Alpha Phi is the oldest of the Syracuse Triad, the three women’s National Panhellenic Conference organizations – Alpha Phi, Gamma Phi Beta and Alpha Gamma Delta – founded at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. In 1871, a chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, a men’s fraternity founded at Yale University in 1844, established a chapter at Syracuse University. In September of 1872, Martha Foote (Crowe), Clara Sittser (Williams) and Kate Hogoboom (Gilbert) discussed the situation.
Foote led the charge and pondered, with her friends, the thought of women having fraternal organizations comparable to the ones the men enjoyed. They invited all the college women to discuss the possibility.
In September 1872, 10 women – the original three and Jane Higham, Clara Bradley (Burdette), Louise Shepherd (Hancock), Florence Chidester (Lukens), Ida Gilbert (Houghton], Elizabeth Grace (Hubbell), and Rena Michaels (Atchinson) met and pledged allegiance to the sisterhood. Minutes from the first meeting noted that Michaels was chosen president, plans were made for weekly meetings at which literary exercises would be part of the program, and a 25¢ tax was levied for the purchase of a secretary’s book. The first debate was “Resolved – that women have their rights.” Founders’ Day is celebrated on October 10.
In looking for something in The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, I came across this mention of Clara Bradley Burdette’s bell collection in the November 1929 issue. The 1929 Pi Phi Convention was held at the Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. Burdette lived in a cottage on the hotel property.
Burdette led a very interesting life. In 1878, she married Nathaniel Milman Wheeler and they had a son, Roy B. Wheeler. Wheeler taught Greek literature. They moved to California for his health, but he died in 1886. She stayed in California and four years later, she married Col. Presley Calvert Baker. He died in 1893. She and Robert Jones Burdette married in 1899. She remained a widow after Burdette’s death in 1914.
This entry written around the time of her third husband’s death is evidence to the influence she had in southern California.
After women gained the right to vote, she was active in the League of Women Voters, the Women’s Legislative Council of California, and she was active in politics. She took a role in Herbert Hoover’s presidential campaign.
She remained an active member of Alpha Phi for her entire life. The organizations Golden Jubilee Convention took place in Syracuse, New York in the summer of 1922. Four of its six living founders were in attendance, including Burdette. In 1926, Syracuse University awarded her an honorary doctorate and this article about the 1938 Alpha Phi convention identifies her as Dr. Burdette.
Burdette was 98 years old when she died in 1954. Her papers are housed in the Huntington Library, although the Alpha Phi related items are at its headquarters.
