Sigma Sigma Sigma was founded on April 20, 1898, at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia (now Longwood University). The founders are Lucy Wright, Margaret Batten, Elizabeth Watkins, Louise Davis, Martha Trent Featherston, Lelia Scott, Isabella Merrick, and Sallie Michie.
Mabel Lee Walton, a charter member of the Gamma chapter at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, served as the sorority’s third National President from 1913-1947. She also served as the President of the Association of Education Sororities before Sigma Sigma Sigma became a member of the National Panhellenic Conference in 1947.
Tri Sigma’s fourth president, Mary Hastings Holloway Page (Lovejoy), was Walton’s niece. A member of the Alpha chapter, she was initiated with the gold Tri Sigma badge that belonged to her “Aunt May.” While working in Washington, D.C., she met a gentleman from New Hampshire, Robertson Page, and they married in April 1940.
The Pages’ son, Robertson Page II was born on May 1, 1946. According the Years Remember of Sigma Sigma Sigma 1898-1953, “Robbie was six weeks old when he attended his first Sigma officers’ conference, two months old when his father first saw him (his father was on special assignment in Germany), and six months old when he attended the Regional Meet at Richmond, Virginia, where his mother was officer-in-charge.” A devoted Tri Sigma from the minute she pledged the organization, she was elected National President in 1947.
The Pages lived in Massachusetts when Robbie attended his first day of kindergarten. It was also his last day of school. The next morning he had what the doctors described as an overwhelming case of bulbar poliomyelitis, a form of polio. Four days later, on September 15, 1951, he died in an iron lung. His bereaved parents wanted to help spare other parents the pain they so intensely felt at the loss of their precious young son and Tri Sigmas the country over wanted to do something to ease the family’s pain. The Robbie Page Memorial Fund was created to fund medical research.
Robertson “Robbie” Page II
Today’s collegians have no idea what the world was like when polio could strike in the blink of an eye. The Robbie Page Memorial Fund became Tri Sigma’s official philanthropy in 1954. The Fund helped during the Salk vaccine trials. When polio was essentially defeated in the United States, the focus of the Fund changed to “therapeutic play,” when that was a relatively new field. Today, the fund helps supports play therapy for hospitalized children and libraries, playrooms, and programs at hospitals where children undergo long-term care. The National Therapeutic Recreation Society has recognized Tri Sigma for its support of Child Life and Play Therapy programs.
(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013
