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.
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.
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.
