Quick. Name an Alpha Chapter of a National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organization whose chapter house was designed by a founder of the organization. There’s only one. It’s the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta.
Alpha Gamma Delta was founded at Syracuse University on May 30, 1904 at the home of Dr. Wellesley Perry Coddington, a Syracuse University professor. Alpha Gamma Delta is the youngest of the Syracuse Triad, the three NPC organizations founded at Syracuse University. The other two, Alpha Phi and Gamma Phi Beta, were founded in 1872 and 1874, respectively.
By 1901, all seven of the founding National Panhellenic Conference organizations had chapters at Syracuse. Coddington, who had a hand in the early years of Alpha Phi, realized that the campus needed another women’s fraternity. He approached several young female students and discussions ensued. Though excitement started to grow, the women managed to keep the possibility of another organization on campus very quiet. Edith MacConnell was recovering from a serious accident and was a patient at the Homeopathic Hospital. Not even the nurses attending to her had any idea what was taking place, despite the steady stream of visitors to her room.
The announcement in the Daily Orange, the school’s newspaper, noted:
A new Greek-letter fraternity has been organized among the women of the university. The name is Alpha Gamma Delta and the members thus far are: Marguerite Shepard, ’05; Jennie C. Titus, ’05; Georgia Otis, ’06; Ethel E. Brown, ’06; Flora M. Knight, ’06, Estelle Shepard, ’06; Emily H. Butterfield, ’07; Edith MacConnell, ’07; Grace R. Mosher, ’07; Mary L. Snider, ’07.
Emily Helen Butterfield studied architecture at Syracuse University in a time when a female architect was an anomaly. After graduation she and her architect father established Butterfield and Butterfield, making her Michigan’s first licensed female architect. She was also an accomplished artist.
The Methodist Church in Farmington, Michigan, was designed by Butterfield and Butterfield. It was built in 1922. The Butterfields were members of the congregation. (Photo courtesy of the Farmington Community Library)
Her best known sketches are the ones she did of “Skiouros,” Alpha Gamma Delta’s squirrel mascot when she was editor of The Quarterly. To Skiouros was the name of the “secret edition” of The Quarterly. (FYI – the secret editions of GLO magazines contained membership numbers and information about chapter strengths and weaknesses and not anything having to do with ritual matters. These editions were not included in the exchange copies sent to the other GLOs. )
Butterfield also designed the organization’s Armorial Bearing, and wrote the Alpha Gamma Delta Purpose:
To gain understanding that wisdom may be vouchsafed to me; to develop and prize health and vigor of body; to cultivate acquaintance with many whom I meet, to cherish friendships but with a chosen few, and to study the perfecting of those friendships; to welcome the opportunity of contributing to the world’s work in the community where I am placed because of the joy of service thereby bestowed and the talent of leadership multiplied; to honor my home, my country, my religious faith; to hold faith inviolable, sincerity essential, kindness invaluable; to covet beauty in environment, manner, word and thought; to possess high ideals and to attain somewhat unto them; this shall be my Purpose that those who know me may esteem Alpha Gamma Delta for her attainments, revere her for her purposes, and love her for her Womanhood.
In the late 1920s, she designed the Alpha Chapter house at 709 Comstock Avenue. It was completed in the fall of 1928.
In the 1930’s when architecture commissions were scarce, Butterfield turned to writing books, the Young People’s History of Architecture and College Fraternity Heraldry. After her father died, she moved from Farmington to Algonac, Michigan, where she continued painting and taught art classes. She also served as postmaster of Neebish Island, Michigan. Butterfield died in 1958, but her art and design skills live on.
If you want a real treat, visit oakewoodcottage.com and take a look at a house that Emily Butterfield designed. The house was commissioned by real estate developer Edward Beals of Farmington Hills, Michigan, in 1925. She designed it in the Storybook Tudor style which was used in California’s Hollywood Hills, but not often in the midwest. The Oaklands subdivision, where the home is located, was one of the first Detroit exurb developments. Beal, President of the Great Lakes Land Corporation, was in partnership with Issac Bond, a local farmer. By 1930, 11 homes were built in the subdivision but the Depression put an end to further building there. Vacant lots in the subdivision became farmland and stayed that way for the next 20 years. Beals lost the home in foreclosure by 1935. It was a rental until the house became owner-occupied again in 1945.
In 1989, the home was placed on Farmington’s register of historic homes, which appears to have saved it from demolition. Ken and Melody Klemmer purchased it in 2013 and began the process of restoring the house to its original appearance.
Oakewood Cottage , 31805 Bond Boulevard, Farmington Hills as it appears today.
A watercolor by Emily Butterfield owned by the Klemmers
