Imagine three young school girls longing to be at home with their families on Christmas. Eva Webb [Dodd], her cousin Anna Boyd [Ellington], and Mary Comfort [Leonard], all from Kosciusko, Mississippi, were unable to be travel home from the Lewis School in Oxford, Mississippi, over the Christmas holidays in December of 1873. The 100 miles between Oxford and home must have seemed like the other side of the world. Phones had yet to be invented, so they could not even talk with their families on Christmas.
They spent the holidays with the lady principal, Mrs. Hays. Her son was a fraternity man at the University of Mississippi. According to founder Dodd (1909):
When the idea first came to three homesick girls during the Christmas holidays of 1873 to found fraternity or club as we then called it, little did we realize that we were laying the cornerstone of such a grand fraternity as Delta Gamma. The school we attended at Oxford, Miss., was not much more advanced than a high school of today. During the week we decided on our motto and selected the Greek letters to represent it. We did not know that there were any other fraternities for girls in the United States known by Greek letters when we gave our club its name. We spent the holidays deciding on our pin and initiation and writing our constitution. In January 1874, we had our first initiation. We initiated four girls. The initiation was in one of the rooms of the house where we were boarding. We were careful to select only the girls we thought would be in sympathy with us and make our fraternity worthy of its name. (p. 226)
During the first few years of its existence, Delta Gamma installed several chapters at southern seminaries. These were schools for young women, not religious institutions as we regard seminaries today. These included: Fairmount College in Monteagle, Tennessee, a chapter that was formed in 1877; Water Valley Seminary, in Water Valley, Mississippi, established in 1877; and Bolivar College in Bolivar, Tennessee, a chapter founded in 1878. By 1881, all three of these chapters had disbanded. In 1880, a short-lived chapter was installed at Trinity College in Tehuacana, Texas. It was the last chapter installed in the South until after the turn of the century. The “Mother” chapter at Oxford was active until 1889 (Robson, 1968).
It was a man who took Delta Gamma north. Phi Delta Theta George Banta was a student at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana. He was seeking to have a national woman’s fraternity come to Indiana to even the field for his fraternity during the Indiana State Oratorical Contest. Through a chance conversation on a train with a Phi Delt from the University of Mississippi, Banta learned of Delta Gamma’s existence. He corresponded with the chapter. On May 27, 1879, Corinne Miller of the Alpha chapter wrote Banta to let him know he was voted to full membership. Banta then initiated three women, Mary Vawter, her cousin and Banta’s future wife, Lillian Vawter,** and Banta’s cousin Kitty Ellis.
The chapter at Franklin College lasted from 1878 until 1885, but even in its short life it provided the impetus to expand in the north and gave new life to Delta Gamma. Banta was later a pioneer in the fraternity publishing world and he attended Delta Gamma conventions and shared with the members in attendance his part in Delta Gamma’s history.
The Delta Gamma chapter at Franklin College installed a chapter at Hanover College, in Indiana. It was the first women’s fraternity on Hanover’s campus and it was in existence from 1881 until 1887. Lillian Thompson of the Franklin College chapter was instrumental in locating potential members.
The Franklin College chapter also established the Eta Chapter at Buchtel College in Akron, Ohio, on March 15, 1879. It is Delta Gamma’s oldest existing chapter. Banta’s Phi Delta Theta connection proved to be an influencing force in the founding of the Delta Gamma chapter. It was with the assistance of Buchtel College’s Phi Delta Theta chapter that the Eta chapter of Delta Gamma became a reality (Delta Gamma Fraternity, 1966). March 15 is the date that Delta Gamma celebrates Founders’ Day.
