Page 12 - 1917 November - To Dragma

2 0 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA 0MICR0N PI
UPSILON AND PUGET SOUND ALUMNA
Dates are odious, but this is to be a report and must bear a date.
Thus the scene is laid—Seattle, early morning of the sixth of March,
and foggy—myself (Western District Superintendent) disheveled
and weary from the journey from Berkeley and waiting to be met—
Pat Kraus with her smile and heart-warming handshake and her
faithful car, coming to meet me. Then both of us waiting for Peggy
Kraus and Ruth Fosdick who had implored Pat the night before not
to be late! A few blocks up town we met them racing for the station.
After the introductions we started for "Home," stopping on the
way to meet and greet another sister and to get a telegram that
awaited at the office. With my heart in my mouth, and a vision of
my youngest baby taken suddenly i l l , I rushed up the stairs to find
a telegram from Isa Henderson Stewart concerning installation!
At last we were nearing "Home" and my heart was again in my
mouth—this time with pure fear at the thought of facing twenty-
odd young girls in an intimate and advisory capacity. No doubt their
twenty-odd hearts were also palpitating with fear of a bogie Inspector.
We all met with outward calm, and I struggled vainly to recall my
"line of chatter" of a decade gone. But to no avail. I fell back
on Silence and the housemother! And my little sisters rallied to
deep talk of world affairs, and the fascination of study. Gradually
during the day the strain wore off, and by night I had "been there
always."
"Home" is a curious and lovely house of wood, weathered to a
beautiful grey dulled into blue, set in a green open lawn. The living-
rooms are in cream enamel, and are large and cheerful and f u l l of
windows and were glorious with daffodils. There were even daffodils
in the spotless little guestroom which was mine.
I had turned back the season in two days, from late spring in Cali-
fornia to early spring on the Sound, and it was like turning back the
late spring of my life to the early spring of my little sisters.
Spring was everywhere—in the budding trees and flowers, and the
sudden rains and as sudden sunshine. The lovely campus was mud
beneath but f u l l of green and the russet of bursting buds. And
spring was always in the house, in joyfulness—in hopes and aspira-
tions—in gowns!
Having again touched earth we will proceed with a lecture on
House Decoration at the Home Economics Club, where Irma McCor-
mack presided, and arrive at dinner and the initiation of Hazel
Britton, whom I had met earlier in the day disguised in the hair
dresser's chair. The initiation was charming and dignified. And
TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 21
the meeting afterward was a joyful getting-acquainted. The girls
discussed their problems with candor and simplicity and made me
feel a truly "big sister," helping out because of a little wider experi-
ence and a little greater maturity. After meeting, they gave me the
real Righthand of Fellowship, which isn't a hand at all but is a state
of kimonoed ease and gossip "after the party."
The next day was spent in going over the books, in a long and
pleasant ride along the Lake to Pat's new house, which is set in a
lovely wild garden close to the water. We lunched there—Pat, her
mother, the housemother, and I ( I made the toast), and then after
teasing the dogs, we returned in time for a tea at the Gamma Phi
Beta house.
At Panhellenic meeting a little later I was brought to realize the
very simple and pleasant relation between fraternities, town and col-
lege, and realized it still more the next day when I saw my little,
informal, and intimate talk in the College Daily! Such a state is
really ideal, where the Panhellenic affairs are such an intimate and
natural part of college affairs.
A little faculty dinner with the dean of the College of Letters and
his wife, a mathematics professor and his wife and one of our own
patronesses as guests, quite rounded out the day—except for its crown,
the kimono talk.
I wish that I could have been giving you an impression of my
cumulative happiness during these two days, of the alumnae that dropt
in one by one until I knew every member of the fraternity within
reach, of the little talks that mean so much, of the little walks on the
campus—all preparing for the third wonderful day.
I n the morning of the third day I worked on the books and made
my visit to Miss Caldwell, Dean of Women. I left her with still
more pride in Upsilon and a feeling that everyone of "us" Upsilon
girls has a firm and interested friend in the dean; and that she is
eager to give of her experience and her great heart to every woman
student in the whole University of Washington—even that I have
her friendship.
Now comes the great event! Or, rather, series of events, for as the
Germans say, " A l l good things are three." So the best things of the
best day were three. I went up after lunch to rest and left a normal
college house. I came down two hours later to a house lit with dim
blue lights, and filled with baskets of spring flowers—tulips, nar-
cissus, and daffodils. The girls looked like spring, too, and the whole
vision was incarnated when Esther Kundson with her pale gold hair
came in dressed in green and gold and wearing daffodils. I forgot to
say that the affair was a tea for me. "Everyone" came—mothers,
t