Happy Founders’ Day 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. It is the youngest of the Syracuse Triad, the three National Panhellenic Conference 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. Dr. 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 Alpha Gamma Delta Founders
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.”
In the early 1980s, I became acquainted with an Alpha Gamma Delta who had graduated from the University of Missouri. She spent a year as a leadership consultant traveling the country and working with Alpha Gamma Delta chapters. Her love of all things Alpha Gamma Delta runs deep and it is abiding. Nann Blaine Hilyard and I became pen pals, writing each other on a regular basis, sharing our love of the history of the women’s fraternity movement in those pre-internet days when research was typically done by using books. This was especially easy for Nann, since she is a librarian.
Nann also has many other interests. She is a quilter and loves buying fabric (and I still have some of the wine and blue carnation fabric she found and sent me many years ago). She is involved in the American Library Association, American Association of University Women and her local Rotary Club to name just a few. She has served these, among other organizations, on local, state and/or (inter)national levels. While living in Maine in the 1980s, she became a member of P.E.O., a women’s Philanthropic Educational Organization that was founded in 1869 at Iowa Wesleyan College. When I moved to Carbondale in 1990, Nann sent a form introducing me to one of the P.E.O. chapters here. She sent the form to another Mizzou Alpha Gam (although they were not in the chapter during the same years). Nann made it possible for me to have the gift of P.E.O. membership. Last fall, through fortuitous circumstances, Nann and I were able to room together at the International Convention of the P.E.O. Sisterhood in St. Louis, Missouri. What a treat it was!
On this Alpha Gamma Delta Founders’ Day, I think it is fitting to honor not only its Founders, but also one of its loyal members who has touched my life in a wonderful way. Nann Blaine Hilyard lives the Alpha Gamma Delta Purpose that was written by Emily H. Butterfield:
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.
