Maurine Dallas Watkins, Kappa Alpha Theta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 29, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

In 1975, the musical Chicago debuted on Broadway. It was overshadowed that year by A Chorus Line. In 1996, a revival of Chicago opened. The third time was a charm. It garnered six Tony Awards and it is the longest-running musical revival. The story upon which the musical is based first hit Broadway at the very end of 1926. It was written by Maurine Dallas Watkins, an initiate of the Butler University chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta.

 

Maurine Dallas Watkins

Watkins was born in Kentucky and she graduated from high school in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1914. She attended Hamilton College in Kentucky and Transylvania University before enrolling at Butler University in Indiana as a senior. She became a member of the Gamma chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta. The November 1918 issue of the organization’s Kappa Alpha Theta reported:

We were all registered but had not attended all of our classes when the first ‘flu’ ban was called, closing the college for all non-military students. Now after four weeks of vacation, revised programs, registration, another ‘flu’ ban, ‘flu’ masks, and peace celebrations, we are hoping to get acquainted with our books before ‘exams’ come. . . . We have had so few fraternity meetings that little has been done, but we can count ourselves most fortunate to introduce the following pledge: Maurine Watkins, a senior who come to us from Transylvania.

Her dramatic abilities must have become evident to the chapter. At a joint chapter and alumnae meeting on February 15, 1919, the freshmen:

gave their stunt for the alumnae. It made us more proud of our To-Be-Thetas than ever. Maurine Watkins, a senior, pledged in September, wrote the stunt, which told of the trials of a love sick young man in selecting a valentine for his lady. The maid in the shop brought out valentines galore. Girls with Kappa, Pi Phi, Tri Delt, Delta Gamma and various other kinds of hearts, but he was hard to please, and it was only when the girl with a Theta heart appeared that he was completely satisfied. There was a great deal of dancing and singing, which, with the artistic costumes of the valentines, made it one of the best stunts ever given by a group of our pledges.

After graduation she headed to Cambridge, Massachusetts where she enrolled in a graduate program at Radcliffe College. She ended up in George Pierce Baker’s playwriting workshop at Harvard University but she returned to Indiana without finishing a degree. She was teaching public speaking in the Shelbyville, Indiana, high school in the fall of 1921, according to the Kappa Alpha Theta. In 1923, she was an assistant manager overseeing Standard Oil of Indiana’s outdoor advertising.

Watkins was hired by the Chicago Tribune in February 1924 to cover crime with a feminine touch. The pay was $50 a week. She worked at the job for less than a year, but her by-line was often on the front page. Two of the cases she covered involved women who were accused of murdering men, Belva Gaertner and Beulah Sheriff Annan.  

After she left the Tribune, she headed to New Haven, Connecticut. George Pierce Baker was now at Yale helping to set up the Yale Drama School. She again enrolled in his class and wrote a play thinly fictionalizing the murders upon which she reported. Beulah Annan became “Roxie Hart”and Belva Gaertner became “Velma Kelly.” 

The play opened on Broadway on December 30, 1926 and had 172 performances. It toured for two years. A silent version of it was filmed shortly afterwards. In the 1940s, Ginger Rogers starred as Roxie Hart in a film by the same name.

On January 10, 1928, the Kappa Alpha Thetas gave a reception and dinner in Watkin’s honor at the chapter house. Watkins was identified as living in Indianapolis at this point, in a newspaper account of the event, but she soon headed west to work as a screenwriter in Hollywood. She invested wisely and at the end of her life, she was a philanthropist.

For years she turned down offers to buy the rights to Chicago. Bob Fosse was interested in making it a musical, but Watkins would not relent. After her death on August 12, 1964, her estate finally sold the rights. John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the score. The musical was made into a movie and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2002.

Watkins left bequests to several institutions to establish awards focusing on her love of classical studies and creative writing. Students who study Latin and Greek are eligible to compete for Maurine Dallas Watkins Prizes through Eta Sigma Phi, a collegiate honor society. She established the Ernest Woodruff Delcamp Essay Awards at Transylvania University to honor a former chairman of the Department of English. Scholarships were set up for students at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in Greece and the American Academy in Rome, Italy. She also gave donations to the classical studies programs at Harvard University and the University of Iowa. She was also a major donor to the McGarvey Fellowship Program at Abilene Christian University.

1933 passport photo (courtesy of Yale College of American Literature)
Posted in Butler University, Fran Favorite, Kappa Alpha Theta | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Maurine Dallas Watkins, Kappa Alpha Theta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Maggie L. Walker, Zeta Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 28, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Maggie Lena Walker lived her life in Richmond, Virginia. She was born in 1864. She joined the local council of the Independent Order of St. Luke when she was 14. It was a fraternal burial society that helped those who were ill and the elderly. She took on more and more responsibility with the Order and became Right Worthy Grand Secretary in 1899, a position she held until her death in 1934.

From 1883 until 1886, she taught grade school. She resigned her position when she married Armstead Walker Jr., a brick contractor. They had two sons.

Walker became the publisher of The St. Luke Herald  in 1902. Shortly thereafter, she became the first African American woman to charter a United States bank when she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. Several women were on the bank’s board. Walker became chairman of the board of directors of Consolidated Bank and Trust Company when her bank merged with two other Richmond banks.

In 1904, the Walkers bought a home at 110​1⁄2 East Leigh Street in the Jackson Ward district of Richmond. Her husband was killed in an accident in 1915. The St. Luke Building contained her office and the offices for the Order of St. Luke.

Virginia Union University awarded Walker an honorary Master’s degree in 1925. A high school next to the University campus was named the Maggie L. Walker High School. In 2001, it became a regional school, Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies.

Walker was an Honorary member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Today the Maggie L. Walker Historic Site is run by the National Park Service. The visitor’s center tells the story of her life and the Jackson Ward community. Later in her life, she was confined to a wheelchair and she had an elevator installed in her home. There is a virtual tour of the house.

In 2000, Walker was among the first group honored as Viriginia Women in History. A year later she was inducted into the Junior Achivement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.

A 10-foot bronze statue of Walker was unveiled on July 15, 2017. Designed by Antonio Tobias Mendez, it depicts a 45-year-old Walker holding a checkbook with her glasses pinned to her lapel. It is located at the gateway to the Jackson Ward.

The sorority established a partnership with the National Park Service. It was formalized with signing ceremony at the National Museum of African American History and Culture on January 16, 2020, the day Zeta Phi Beta turned 100.

Posted in Fran Favorite | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Maggie L. Walker, Zeta Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Gladys Wilkerson Lawrence, Gamma Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Gladys Wilkinson was born in Nebraska on May 30, 1894. She travelled abroad in 1910 and 1913. As a student at the University of Nebraska, she was a charter member of the Pi chapter of Gamma Phi Beta when it was installed on June 22, 1915. She was also active in the University Players, the Dramatic Club, and Delta Omicron honorary music sorority. She did post graduate work at Smith College and Indiana University.

In 1920 she attended the 8th Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance which met in Geneva, Switzerland. Later that year, she married Paul William Lawrence on Tuesday, November 2, 1920, Election Day. She wore a white velvet and satin bridal gown trimmed in old lace with a solid cord of Roman river pearls. The veil was a family heirloom made of Carackmacross lace and her gloves were of old Venetian lace.

Early in their marriage, the couple lived in several Iowa cities. Their only child, Paul, Jr., was born in Des Moines two years to the day after his parents’ marriage. From 1923 until 1925, she was installation officer for Delta Omicron. She would serve the organization as manager of two conventions and as editor of its magazine for eight years.

Lawrence attended Gamma Phi’s 50th anniversary convention which was held in June of 1924. She was living in Burlington, Iowa, at the time. The Lawrences moved to Los Angeles in January of 1925. They founded a company, Lawrence Steel Doors, which is still in business today.

She became a member of the Board of the City Employees Retirement System in 1937 and was its only female member. Lawrence took an active part in the civic and philanthropic affairs of Los Angeles. A founder of the National Charity League, she created its Ticktocker group for mothers and daughters. She began a civic beautification movement for the Woman’s Service Auxiliary of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Lawrence was president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Flower and Fruit Guild, among many other volunteer projects.

An article in the February 1939 Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta called her the “busiest Gamma Phi in Los Angeles.” Her friends said she possessed “a driving force that keeps her busy and competent in a dozen fields of endeavor. Coupled with this energy is a great enthusiasm and a loyalty to her friends and to Gamma Phi.” She did a stint as President of the LA Alumnae chapter and she was the force behind the group forming the Assistance League’s Motor Corps.

Lawrence was the first President of the Los Angeles Nebraska Alumnae, which during her tenure had 2,000 members. She was a member of the Smith College Alumnae in Los Angeles and the American Association of University Women.

When her husband became ill before his death in 1951, she and her son took over the management of the family business. Starting in 1947, when she was on the first Pan Am commercial international flight, she took more than 37 trips around the world primarily for business reasons.

In a 1958 article, she said, “Gamma Phi has always been very dear to me and has made my life much lovelier in every way.” Lawrence died on March 11, 1987 and is interred in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Posted in Fran Favorite, Gamma Phi Beta, University of Nebraska | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Gladys Wilkerson Lawrence, Gamma Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Annette Abbott Adams, Tri Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Annette Grace Abbott Adams was born on March 12, 1877 in Prattville, California. She attended Chico State Normal School and earned a teaching certificate. She taught school for four years to save money to attend the University of California, Berkeley. There she and her sister helped start a Delta Delta Delta chapter at Berkeley.

After graduating in 1904, she moved to Alturas, California, and taught high school. When she became principal at Modoc County High School in 1907, she was one of the first female principals in the state of California.

On August 13, 1906, she married Martin Houston “Mart” Adams who was two years her junior. Some say she married just to have a “Mrs.” In front of her name. She became dissatisfied with a principal’s salary and decided that law was a career for her. After she left for law school in 1910, the couple did not live together, but they never divorced.

In 1910, for every 200 men who were lawyers, judges and justices, there was only one female in those positions. In 1912, Adams graduated from the University of California Berkeley School of Law. That year she was one of the first women to be admitted to the California Bar. She and Marguerite Ogden Steele formed a partnership and served a mainly female clientele. Steele was a victim of the 1917 influenza epidemic.

After working for Woodrow Wilson’s election in California, when women could not vote in a Presidential election, she was rewarded with an appointment as an assistant Attorney General position. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California from 1914-19. In 1920, she was appointed as the Assistant Attorney General for the same district, making her the first female to be a United States Assistant Attorney General. She was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1920.

In an interview published in the July 14, 1920, edition of the Chattanooga News, it was noted that she lived alone and made her own breakfast. She told the reporter:

Well, I find my greatest relaxation after the grind of the office in housework I guess it’s because I love my home so much that I’ve taken such an interest in the women’s fight against the high cost of food and clothing. I’m an active member of the ‘Housewives’ league, and I’ve often used my office and spare tie to do all I can to help out.

I’ve been preaching the gospel of saving. I boycotted 16 cent milk, I refused to eat 10 cent potatoes and I never bought a 17-cent loaf of bread in my life. And I have stopped wearing silk stockings.

Common sense – that is what America needs now. If the majority shows common sense the discontented minority will. I’m rather optimistic about the future.

A report in the 1920 Delta of Tri Delta, reiterated her thrift:

For the past year Mrs. Adams has been actively interested in methods for bringing down the soaring costs. She has given many talks before women’s and business men’s clubs, and was instrumental in forming the federal fair trade committee for San Francisco which has already accomplished much in combating prices.

Adams resigned the position in 1921 and was in private practice until 1935. She made a run for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1923, but was unsuccessful.

In April 1926, the senior class of Tri Deltas were guests of honor at a luncheon that the local alumnae hosted. It took place on a Saturday afternoon at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Adams was one of the speakers.

On November 12, 1935, she was appointed Assistant Special Counsel. She was appointed Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal for the Third District in 1942. She was one of the highest ranking judges in the state. She was elected to a 12 year term on the Court of Appeal. In 1950 she became the first female to sit on the California Supreme Court in a special assignment (Gardner v. Jonathon Club (1950) 35 Cal.2d 343)

She retired in 1952 due to ill health and died in Sacramento in October 26, 1956.

 

 

Posted in Fran Favorite | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Annette Abbott Adams, Tri Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

SuEllen Weissman Fried, Sigma Delta Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

On March 25, 1917, seven female Cornell University students founded Sigma Delta Tau. Their organization was originally called Sigma Delta Phi, but when they discovered the name belonged to another Greek-letter organization they changed the “Phi” to “Tau.”

Sigma Delta Tau’s founders are Dora Bloom (Turteltaub), Inez Dane Ross, Amy Apfel (Tishman), Regene Freund (Cohane), Marian Gerber (Greenberg), Lenore Blanche Rubinow, and Grace Srenco (Grossman).

There was also a male involved in the beginnings of Sigma Delta Tau. Bloom asked Nathan Caleb House  to write the ritual. “Brother Nat”  is the only man to honored with the organization’s gold membership pin.

SuEllen Weissman Fried attended University City High School in St. Louis, Missouri. During her senior year, she was president of the Student Council. From 1949 until 1951, she was a member of the St. Louis Municipal Opera (the MUNY, for locals) Dance Ensemble.

She graduated in 1950 and enrolled at Washington University. There, she was a member of the Modern Dance Club and a maid of honor on the Homecoming court. In September 1950, she was one of 20 women who formed Kappa Chi which in February of 1951 became a pledge chapter of Sigma Delta Tau. It was chartered as the Alpha Eta chapter on April 29, 1951. She served as her chapter’s corresponding secretary.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 1952

She married Harvey Fried, a member of Zeta Beta Tau, on June 29, 1952 after she finished her sophomore year. They would share their lives for 65 years until his death in 2018. They raised three children and are the grandparents of seven.

In 1975, Fried finished her Bachelor’s at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. She also earned a Master’s equivalency from the American Dance Therapy Association in 1996.

Fried’s passion for dance shaped her life and helped her become an advocate for children, inmates and those suffering from mental illness . She was a dance therapist for two decades. She spent 17 years, from 1961 until 1978 as a volunteer at Osawatomie State Hospital in eastern Kansas, south of Kansas City.

President Richard Nixon appointed her to his Task Force on the Mentally Handicapped in 1971. She was a consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health and the Center for the Advanced Study and Continuing Education in Mental Health.

Fried served as President of the Kansas Mental Health Association. In 1982, she founded STOP Violence, a program in which trained volunteers utilized Reaching Out From Within, a rehabilitation program, to teach prison inmates how to change their actions, thoughts and language. She is President Emeritus of Reaching Out From Within. In 1984, Sigma Delta Tau honored her with its Achievement Award and 20 years later she was named one of its Outstanding Alumnae.

She added bullying prevention to her repertoire and authored a number of books on the subject. In 2002, she founded BullySafeUSA. Fried served as President of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA) and she has a lifetime appointment as a member of its Board of Directors. She also was a guiding force in the philanthropic partnership between PCAA and Sigma Delta Tau. She was a speaker at her sorority’s centennial celebration in 2017.

She was included on George H.W. Bush’s Thousand Points of Light list. In 2015, she received a L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth Award in 2015.

 

 

Posted in Fran Favorite, Sigma Delta Tau, Washington University | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on SuEllen Weissman Fried, Sigma Delta Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Leona Wilcox, Alpha Sigma Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Leona Wilcox was born in Osceola, Iowa, in 1891. She attended high school there and a newspaper report for 1908 noted her absence from the 11th grade for a week due to illness. After graduation, she may have taught elementary school for a few years before she enrolled at Drake University.

In 1922, Wilcox became a charter member of Alpha Sigma Alpha’s Iota Iota chapter. She was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Kappa Delta Pi. After graduating from Drake, she began teaching. She also did graduate work at Columbia University during summer vacations.

Wilcox served Alpha Sigma Alpha as a member of the Board of Supervisors on Standards and as Secretary from 1928 until 1936. On November 17, 1932, she was a speaker at the Founders’ Day banquet at the Grace Ransom Tea Room, which was located on the second floor above Walgreens at the southwest corner of Locust and Seventh Streets. Her topic was the “Early Founders of Alpha Sigma Alpha.”

For 42 years, Wilcox worked for the Des Moines, Iowa, school district. In 1934, she was Assistant Principal at Byron Rice School. That fall, she coordinated a production of Peter Pan. She did the scenery, costumes, and all incidental work. It was a resounding success. From 1936 until 1960, when she retired, she was Principal of Wallace School. It was located at 1404 East 13th Street.

Des Moines Register, May 18, 1960.

A fellow Alpha Sigma Alpha said of Wilcox, “That she does her work faithfully and well is already known.” Wilcox was a member of P.E.O. and the Iowa State History Association. She died in November of 1979.

Posted in Alpha Sigma Alpha, Fran Favorite | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Leona Wilcox, Alpha Sigma Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Ruth Katherine Byrns O’Meara, Ph.D., Theta Phi Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Ruth Katherine Byrns O’Meara, Ph.D., was born on June 6, 1906. She grew up in Lodi, Wisconsin. In 1921, as a high school student, she won a History of Lodi competition, writing about her hometown. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she was a charter member of the Nu chapter of Theta Phi Alpha when it was installed in 1926, the year she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. Two years later, she earned a Master’s degree.

She took a position with the Bureau of Educational Records and Guidance at the University of Wisconsin and started a Ph.D. program at Wisconsin. While working on her doctorate she served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Nu chapter. She was awarded a Ph.D. in 1932 and continued to work at the university. During this time, she served as Theta Phi Alpha’s scholarship chairman for a short while.

In 1935, Fordham University in New York hired her as an associate professor and director of teacher training. While there, she met another faculty member who was teaching philosophy in the graduate school. William Joseph O’Meara was a Canadian whose degrees were earned at the University of Toronto. His undergraduate degree was from the University’s St. Michael’s College.

On December 26, 1935, the couple married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The bride wore a long white satin gown with a fitted cloak of white brocade. A small fitted hat with a shoulder length veil covered her head. White camellias formed her corsage and she carried a small missal. Her younger sister, Lois, who would go on to earn a Ph.D., too, was her attendant. A breakfast at the Hotel Brevoort followed the ceremony and Mass.

A daughter was stillborn on January 26, 1941, and is buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Lodi, Wisconsin. Another daughter was born in November of 1942.

Ottawa Citizen, (Canada), May 1, 1943

After the end of World War II, the couple moved to the Chicago area. She joined the faculty at Loyola University and her husband taught at the University of Chicago. In 1950, she was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach educational psychology at the University of Leeds. Her seven-year-old daughter joined her on the ocean voyage across the Atlantic and attended a convent school in England.

The O’Mearas collaborated on some research projects which were published in educational journals and The Commonwealth magazine. She wrote a story, Angelina’s Afternoon, that is included in Pilgrims All, a collection of children’s stories by Catholic writers.

O’Meara became a widow in 1978 when her husband died suddenly on a trip to Canada. Although I could find no obituary or gravestone on-line, I believe she died in 1995.

Posted in Fran Favorite, Theta Phi Alpha, University of Wisconsin | Tagged , | Comments Off on Ruth Katherine Byrns O’Meara, Ph.D., Theta Phi Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Anna Kelton Wiley, Pi Beta Phi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 22, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Anna Kelton Wiley was born in 1877. She enrolled at Columbian University (now George Washington University) and was awarded the Kendall Scholarship. There she joined Pi Beta Phi and on January 5, 1895, she became a duly initiated member. She won the Sterrett medal in physics. Her college friends called her “Nan.” After graduating in 1897, she spent two years working in the library at the Department of Agriculture and 10 years in the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. In the fall of 1910, she enrolled at the Washington College of Law and planned to become a lawyer. Suffrage and civic betterment were her interests and she devoted herself to these efforts.

Her engagement to Dr. Harvey W. Wiley was announced in December 1910. A newspaper article in the March 27, 1955 edition of the Daily Oklahoman told of the story behind the marriage. Dr. Wiley, known as the “Father of the Pure Food Act,” was 30 years her senior. According to the story, she became the Doctor’s secretary after graduation and worked for him for two years until he was sent overseas. Ten years later the two met by chance on a streetcar. He “opened his watch case and showed her her own picture which he carried for ten years.” Another account told of Dr. Wiley meeting her when he addressed a group of “militant suffragists.”

The couple married in a small ceremony at her mother’s home in Washington, D.C. on February 27, 1911. Two sons, Harvey, Jr. and James, were born in 1912 and 1914, respectively. The press called them the “pure food” babies.

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Suffrage Club hosted a luncheon in honor of her marriage. A 1911 description of Wiley noted that the suffrage movement was one of her main concerns:

Her sympathies outside her work have been principally bound up with the woman suffrage movement. For the past few years she has held office in the local organizations, helped to organize meetings, worked on the petitions, spoken at open air meetings and attended as a delegate the Forty-Second Annual Convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association.

When suffragists picketed the White House in 1917, Wiley, then a mother of two young sons, was among them. She was arrested and spent 5 days in jail.

Wiley was also an active member of Pi Phi’s D.C. Alumnae Club. In 1924, when Pi Beta Phi gave the portrait of the First Lady Grace Goodhue Coolidge to the Nation, the Wileys hosted a reception at the Library of Congress for the more than 1,100 Pi Phis who descended upon Washington.

A 1920s program of Pi Beta Phi’s Washington, DC, Alumnae Club. The December 12 meeting took place at the Wiley’s home and Dr. Wiley was the speaker.

Dr. Wiley died in 1930 at the age of 86. In his autobiography, the last book he wrote, he included a dedication to his wife:

To Anna Kelton Wiley, my beloved wife, the mother of my boys, who, without neglecting her motherly and household duties, has devoted her life to the welfare of women; first, to secure for them the right to vote, and second, equality before the law, with my full consent and approval. I dedicated this book, a simple narrative of my life, its victories and defeats. Her character and devotion to me have been strong factors in my success, and her sympathy and advice inspiration in defeat.

Wiley was twice the Chairman of the National Woman’s Party, 1930-32 and 1940-42. She served as editor of the Party’s publication, Equal Rights, from 1940-45. Wiley was a long-time member of the Major L’Enfant Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She served as Chairman of Legislation for DC’s Women’s City Club. At the age of 77, she put her efforts into fighting for an Equal Rights Amendment, which was first introduced in 1923.

1955

In the summer of 1959, she attended the convention of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in California. She was in her 80s and it was her 23rd GFWC convention, for she had served the organization in many capacities. Wiley looked forward to all the events, from a Hollywood banquet to a Lawrence Welk concert. One of the oldest women in attendance, she likely ran circles around the other women.

Wiley died on January 6, 1964 at the age of 86. She is buried with her husband, a Civil War veteran, at Arlington National Cemetery.

Posted in George Washington University, Pi Beta Phi | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Anna Kelton Wiley, Pi Beta Phi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Harriet Hankins, Tri Sigma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Harriet Parker Hankins was born in 1884 and grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia. She enrolled at Farmville Normal College (now Longwood University) and became a member of the Alpha chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma.

Harriet Hankins is at the top left of this 1901 composite.

Hankins was the sorority’s first National Treasurer. It is her drawing on the cover of the first edition of The Triangle of Sigma Sigma Sigma.

After graduation, she enrolled in a nursing program at Garfield Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. During World War I she made at least two transatlantic crossings to serve as an American Red Cross Nurse. Early in the war, she was in Germany. When diplomatic relations with the country ended, she returned home. The Daily Press reported on April 29, 1915, that her parents were anxious for her return.

Daily Press (Newport News, VA), April 29, 1915

Hankins sailed out of Rotterdam on May 29 and arrived in New York on June 11, 1915.

She then served with the Army on the Mexican border. In May 1916, Hankins was in Washington, D.C. teaching “diet tent cooking” to new nursing recruits. When the United States entered the war, she served in France and Belgium.

Daily Press (Newport News, VA), December 28, 1919

On January 11, 1920, it was reported the Hankins visited her parents for a long rest after spend two years in Europe. Hankins, “saw much of the suffering in Belgium and other belligerent countries and her experience has been an unusual one,” according to the Daily Press.

At some point she transitioned from an American Red Cross Nurse to a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Nursing Corps. Hankins was assigned to several posts including one at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. During World War II, she served in the Philippines.

She retired in 1954 and shortly afterwards she moved back to Williamsburg. Hankins was active in the Daughters of the American Revolution. She died on August 25, 1967, at 82 years old and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Posted in Longwood University, Sigma Sigma Sigma | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Harriet Hankins, Tri Sigma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Vivian Osborne Marsh, Delta Sigma Theta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Most of Vivian Osborne Marsh’s childhood was spent in Houston, Texas, where she was born in 1898. Her father died in 1910 and three years later she, her mother, and her sister moved to Berkeley, California. She applied to the University of California, Berkeley using her grades from Houston and Berkeley High Schools. Although her grades were excellent, the university required her to take four entrance examinations. She did well on the first two and Berkeley waived the other two.

Her undergraduate study was in anthropology and she was the first African American women to major in that field at Berkeley. She earned her degree in 1920.

Dean of Women Lucy Stebbins told her about the interest shown by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. to establish a chapter at Berkeley. Shortly after her 1920 graduation, Marsh founded the undergraduate Kappa chapter, the first NPHC sorority on campus. The first meeting took place in Wheeler Hall on February 13, 1921 and she was the chapter’s first President. She was still at the university, this time studying for a Master’s in anthropology. She married Leon F. Marsh in 1921. Her master’s thesis was “Types and Distribution of Negro Folklore in America.” She completed her degree in 1921. It was conferred in 1922, the year the first of her two sons, Leon, Jr., was born.

In 1929, she organized Omega Sigma Alumnae Chapter (now Berkeley Bay Area Alumnae Chapter) and served as its first President. She was the Far West regional director and then Delta Sigma Theta’s seventh National President from 1935 until 1939. During her tenure, she started the Traveling Library and Teen Lift. The first effort supplied books to rural districts in Georgia. The Teen Lift program provided transportation for youth to visit people and places, and especially cultural events, beyond their neighborhood.  In 1948, she and her sister Bessie started Delta Sigma Theta’s Patroness Club in the Bay Area.

Marsh was active in other organizations as well. These included the California State Association of Colored Women, Order of Calanthe, Order of the Eastern Star, and many more. In 1941, she served as President of the California State Association of Colored Women. Four years later, she became vice-president of the National Council of Negro Women.

In 1981, the 60th anniversary celebration of Delta Sigma Theta’s Kappa chapter was a tribute to Marsh. Berkeley’s Mayor proclaimed it Vivian Osbourne Marsh Day.

She had a stroke while attending a convention of the Court of Calanthe in El Centro, California. The Supreme Court of Calanthe and Delta Sigma Theta shared the cost of a $2600 air ambulance ride to Berkeley. At Herrick Hospital, Marsh never regained consciousness. She died at a convalescent facility on March 8, 1986.

.

Posted in Delta Sigma Theta, Fran Favorite, University of California at Berkeley | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Vivian Osborne Marsh, Delta Sigma Theta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2020