Opera star Leontyne Price was born in 1927. As a young girl, she sang in the church choir. Price enrolled in the music education major at Wilberforce University. As a member of the glee club, she had many opportunities for her voice to shine. She was encouraged to study vocal performance.
After graduating from Wilberforce in 1948, she continued her education at Juilliard in New York City. She had a full tuition scholarship and it was at Julliard that she began her opera career in earnest.
In 1952 she made her debut in Four Saints in Three Acts. In 1955, she became the first African American to sing a leading role on NBC Opera Theater. The production was Puccini’s Tosca.
In 1957, she made her debut with the San Francisco Opera. Four years later she became the prima donna the the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, she was the first African America to have this honor.
In 1955, she stared in a recital in Louisville, Kentucky sponsored by Delta Sigma Theta. She did the same in Los Angeles, California, in 1957.
Louisville Journal Courier, October 9, 1955
Louisville Journal Courier, October 31, 1955
Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1957
It was perhaps because of these opportunities for Delta Sigma Theta chapters to fund scholarships that Price was offered and accepted an Honorary Membership.
Price sang at both the inauguration and funeral of President Lyndon B. Johnson, for a Papal visit, and at the Camp David Accord. She was awarded more than a dozen and half Grammy Awards including a Lifetime Achievement recognition. In 1964, Price was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition, she was the recipient of Kennedy Center Honors in 1980, the National Medal of Arts in 1985, and Opera Honors given by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2008.
She retired from the opera in 1985, but she continued to perform in recitals and orchestral concerts for another 12 years.
A goodly number of sorority women answered the call to volunteer for service in World War II. Here is the Service Roll as printed in the November 1945 Phoenix of Alpha Sigma Alpha.
Among the names of the WAVES is Marianna Obermiller. She grew up in Jackson, Missouri. In the fall of 1936, she pledged the Alpha Sigma Alpha chapter at Maryville Teacher’s College (now Northwest Missouri State University) and was initiated on September 17, 1937. The chapter was installed in 1928, a year after Sigma Sigma Sigma became the first sorority on campus.
She graduated in 1940 and was hired as a teacher. In 1943, she was sworn into the WAVES. It appears that she did her service in Bloomington, Indiana, where she was an Activities Director.
Maryland Daily Forum, March 15, 1943
Marianna Obermiller in her WAVES uniform. There are shadows on her arms.
Marianna Obermiller
She taught in Paola, Kansas, Shenandoah, Iowa, and Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1952, Obermiller was one of two Missouri teachers nominated to compete for McCall’s Magazine’s Teacher of the Year Award.
Obermiller died on March 20, 2002 at the age of 84.
Mary Gray Peck’s name is familiar to me. A copy of her biography of Carrie Chapman Catt is on display in Pi Beta Phi Headquarters. I am almost certain that she is standing next to Catt in the photo taken on the White House lawn when the portrait of Grace Goodhue Coolidge was given to the United States in April of 1924. I did not know, however, that she was a member of Gamma Phi Beta. How elated I was to discover this fact.
Peck was born on October 21, 1867 in Seneca Castle in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. In 1889, she graduated from Elmira College. She headed to the University of Minnesota to do post-graduate studies in philology. There that fall, she became a member of the Kappa Chapter of Gamma Phi Beta.
Mary Gray Peck at Elmira College. Although that looks like a Gamma Phi badge, I do not think it is. Elmira College had local organizations, Kappa Sigma and Phi Mu (not to be confused with the current organizations with these names – these were strictly locals) and perhaps she is wearing one of the badges of a local organization.
Kappa Chapter Directory, The Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta, June 1905
Peck graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1890. Volume 5 of The Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta (1905) noted that she was granted a year’s leave of absence. She headed to England to study at the University of Cambridge. Her friend and colleague Frances Squire Potter as well as Potter’s children accompanied her.
A Directory of University of Minnesota faculty members published in 1924 noted:
The next notable woman’s name in the faculty list is that of Mrs. Frances Squire Potter, a graduate of Elmira College, New York. She came to the university as instructor in English in 1900, and was later advanced to a professorship. During her incumbency she, and her friend and co-worker, Miss Mary Gray Peck, were outstanding figures in the college life. Their classes were crowded with enthusiastic students and their home was a center of hospitality alike to students and faculty.
A 1907 The Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta included this information:
We recently had occasion to be very proud of one of our Kappa alumnae, Mary Gray Peck, under whose direction the old Elizabethan play, ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle,’ was given in chapel by her class in ‘Modern Drama.’ Its presentation marks an epoch in our university drama, as every detail was carried out in true Elizabethan fashion. In every respect the play was a marked success, and interest in it extended far beyond college circles.
Mary Gray Peck is listed as a Gamma Phi Beta on the faculty.
In 1908, it was reported that she returned to her English department teaching duties “after a pleasant summer at her home in Seneca Castle, New York.”
Mary Gray Peck, circa 1920s
She left Minneapolis in 1909 and headed to New York. There she joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association as corresponding secretary. Working closely with Carrie Chapman Catt, she was on the front lines of the women’s suffrage movement. With her skills and her knowledge of her subject, she wrote a biography of Pi Beta Phi Carrie Chapman Catt, published in the 1940s.
She was a member of many organizations. A 1917 publication of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (later known as AAUW) reported:
Several lines of activity have been started by the Mohawk Valley Branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. One is that of “Better Films for Young People.” The chairman of the committee in charge corresponded with many experiments in this field in other cities. It was found that all kinds of organizations were concerning themselves with the moving picture problem and that all considered it a most important and worthy work for us to undertake. Through the National Committee on Films for Young People we secured Miss Mary Gray Peck who, on Feb. 8th, lectured on this subject before an audience comprising representatives of many organizations concerned with social betterment throughout the Mohawk Valley. As a result of this meeting there will be appointed a local committee to affiliate with the National Committee in furthering this work in our vicinity.
Peck died on January 12, 1957 at the home of her niece in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania at the age of 89. She is buried in Seneca Castle, New York.
Carrie Chapman Catt is on the right in the front row. I am almost certain that Mary Gray Peck is second from the right, next to the artist Howard Chandler Christy and his wife (in light dress from head to toe).
On March 7, 1889, Delta Delta Delta at Boston University held a special initiation at the home of Mattie Carter. She lived at 195 Walnut Street in Chelsea. At the time, it was the first and only Tri Delta chapter. Thirteen members were present to initiate four women, one of whom was Etta May Budd of Ames, Iowa.
Budd graduated from Iowa State University in 1882. After graduation she did advanced studies in art in New York, Chicago and Boston. In Boston, she boarded at the Young Women’s Christian Association. There she met Josephine Centre, an early initiate of the Alpha Chapter of Delta Delta Delta.
Etta May Budd with her parents and brother. (Photo courtesy of Iowa State University Library Special Collections)
Budd could be labeled as Tri Delta’s first extension chairman. Prior to her initiation in Boston, she belonged to two local organizations, one at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, and another at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
The organization Budd belonged to at Simpson College was called L.F.V. It stood for “Lovers of Fun And Victory.” The men on campus called the group the “Light Footed Virgins.” L.F.V. was founded in 1871 and by 1889, it had 95 members. On April 25, 1889, nine L.F.V. members signed pledges to become members of Delta Delta Delta. A charter was secured and L.F.V. became the Delta Deuteron Chapter of Tri Delta. An initiation followed on May 10, 1889. In 1897, it became known as the Delta chapter when the first national convention changed the system of naming chapters. She was also involved in the establish of the short-lived chapter at Iowa State which was installed in 1890. It closed due to anti-fraternity sentiment and was not reinstalled until after the turn of the century.
Budd taught art at Iowa State University for the 1889-90 academic year and then began teaching at Simpson College. During her tenure at Simpson, Budd became acquainted with a student named George Washington Carver. He was a good gardener and Budd helped him find gardening in Indianola. Simpson’s website includes this info:
After another college refused to admit him because he was black, Carver matriculated at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he studied art and piano (1890-91). His art teacher Etta Budd, seeing his talent for painting flowers and plants, encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College in Ames, where he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896.
Budd sensed that Carver’s first love was art. Her father was the Head of the Horticulture Department at Iowa State University. She must have felt that Carver could be much more successful pursuing plant science. She must have had a hand in his transfer to Iowa State where he earned two degrees and later taught.
On one of her visits to Ames, she realized that Carver was eating meals in the kitchen rather than the dining hall. This upset Budd and she took him into the dining hall and she ate with him and kept eating meals with him until the students accepted his presence there.
Painting by Etta May Budd, 1901, (Courtesy of Iowa State University Museum)
Painting by Etta May Budd, 1900, (Courtesy of Iowa State University Museum)
Ames Daily Tribune, August 25, 1938
Budd died on June 12, 1952 at the age of 89. The house in which the Budd family lived while Joseph Lancaster Budd was employed at Iowa State is now the Farm House Museum. To read more about the effect that Budd’s interest in an art student had on the world, see this post by Tom Morain.
In 1918, George Washington Carver was a charter member of Phi Beta Sigma’s Gamma Sigma Alumni chapter at the Tuskegee Institute.
On March 7, 1889, Delta Delta Delta at Boston University held a special initiation at the home of Mattie Carter. She lived at 195 Walnut Street in Chelsea. At the time, it was the first and only Tri Delta chapter. Thirteen members were present to initiate four women, one of whom was Etta May Budd of Ames, Iowa.
Budd graduated from Iowa State University in 1882. After graduation she did advanced studies in art in New York, Chicago and Boston. In Boston, she boarded at the Young Women’s Christian Association. There she met Josephine Centre, an early initiate of the Alpha Chapter of Delta Delta Delta.
Etta May Budd with her parents and brother. (Photo courtesy of Iowa State University Library Special Collections)
Budd could be labeled as Tri Delta’s first extension chairman. Prior to her initiation in Boston, she belonged to two local organizations, one at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, and another at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
The organization Budd belonged to at Simpson College was called L.F.V. It stood for “Lovers of Fun And Victory.” The men on campus called the group the “Light Footed Virgins.” L.F.V. was founded in 1871 and by 1889, it had 95 members. On April 25, 1889, nine L.F.V. members signed pledges to become members of Delta Delta Delta. A charter was secured and L.F.V. became the Delta Deuteron Chapter of Tri Delta. An initiation followed on May 10, 1889. In 1897, it became known as the Delta chapter when the first national convention changed the system of naming chapters. She was also involved in the establish of the short-lived chapter at Iowa State which was installed in 1890. It closed due to anti-fraternity sentiment and was not reinstalled until after the turn of the century.
Budd taught art at Iowa State University for the 1889-90 academic year and then began teaching at Simpson College. During her tenure at Simpson, Budd became acquainted with a student named George Washington Carver. He was a good gardener and Budd helped him find gardening in Indianola. Simpson’s website includes this info:
After another college refused to admit him because he was black, Carver matriculated at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he studied art and piano (1890-91). His art teacher Etta Budd, seeing his talent for painting flowers and plants, encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College in Ames, where he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896.
Budd sensed that Carver’s first love was art. Her father was the Head of the Horticulture Department at Iowa State University. She must have felt that Carver could be much more successful pursuing plant science. She must have had a hand in his transfer to Iowa State where he earned two degrees and later taught.
On one of her visits to Ames, she realized that Carver was eating meals in the kitchen rather than the dining hall. This upset Budd and she took him into the dining hall and she ate with him and kept eating meals with him until the students accepted his presence there.
Painting by Etta May Budd, 1901, (Courtesy of Iowa State University Museum)
Painting by Etta May Budd, 1900, (Courtesy of Iowa State University Museum)
Ames Daily Tribune, August 25, 1938
Budd died on June 12, 1952 at the age of 89. The house in which the Budd family lived while Joseph Lancaster Budd was employed at Iowa State is now the Farm House Museum. To read more about the effect that Budd’s interest in an art student had on the world, see this post by Tom Morain.
In 1918, George Washington Carver was a charter member of Phi Beta Sigma’s Gamma Sigma Alumni chapter at the Tuskegee Institute.
Although Pearl Sydenstricker (Buck) was born in West Virginia, she spent most of her childhood in China where her parents were Presbyterian missionaries. After graduating from high school in Shanghai, she traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia, where she became a student at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. What a journey that was in 1910!
Although the adjustment from life in China was an adjustment, she seemed to adapt. She participated in student activities including the Young Women’s Christian Association, student government, Helianthus yearbook, The Tattler literary magazine, and as a member of the Theta Chapter of Kappa Delta.
Courtesy of Randolph College
The Theta Chapter report in a 1914 Angelos of Kappa Delta, included this snippet about the chapter:
Theta has recently adopted the plan of having informal debates at fraternity meeting on various subjects of vital interest to the Greek girl. A broader knowledge of sororities at large can be acquired in this way. The subject discussed at the last meeting was ‘The Value of the Sorority.’ Pearl Sydenstricker argued from the standpoint of its faults and Florence Barry from the standpoint of its benefits.
In the Forum section of Volume 10 of The Angelos, she and Gamma chapter had a debate. Gamma chapter discussed the advantages of sophomore pledging and she discussed the disavantages. Her summation was:
The best solution, I think, is in pledging at mid-year of the Freshman year. This leaves half a year to know the girls, and half a year free from rushing in which to enjoy each other. The mid-year examinations could be used as a basis of scholarship, if desired. The girls, both rushees and rushers, are not wearied with months of rushing, and the harmful effects of rushing are minimized as far as possible.
A senior that year and it was noted that “Pearl Sydenstricker will leave in August for China.” However, before she left to take up missionary work, she spent the summer with friends in Virginia.
After graduating with a philosophy degree in 1914, she indeed left for the long journey to China. She became the wife of John Lossing Buck, another missionary, in 1917. They spent the first years of marriage in North China.
The Angelos of Kappa Delta, Volume 17, 1920-21, note the typo in her husband’s name.
In 1921, they headed to Nanjing. She taught at the university and became a mother. The family survived a 1927 attack of westerners with the help of a Chinese woman Buck had befriended. The marriage would end in 1935, the year she married Richard J. Walsh, who worked in publishing.
Buck led a most fascinating life. Here is how she is described on the Kappa Delta website:
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck Pearl is the renowned author of over 70 books. She is the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature, and she also won a Pulitzer Prize. In 1942, Pearl and her husband founded the East and West Association, dedicated to cultural exchange and understanding. In 1949, she established Welcome House, the first international, interracial adoption agency.
It is noted that she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, but that needs an asterisk. The Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College was not established until 1917. She was elected to member in 1939. By Buck’s own admission in her autobiography, she was not a competitive student.
Stephanie Abrams grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. When it was time to choose a college, she enrolled at the University of Florida in Gainesville. There she enrolled in as many science classes as she could. She fell in love with meteorology.
A 1999 initiate of the Delta Phi Epsilon chapter at the University of Florida, she served as Chapter President. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated with honors. Her major was geography with a minor in mathematics. She also earned a second Bachelor’s in meteorology from Florida State University.
While at Florida State, Abrams honed her on-air skills doing weather forecasts on FSU Live, a student production. Her first job as a meteorologist was at the ABC affiliate in Tallahassee, Florida, WTXL. She began working for The Weather Channel in the summer of 2003. She has been there ever since and has also done some work for NBC News.
Today happens to be Delta Phi Epsilon’s founding date. On March 17, 1917, five coeds at Washington Square College Law, a Division of New York University, founded Delta Phi Epsilon. The DIMES, as they are referred to, are Dorothy Cohen Schwartzman, Ida Bienstock Landau, Minna Goldsmith Mahler, Eva Effron Robin, and Sylvia Steierman Cohn. Delta Phi Epsilon was formally incorporated under New York State law on March 17, 1922.
That these five women were law students back in the day before women could vote in a federal election is impressive. Today, one must have a bachelor’s degree to apply to law school. In 1917, this was not the case. The American Bar Association was formed in 1878, but the first two women to join the organization did so a year after Delta Phi Epsilon was founded.
Delta Phi Epsilon’s founders were between the ages of 17 and 19 when they formed the organization. I suspect they were working on an undergraduate degree in law, rather than what Delta Phi Epsilon members of today aspiring to be lawyers would do, spend additional years of study after obtaining a bachelor’s degree.
Julia Warner Snow joined Kappa Alpha Theta while she was undergraduate student at Cornell University.
The Iota Chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta (plus one Kappa Kappa Gamma and a few Theta Delta Chis), 1885
Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University in 1886. In 1888, Snow along with her fellow Theta, entomologist Anna Botsford Comstock, and a few other women inducted by the Cornell Chapter.
Kappa Alpha Theta, 1886
Snow earned a bachelor’s and Master’s degree at Cornell in 1888 and 1889, respectively. The May 28, 1889, issue of the Cornell Daily Sun listed the eight candidates who were taking exams for graduate degrees with this explanation:
The examinations for advanced degrees in the University will be held from June first to June sixth. As has been the custom, all examinations will be oral and will be conducted by a committee selected for each subject. All theses for advanced degrees must be presented and accepted before candidates can be admitted to the examinations.
Snow’s thesis dealt with the Diseases of the Strawberry Plant. In a time when fellowship opportunities were few and far between, she received the Women’s Education Association Fellowship (it later became known as the AAUW European Fellowship). The $500 fellowship helped her study in Switzerland and she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1892.
In 1902, she was hired by Smith College and she spent the rest of her life in Northampton, Massachusetts. Between her years at Cornell and Smith, she taught at Coates College in Terre Haute, Indiana, Rockford College in Illinois, and the University of Michigan.
Michigan Daily, February 18, 1898
She spent her life teaching, doing research and traveling around the world.
Ithaca Journal, October 27, 1927
Snow bequeath 44 curios and articles to the Hillyer Art Gallery at Smith College.
Alice Shepard (Riggs) was born in Turkey when her parents were medical missionaries. Imagine how long she must have traveled to enroll at Syracuse University in the fall of 1905. There, she became a member of Delta Gamma.
She wrote the Rho Chapter report in Volume 26 of The Anchora and ended it with this:
One of the happiest times of the week in Rho house is the supper hour on Sunday evening when we all gather in the library where the grate fire sends out a homey glow and where the best ‘eats’ are passed around from chafing dishes, salad bowls and cake plates. The good old Delta Gamma song book holds its own with other music in these home parties.
Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated in 1910. Shortly afterwards, she married Ernest W. Riggs, a Princeton grad, in 1910. He also was the son of missionaries and the couple began serving college communities in Turkey, Lebanon and Greece. He was President of Euphrates College until 1915, when it was forced to close because of the turmoil.
A 1916 Anchora included this item about Riggs and her family. Her father had died in December 1915:
An article by Riggs, entitled “Cry of the Child,” appeared in 1919. This is the introduction:
In this Anchora you will find an article on Armenian children, written by a Delta Gamma who has spent the last eight and a half years in Armenia at Harpoot, where her husband is president of the Euphrates College. Alice Shepard Riggs (Rho) has been home only a few months, and has seen the Armenia atrocities at first-hand. She brought to America with her a charming young Armenian girl whom she and her husband have adopted in order to save her from the brutal hands of the German-inspired Turks. I believe Delta Gamma would be happy to help Mrs. Riggs in her work for these Armenian orphans. The fact that we would be helping a sister Delta Gamma will give to each one of us a special interest in the work.
In 1920, Riggs wrote Shepard of Aintab, a biography of Dr. Fred Douglas Shepard, her father.
In November 1942, while in California she spoke to the Santa Cruz Woman’s Club. Billed as a writer and lecturer, Riggs talk was called From Harem Life to Aviation. She, “in her girlhood, grew intimate with the life of Turkey, speaking its language, learning its folk-tales and songs.”
For a talk in February of 1950, the announcement promised, “Mrs. Riggs will tell many historical and personal experiences of life in the Near East.” In 1951, she spoke to the Delta Gamma who attended the District Convention in Ithaca, New York.
The American Board Mission newsletter of February 9, 1950, written in Istanbul, Turkey, carried this note about the couple visiting her brother. In 1933 Ernest Riggs became President of Anatolia College:
President Ernest Riggs of Anatolia College, Thessalonkiki, and Alice Shepard Riggs arrived in Istanbul on the 7th to spend a week with Dr. and Mrs. Shepard. The Riggses retire this summer from Anatolia College and this trip is perhaps a ‘once over’ farewell to this country, in which they both grew up, and where they served for so many years.
Courtesy of American Research Institute in Turkey-Istanbul personnel files
Ernest Riggs died in 1952, but his wife continued as a trustee of Anatolia College. She wrote a history of her years at the college.
In 1962, Riggs was honored with the Delta Gamma Rose Award for an “outstanding contribution to the world in her chosen field through her individual effort and talents.” Alice Shepard Riggs died in Vermont in 1983.
Today, March 15, is the date upon which Delta Gamma celebrates Founders’ Day. Happy Founders’ Day, Delta Gamma friends!
After graduation from high school in Machias, Maine, in 1899, Elydia Foss (Shipman) enrolled at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She became a member of Sigma Kappa in the fall of 1900. After two years at Colby, she was called home because of her father’s health. She taught school for two years and then returned to her studies, this time a Boston University.
There, she met a group of women who belonged to a local
sorority. Xi Psi, which had been founded in 1900. She was asked to become a
member. Instead, she told them about Sigma Kappa. After much conversation, some
letter writing, and much deliberation, Sigma Kappa extended an invitation for
the local to become the first chapter of Sigma Kappa outside of the Colby campus.
The Delta Chapter of Sigma Kappa was installed on March 7,
1904 when 28 members of Xi Psi were initiated. A banquet took place at the
Hotel Bellevue in Boston. Addie Lakin, Evaline Salsman, and Elaine Wilson,
actives from the Alpha Chapter installed Delta Chapter. Founder Louise Helen
Coburn was in attendance.
Delta was the first chapter in which Shipman had a role in
establishing, but it was not the last. She served as Extension Chairman from
1905-08. She played a major role in the establishment of the Epsilon, Zeta,
Eta, Theta, Iota, and Kappa chapters.
She also helped established the Sigma Kappa Triangle and was on the first editorial board. She also served as Business Manager.
After 10 years teaching school in New Jersey, she enrolled
at George Washington University where she earned a Master’s degree. She was also
active with the chapter there. When she married Bertram Francis Shipman on
Tuesday January 23, 1917, in Washington D.C., the chapter was invited, and they
“enjoyed all the pleasant excitement that goes with weddings, with music by our
girls and the wedding cake boxes tied with lavender and maroon.’
The Shipmans had four children, two boys and two girls. The
oldest daughter, Elizabeth “Betty” became a member of the Rho Chapter at
Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.
The Shipman children. Elizabeth, who would become a member of the Rho Chapter, is holding the baby.
Elydia Foss Shipman was a force of nature. She kept herself very busy with her writing career, Sigma Kappa activities, and her community involvement. While living in New York City in the 1920s, she helped raise funds for the Panhellenic House residence for NPC women. She collected gifts for the Maine Mission and made sure they arrived.
She was a writer and began a journalism school before the field was taught in colleges. Shipman reported, taught, and wrote prose and poetry. She even copyrighted a song. In an article in the Sigma Kappa Triangle she is described as:
As a friend, Elydia is most engaging and enjoyable. She is able to project her keen mind to the point of even understanding the viewpoint of those who disagree with her. A keen sense of humor which is the spice of imagination even permits her to laugh at herself sometimes. She is self-expressive yet does not at all inhibit or repress others. She is so dynamic that she can plan and execute twenty steps while most of us are trying to make one decision about what to do first. She has a spirit that soars, a pen that sings, a heart that understands, and a faith that endures. She is a wonderful friend as well as wife, writer, citizen, and executive. I know, for I have been closely associated with her over a span of twenty years. Best of all she is a fine mother and the prospects of seeing her eldest daughter become a Sigma Kappa will fulfill one of the deepest and fondest dreams of her life.
Shipman and her daughter were in attendance on the 50th anniversary of the Delta Chapter in 1954.
There are many posts on this blog. Use the search button to find the posts about your organization.
Welcome!
Welcome! Chances are good you found this blog by searching for something about fraternities or sororities.
I was the last person anyone would have suspected of joining a sorority in college. I am sure I would have agreed with them, too.
When I made my way to Syracuse University, I saw the houses with the Greek letters that edged Walnut Park, and wished I could tour them. My roommate suggested I sign up for rush (as it was then called, today it’s known as recruitment) and go through the house tour round and then drop out of rush. It sounded like a plan. I didn’t realize that I would end up feeling at home at one of the chapters. And that I would become a member.
In this blog I will share the history of GLOs and other topics. I wrote a dissertation on “Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867-1902.″ It chronicles the growth of the system and the birth of the National Panhellenic Conference.
My Master’s thesis details the history of the fraternity system at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 1948-1960. The dates are significant ones and the thesis is available on the top menu.
I have done research at the Student Life Archives and have written several histories of University of Illinois fraternity chapters for the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing.
