Chairman in 1916 and served until 1920. She was Delta Zeta’s National Big Sister from 1920 until 1924.

On Saturday January 21, 1922, she was the speaker for Delta Zeta at the Pan-Hellenic Association tea which was held at the Hotel Muehlebach in Kansas City, Missouri. During her visit she was entertained by the Delta Zeta alumnae with a tea as well as a dinner at the Hotel Baltimore followed by an Orpheum theater party.

Shugart was a member of the American Association of University Women, Nebraska Federation of Woman’s Clubs, Lincoln Woman’s Club, Royal Highlanders, and the Daughters of Rebekah. She was a teacher in the Lincoln public schools for 15 years. Illness forced her to retire five weeks before her death. She died on May 5, 1932 at the age of 54.

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Katherine Van Winkle Palmer, Ph.D., Alpha Delta Pi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Katherine Van Winkle Palmer grew up in Oakville, Washington. She was the only female member of her high school graduating class who went to college. At the University of Washington, she became a member of the Alpha Theta chapter of Alpha Delta Pi.

She served as chapter president and was a member of the Class of 1918. According to an article in a 1920 edition of The Adelphean, she became interested in geology:

while studying with Dr. C. E. Weaver, who was a patron of the sorority. The last two quarters of her senior year, Katherine spent at the University of Oregon as an assistant in the department of geology and paleontology. She also took enough courses to enable her to graduate with her class at Washington.

Her senior thesis was on the Oligocene fossils of the Chehalis Valley in Washington. With Dr. Weaver as her advisor, she studied the fossils of this area of Washington. She reported on 24 previously undescribed species of clams and snails and presented evidence of a faunal zone of the lower Oligicene age. Her report of her discoveries, Paleontology of the Oligicene of the Chehalis Valley, Washington, was published in a University of Washington geology bulletin.

After graduation, she traveled across the country to Ithaca, New York, where she was awarded a scholarship for graduate study at Cornell University. There she met two men who were influential in her life. In 1921, she married Ephraim Laurence Palmer, who earned a Ph.D. from Cornell in 1917. The second man was Cornell professor Gilbert Harris.

The Palmer family

In 1932, Harris and Katherine Van Winkle Palmer established the Paleontological Research Institute. From 1952 until 1978, Palmer was the Institute’s Director. They founded two publications and she was integral in the publication of 150 issues of the Bulletin of American Paleontology and 20 issues of Palaeontographica Americana. She was a life trustee of both publications. Her research resulted in more than 150 publications.

Palmer became a fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1935 and an honorary member of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists in 1966. She was the first female to be awarded the Paleontological Society Medal for her work on Tertiary Mollusca. In 1993, the Paleontological Research Institution established the Katherine Palmer Award for amateur contributions to paleontology. These are but a few of her professional recognitions. Before her death in 1982 she published the first history of the Paleontological Research Institution.

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Lorraine A. Williams, Ph.D., Sigma Gamma Rho, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Lorraine Anderson Williams was born on August 6, 1923, in the District of Columbia. In 1940, at the age of 16, she graduated from Dunbar Senior High School, sixth in a class of 88. At Howard University she became a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. She was elected President of the chapter in 1942 and she was also active in several other organizations including the Student Council.

Her Bachelor’s degree was conferred in 1944. A fellowship from Howard University and a scholarship from Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. enabled her to complete a Master’s degree in 1945. On June 10, 1945, she married Sgt. Charles E. Williams.

Although she was was only 5’2″ inches tall, it was said she could take charge of any situation. A secure, self-confident woman, she could be both a leader and a follower, when needed.

Williams began her career at Howard University as an instructor teaching social service courses. In 1955, she earned a Ph.D. in American Intellectual History from American University. When Howard University’s College of Liberal Arts began an honors program in 1957, she served as a member of its social science faculty.

While working at Howard, she was an active member of her sorority. Williams was the 9th International Grand Basileus (National President) of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. from 1959 until 1962, the same year she became Chairman of Howard University’s Department of Social Sciences. Williams did another stint as Sigma Gamma Rho’s International Grand Basileus from 1967-71. From 1967-68, she was Chairman of Howard’s Department of History while serving concurrently as Director of the Afro-American Institute for secondary school teachers.

Kansas Sentinel, October 29, 1960. Williams is second from the left.

In 1974, she became Howard’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, the first African American woman to hold this position at a major university. From 1974-76, she served as the fifth editor of the Journal of Negro History. She retired from Howard University in 1983.

President Carter appointed her to the U.S. Circuit Judge Nominating Panel for D.C. in 1978. Williams was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. She also served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Johnson C. Smith University and the University of the District of Columbia.

Williams was a member of many professional organizations, author of many articles, an ardent churchwoman and a stalwart civic and community activist.

Moreover, she was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. for more than 50 years. In 1978, she received the Sigma Gamma Rho Education Award and she also won its most coveted honor, the Blanche Edwards Award.

The Association of Black Women Historians named an award in her honor, the Lorraine Anderson Williams Leadership Award. She died on May 21, 1996.

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Allura Exelby Custer, Alpha Sigma Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

It may seem that Allura Exelby Custer lived an ordinary life, but in her life hit a chord with me. Her story is about service, being a good citizen, and being part of a bigger community.

Custer was born on September 24, 1903, in Parshallville, Michigan. She enrolled at Eastern Michigan University and became a member of the Alpha chapter of Alpha Sigma Tau. In 1926, she earned a degree from the University of Michigan.

On August 23, 1930, she married Richard N. Custer. At the time of her marriage she had been teaching Latin at Central High School in Lansing, Michigan, for three years. The Custers had a son and two daughters. Custer earned Master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Michigan State University in 1957. She then worked as a school social worker for the Lansing public schools. She was active in her church and in civic organizations.

Custer celebrated 50 years of membership in Alpha Sigma Tau in 1971. From her initiation, she remained a dedicated member of the Lansing AST alumnae organization. In August of 1980, the Custers celebrated their 50th anniversary with an open house at the Lansing Knights of Columbus Hall.

In 1988, she was the only teacher able to be present for the 60th reunion of the Central High School class of 1928. At the time, Custer was 84, just five or six years older than the students she taught her first year of teaching.

In a newspaper report of that 60th reunion, Custer was quoted as saying, “I’ve read your names in the newspaper telling me of all the activities you’re involved in, and the nice things you’ve been doing for others….It makes me feel good to know that I had a small part in your life.”

Custer died on April 12, 2000 at the age of 96.

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Mabel Hartzell, Alpha Xi Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

On January 1, 1875, Mabel Hartzell was born in Saginaw, Michigan. She was eight years old when her family moved to Alliance, Ohio. Shortly after the move her mother died. Hartzell was adopted by Matthew and Mary Earley. They let Hartzell keep her own name. The Earleys lived in an Italianate house at 840 North Park Avenue at the corner of North Park and Vine Street. The house was built in 1867 from bricks which were made locally.  

Hartzell graduated from Alliance High School in 1895. For a few years she taught grade school in Bolton and Alliance, Ohio. Hartzell enrolled in Mount Union College where she became a member of the Gamma chapter of Alpha Xi Delta. She attended the 1903 Alpha Xi convention. There she became its Grand Historian. She also served as Business Manager of The Alpha Xi Delta Journal (later known as The Quill of Alpha Xi Delta.)

Hartzell graduated from Mount Union in 1905 and according to a report, she “accepted a very good position as teacher of Latin in Alliance High School.” 

In the summer of 1917, she and fellow Gamma chapter initiate Mary Kay studied at the University of Washington in Seattle. They appreciated “the courtesies extended to them by the Nu girls.” In 1924, Hartzell earned a Master’s from the Ohio State University.

Hartzell was a loyal member of the Alliance Alumnae organization. In July of 1920, the Alliance Alumnae held their annual picnic lunch on the lawn of Hartzell’s home. Fifty-four Alpha Xis were present.

She taught at Alliance High School for 30 years and her subjects included Latin, physics, and social science. Hartzell served two stints on the Alliance Board of Education: 1912 through 1924 and 1951 through 1954.

Hartzell was also very active in Alliance community affairs. She was a founding member of the Alliance Chapter of the American Red Cross and served as its Director for 33 years. She also helped found the Mount Union College Women’s Club and the Alliance Woman’s Club, both of which she served as President. Additionally, she was President of the Alliance Sorosis Club and the Alliance Quota Club. Hartzell was a Director of the YWCA, Alliance Community Chest, and City Savings & Building Company. She was a Life Honorary Member of the Stark County Historical Society.

Hartzell died on December 2, 1954. In her will, she gave the Alliance Historical Society her home for use as a museum. The home had only had one family as its occupants. It is filled with Victorian era items belonging to the Earley family, supplemented by the donation of other appropriate antiques. When touring the home, visitors are transported to a bygone era.

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Josie Batcheller Houchens, Sigma Kappa, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Josie Batcheller Houchens was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on December 4, 1882. Her childhood was spent on a sugar plantation in southern Louisiana. At 16, she moved to New Orleans and enrolled in preparatory work at Sophie Newcomb College. She matriculated and earned a Bachelor’s degree from Newcomb.

She moved to Illinois where she enrolled at the University of Illinois. Her first degree from Illinois was in Library Science. It was a program in which Katharine Lucinda Sharp, Kappa Kappa Gamma, played a major role. Houchens was Assistant Librarian at Eastern Illinois University in 1906. The following year she returned to the University of Illinois. She became a member of the Theta chapter of Sigma Kappa while working on her second Illinois degree which she earned in 1912. She served as Chapter President and delegate to convention in 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911.

Josie Houchens is second from the right on the top row

From 1911 until 1922, she served as Grand Registrar and was a member of Sigma Kappa’s Grand Council. Keeping track of current addresses for collegians and alumnae in the early 1900s was a laborious process. There were no databases and most likely each member’s comings and goings were on an index card. Those index cards were likely in alphabetical order by chapter. In 1913, a 72-page pamphlet directory compiled by Houchens was published. She completed a revised directory in 1919. When she started her tenure as Grand Registrar, Sigma Kappa had a few hundred members who belonged to 19 chapters. When she left office in 1922, there were 30 chapters and more than 3,000 members. Houchens also helped install the Tau chapter of Sigma Kappa at Indiana University.

While an employee of the University of Illinois, her job titles included order assistant, reference assistant and binding librarian. Houchens took charge of all library personnel in 1941 and she became an associate professor in 1948. For 13 years, she taught in the summer session at Columbia University and she spent a summer as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California. Houchens retired from the University of Illinois in 1951, and spent 1954 as an associate professor at Florida State University.

Houchens died on February 5, 1974 at the age of 92. She left a bequest to the University of Illinois Library for the support of those who followed in her footsteps. The University also awards a Josie B. Houchens Fellowship.

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Dr. Helen Binnie Zank, Alpha Gamma Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Helen Archibald Binnie was born in 1882. Her father was a physician. While a student at the University of Wisconsin, she became a member of the Beta chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta. Her sister Nora Belle, who became a teacher, was also a member of the chapter.

In June 1911, Helen graduated from the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons in Milwaukee. According to a report in the Alpha Gamma Delta Quarterly, “Only one other woman beside Helen graduated in the class. Helen’s home is in Poynette, Wisconsin, but her attendance at medical school during the last two years allowed her to become one of the most active of the Milwaukee alumnae.” She did extensive hospital and clinic work at Johns Hopkins, Rush Medical College, Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee and Government Hospital in D. C.

She attended the 1913 Alpha Gam convention. The Quarterly mentioned that she was toast-mistress at the banquet of the Wisconsin Medical Women’s Society held at the Hotel Pfister, Milwaukee, on September 30, 1913.

In 1914, an update in The Quarterly reported that she was the superintendent Frostburg’s Miners’ Hospital at Frostburg, Maryland. She found it “difficult but interesting work.” She returned to Poynette in 1916 to practice in her father’s office.

In an article she wrote for The Quarterly, she said:

As the earliest women physicians practiced principally or entirely with women, we undoubtedly grew into the medical profession from a demand for women physicians by our own sex. Now however, from the many different avenues in the vast field of medicine we have the opportunity of selecting what we seem best adapted for and may specialize in children’s diseases, mental and nervous diseases, obstetrics and diseases of women, surgery, internal medicine, research work, laboratory and many more. Women physicians are particularly adapted for many of these named. Unless a woman has a real love for the profession she should not take up the work as it is a life of constant study, hard work and enormous responsibility no matter what line she chooses, and in a science in which such rapid progress is being made one must be constantly a student.

In 1922, she moved her practice to Kenosha, Wisconsin. There, she married Otto Zank in 1927. A life member of the American Medical Association and the Wisconsin State Medical Association, Dr. Zank retired from practice in 1950. The couple retired to Portage, Wisconsin, where she was a member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Otto died in 1970 and she died on February 3, 1976 at the age of 93.

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Miriam Olden Fendler, Phi Sigma Sigma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Miriam Olden (Fendler) entered the University of Michigan when she was 15. The Dean of Women at Michigan thought she was too nervous and high strung to make it in college and suggested she leave Ann Arbor and go home. Mirian Olden knew she wanted to be a lawyer and threw herself into her studies and extracurriculars. She became a member of the Eta chapter of Phi Sigma Sigma, acted in a play, and joined the debate team and a literary society, to name a few of her college activities.

After graduating from Michigan with a Bachelor’s, she entered the law school there. She left Ann Arbor after a year and enrolled at the University of Southern California to complete her legal education. She was a member of the USC Debate Team. Her field was civil law and community property. She passed the California bar exam in 1929 when she was 21 years old.

Los Angeles Evening Express, November 6, 1931

Although she wanted to join a law firm, in 1929 law was primarily a male dominated field. She met her future husband, Howard Fendler, also a lawyer, on a blind date to the Valentine’s dance hosted by the Phi Sigma Sigma alumnae.

Circa 1932

Active in the Los Angeles Phi Sigma Alumnae Association, she attended the 1930 convention in Cincinnati and served as the National Convention Chairman of the 1932 convention in Los Angeles.

She opened her own law office. Although She and Howard Fendler hit it off, they had a major disagreement and avoided each other for a year. A reunion on another Valentine’s Day led to a quick engagement and a March 1933 marriage. She was 25. She also became Phi Sig’s Grand Archon (National President) and served from 1933 through 1935.

After her wedding, she kept her maiden name. However, she relented when she became pregnant and thought it odd that a client called her “Miss Olden.” The Fendlers had two sons who were born within 20 months of each other. When her sons were growing up she became an active member of the League of Women Voters. Her efforts were toward legislative and election work. She conducted study groups on government and educated the public on the need for changes.

Fendler was also active in the Southern California Association of Women Lawyers. She said, “Women are taking a more active interest in government and I am convinced that if we are to have a peace-loving world a lot of the responsibility will have to rest with the women. Therefore they must be prepared to shoulder it.”

After World War II, Fendler entered practice with her husband. Together, the couple traveled to D.C. where they were admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Fendlers spent their last years in Hawaii. In 1978 Miriam Fendler was one of the founders of Art Maui. She died in August 1987. A bequest was left to the Phi Sigma Sigma Foundation for the establishment of a book award to be given to a Phi Sig attending a Michigan school.

San Bernardino County Sun, June 29, 1935
Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1937
Circa 1945
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Anna Harbottle Whittic, Kappa Kappa Gamma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Anna Harbottle (Whittic) was born in Ossining, New York, and she attended Syracuse University. There she joined the Beta Tau chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Graduating in 1895, she earned a master’s degree from Syracuse the following year. She won a scholarship to Columbia University. According to a write up in The Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma, she was a “great student” and had a broad knowledge of “all world movements — in politics, economics, religions and education.”

She taught briefly in upstate New Yor and was president of the Syracuse University Alumnae Club for three years. On February 20, 1903 she married Lieber E. Whittic, a Syracuse lawyer. She devoted herself to suffrage working in civic and political affairs. Whittic was the founder of the Women’s Congress of Syracuse. She campaigned for women’s rights before the state legislature and worked to get women the right to serve on juries. She opposed labor laws which discriminated against women. Whittic served as the Vice President and Chairman of the Syracuse branch of the National Woman’s Party.

After women won the right to vote, she kept up her efforts to get women equal rights. In a 1939 interview, she said, “At present, only five states of the Union give women equal right with fathers over children and in less than  half the states may women be tried by a jury of their peers.” She added “With all the great democracies backed to the wall, it is time that this country reaffirmed its ideals by giving all people, male and female, equal rights of citizenship under the Constitution.”

Anna Harbottle Whittic died on January 24, 1947 at the age of 72.

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