October 15 is Founders’ Day for both Alpha Chi Omega and Zeta Tau Alpha. In 1885, Alpha Chi Omega was founded at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Thirteen years later, in 1898, Zeta Tau Alpha was founded at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia.
In the late 1800s, colleges and university typically offered two courses of study – classical and scientific. If one looks at the 1880s issues of sorority magazines, there will sometimes be mention of “special students.” These students were studying the fine arts at institutions where these types of courses might be available.
Alpha Chi Omega was founded by DePauw School of Music students Anna Allen (Smith), Olive Burnett (Clark), Bertha Deniston (Cunningham), Amy DuBois (Reith), Nellie Gamble (Childe), Bessie Grooms (Keenan) and Estelle Leonard. With the guidance and support of James Hamilton Howe, Dean of the School of Music, they created an organization that at its beginning insisted its members possess some musical culture. The first appearance of Alpha Chi Omega was in Meharry Hall of East College. The seven women wore scarlet and olive ribbon streamers attached to their dresses to display the organization’s colors.
Zeta Tau Alpha‘s founders are Alice Maud Jones (Horner), Frances Yancey Smith, Alice Bland Coleman, Ethel Coleman (Van Name), Ruby Bland Leigh (Orgain), Mary Campbell Jones (Batte), Helen May Crafford, Della Lewis (Hundley), and Alice Grey Welsh.
Both organizations had national Presidents who had a similar situation at about the same time, in the post World War I years. Their predecessors left office unexpectedly.
Alpha Burkart Wettach served as Zeta Tau Alpha’s Grand President from 1920-26. Her predecessor Dr. May Agness Hopkins, served for two decades. When Hopkins resigned in June 1920, Alpha Burkhard received a wire telling her of the departure and proposing her for appointment to fill Hopkins’ shoes.
As an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, Wettach was a member of a local organization, C.I.C. It became the Chi Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha. She was the Zeta chapter’s first president. After graduation, she became the first female recreation center director in Pittsburgh. She left Pennsylvania in 1922 to enter a master’s program at Columbia University. She graduated in 1923 and began a fellowship in mental hygiene at the New School for Social Research in New York City and earned a certificate in psychiatric social work.
On August 28, 1924, she married Robert Halsey Wettach, a Sigma Alpha Epsilon alumnus. They lived in North Carolina where her husband was on the law faculty at the University of North Carolina. During her tenure, 26 chapters were installed and a central office was established.
Gladys Livingston Olmstead Graff was Alpha Chi Omega’s National President from 1920-24. Prior to that role she was Atlantic Province President. She also served as chairman of the French Orphan Committee and was National Alumnae Editor. Graff was a member of Alpha Chi Omega’s Zeta Chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music.
She was active in the women’s suffrage effort and was as an officer of the Boston Writers Equal Suffrage League. Graff was also a charter member of Zeta Zeta Alumnae Chapter
