[thetalady]

Interesting that this quote claims that Ridpath & Dobell actually wrote our initiation ritual. Am I reading this quote right? :

From FIJI's records

At any rate, Bettie Locke contended that, if she were to wear the proffered badge, she would have to become a Phi Gamma Delta member whole and complete, or not at all. The Lambda lads finally admitted their inability to establish a precedent by initiating a woman member; so was the issue drawn. Viola! And since neither party knew of women becoming members of Beta Theta Pi and Phi Delta Theta, the Theta historian was enabled to write in1930: ". . . . fortunately for Kappa Alpha Theta, she was not initiated into Phi Gamma Delta. The young men compromised by presenting Bettie a handsome silver cake-basket with the Greek letters, Phi Gamma Delta

Fijis soon suggested, as their "measure of respect and appreciation," a coalition of the two societies to create a brother and sister order. Thus doth politics make hypocrites of us all. This suggestion, like the Fijis' first proposal to Bettie Locke, was considered and declined.

From Dr. Locke and the eminent Fiji historian, Dr. John Clark Ridpath (DePauw '63), the two planners extracted numerous suggestions. One of the latter's 'sisters, Martha Ridpath, who later became a Theta, "told how the girls spent one morning in the large, warm kitchen of the Ridpath home, and that Mrs. Ridpath in after years, reported they had 'cut up enough paper to fill a woodbox, trying to decide on a shape for their badge.

Most interesting of all was the story of his father and John C. Ridpath (DePauw 1863). Joseph Dobell and the eminent historian were connected with the founding of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, the two of them writing the Theta initiation ritual.