The internet has made so many publications available at the click of a mouse. Last night while looking for some information about a prominent Delta Gamma, I came across, completely by accident, a digitized copy of the Goucher College yearbook. My mother-in-law is a Goucher alumna, so I inserted one of her college years in the web address and a few minutes later I found the first of several pictures of her.
It was so much fun to find her among the college students. I have never known her as anything but a busy mom and grandmother. She graduated college, was married a few months later, and 11 months after that, she gave birth to a son and then three daughters in rapid succession. Aside from her wedding picture, I have never seen a picture of her as a young woman.
As my husband commented about the yearbooks, “They’re wonderful! My mother as the business manager of the yearbook. Never would have guessed that in a million years.” She was also the President of the Outing Club. Her degree was in American Civilization (who knew?). She loved her time at Goucher and still talks about the classes she took and the professors who taught them.
She is an Alpha Phi. However, all the women’s fraternities were disbanded during her years at Goucher after the campus moved from downtown Baltimore to rural Towson.* I only found a picture of the Alpha Phis during her freshman year when she was a pledge.
Several years ago, when I was doing some research at the Student Life Archives at the University of Illinois, I made a copy of this entry from the Alpha Phi Quarterly to give to my husband. It is from the year his mother pledged the Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi. His parents met at the dance with the Hopkins Phi Gams. It was only in the planning stages when this chapter report was written. I’m glad it took place because the rest is history.
*To read more about the once active women’s fraternity system at Goucher College, see http://wp.me/p20I1i-Kg
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
