Here are two wonderful articles about Demeter and Eleusis written in 1909 by Fraternity (Sorority) sisters of the Chi Omega Fraternity.
Find the original online here: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=3vESAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA134
The first article recounts the poetry surrounding Demeter and includes a handy listing of authors on the subject.
The second recounts an actual visit the women took to the ancient site of the Eleusinian Mysteries!
Think about that. 1909. Here was a multi-University organization of College women with a governing body and various committees and a newsletter at a time when many women were legally prohibited from attending many Universities. At a time when U.S. women had not yet won the right to vote!
It wasn’t until 1920 that the United States Congress passed the 19th Amendment!
It makes you wonder how many of the women on this letterhead were suffragists?
Their writing is wonderfully poetic.
Their words evoke a time when women were on the cusp of forging new identities.
Their names are a nostalgic listing of names that might belong to our grandmothers, names like:
Martha
Arta
Georgia
Mary
Anna
Inga
Corinne
Edna
Leila Sue
Letty Mae
Leslie
Helen
Bess
Harriet
Ava
Marguerite
Alice
Lilian
Emma
Ellen
Florence
Eleanor
Margaret
Irita
Hazel
Agnes
Ruth
Vera
Bessie
Katherine
Elma
Laura
Frances
Louise
Mable
Maude
Below, I have taken the liberty in re-printing the articles to re-spell “Goddess” and “God” with an uppercase “G,” something that even modern writers generally don’t yet dare to do, but it’s got to start somewhere, right? (A recognition that deities are deities regardless of the writer's editorial prohibitions.)
THE ELEUSIS of CHI OMEGA
VOL. ELEVEN MAY, 1909 NUMBER TWO
DEMETER
THE PATRON GODDESS OF CHI OMEGA
The budding life of happy spring,
The yellow autumn's faded leaf,
Alike to gentle hearts shall bring
The symbols of my joy and grief.
— Schiller, The Complaint of Ceres [Demeter]
It is "Founders' Day" — of all days surely the most fitting in which to write of Demeter (Ceres), the gracious "alma mater" of Chi Omega. The fields all about me are warm with thousands of the golden-hearted poppies our Goddess loves, and with her, every loyal Californian. My heart is something akin to Wordsworth's, though it was a host of daffodils he saw. Everywhere the sturdy old live oaks have put on a new and soft green; the little wild flowers are hiding because the sun is getting too hot for them. There is joy in mere living. Demeter has smiled on the world, and blessed it. I feel very strongly today that love and gratitude, which we cannot express too often, to the "Five" who conceived and brought to perfection so beautiful an ideal as the Chi Omega Fraternity. That such an organization is increasing in strength each day is argument enough that "ideals" have come to stay, and help in the business of real living. Into Chi Omega has crept something of the divinity of April when
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers.
The promise of awakened earth is ours, and as long as spring returns and Demeter rejoices in her daughter again, so long, I hope, shall we forget to grow "old and crafty and wise" — too wise to be enthusiastic.
But you are waiting to hear about the patron Goddess of Chi Omega, and her daughter Persephone (Proserpine, Kore, Cora). The poets have all been before me, and you have their versions, and so I am going back to the oldest and purest source, the "Homeric Hymn."
The long-lost text of this hymn was discovered among the manuscripts of the library at Moscow in 1780; it is the central expression of the story, and Grote places it as early as 600 years before Christ.
It is probably one of the songs of the Eleusinian festival. The interpreter of the holy places sings of "Demeter and her daughter Persephone, whom Aidoneus (Pluto) carried away, by the consent of Zeus, as she played apart from her mother, with the daughters of the ocean, gathering flowers in a meadow of soft grass, roses and crocus and fair violets, flags and hyacinths, and above all the strange flower, the Narcissus, brought forth for the first time, to snare the footsteps of the flower-like girl. A hundred heads of blossoms grew up from the roots of it, and the sky and the earth, and the salt waves of the sea were glad at the scent thereof. She stretched forth her hands to take the flower, then the earth opened, and the king of the great nation of the dead sprang out with his immortal horses. He seized the unwilling girl, and bore her away weeping on his golden chariot. She uttered a shrill cry, but neither man nor God heard her voice, nor even the nymphs of the meadow where she was playing except Hecate only — sitting as ever in her cave, half veiled with a shining veil, thinking delicate thoughts, she, and the sun also heard her. The peaks of the hills and the depths of the sea echoed her cry. Then her mother heard it. A sharp pain seized at her heart. Nine days she wandered up and down the earth, having blazing torches in her hands; in her great sorrow she refused to taste of ambrosia, or of the cup of the sweet nectar, nor washed her face. But when the tenth morning came Hecate met her, but could not tell her who had borne the girl away. And Demeter said not a word, but fled away swiftly with her, till they came to the Sun, who told her the whole story."
So grief-stricken was Demeter when she heard the tale, she forsook the Gods and went to dwell among men, hiding her beauty under a sad and worn countenance. And thus she came to the house of King Celeus, of Eleusis. She sat down by the wayside well, and the king's daughters with crocus-colored hair flying about their shoulders, came there to fill their brazen pitchers, but they did not know Demeter.
"The Gods are hard for men to recognize," says the hymn simply. But they were kind to her, and at their bidding she went to their father's house. And as she passed through the sunny porch where the mother was sitting against one of the pillars of the roof, she saw that there was a young child in her arms. Demeter crossed the threshold and as she passed through her head rose and touched the roof, and her presence filled the doorway with a divine brightness, but even so they did not know her. Here it was she refused wine, and drank the cup of barley water flavored with mint. She became the nurse of the child, Demophoon (Triptolemus), and would have made him immortal by putting him in the ashes each night, but the mother spied on the Goddess, and in her anger Demeter would proceed no further; yet because he had been so near to her, she made him her priest, and taught him the uses of the plough, thus he became the great helper of mankind. "
Then Demeter manifested herself; a fragrant odor fell from her raiment, and her flesh shone from afar; the long, yellow hair descended waving over her shoulders and the great house was filled with the brightness of lightning. Then she passed out through the halls.
"So all night long, trembling with fear, they sought to propitiate the glorious Goddess, and Celeus, at her command, built a fair temple. Then Demeter returned and sat there regretting the loss of her daughter. In her anger she sent a grievous famine on the earth. The dry seed remained hidden in the soil." George Meredith paints the time vividly:
Sole sound the snap of sapless trees,
More sharp than sling-stones on hard breastplates hurled.
Back to first chaos tumbled the stopped world,
Careless to lure or please.
A nature of gaunt ribs, an earth of crags!
Zeus began to feel disturbed, and finally he sent Hermes to the kingdom of the dead to persuade Pluto to suffer his bride to return to the light of day. That king did not object, but before his sad queen left, he gave her a morsel of sweet pomegranate to eat, designing secretly thereby that she should not remain always upon earth, but might some time return to him.
"So Ceres [Demeter] and Persephone spent the day in communion and Zeus sent to them Rhea, his venerable mother, the oldest of divine persons, to bring them back reconciled to the company of the Gods, and he ordained that Persephone should spend two parts of the year with her mother and one-third part only with her husband. So Demeter suffered the earth to yield its fruits once more and the land was suddenly laden with leaves, and flowers, and waving corn."
How mother and daughter spent that first beautiful day Tennyson tells us, and Jean Ingelow in her dainty lyric verse. I have given the story at length, because it is told so simply and sympathetically that whoever reads it will find it lingers in his memory persistently.
Always we shall think of Demeter as the perfect mother, who understands the depth of sorrow and the height of joy because she has experienced both. In her wanderings she becomes almost humanized, and in return she and Proserpine [Persephone], alone of all the Greek [Goddesses and] Gods, seem to have been the objects of a personal love and loyalty. "She abode among men" and humbled herself to serve them, she touched mortals with her immortal fingers, and they loved her as a woman while they worshiped her as a divinity. Of the host of Goddesses, she alone stretched out the hand of loving kindness to her children. She is warmer, more loving, more real than the others, and she makes us love her more because she touches the emotions of love and pity.
How did Demeter become so dear to the people? we ask ourselves. Pater has answered the question by indicating how myths grow. They arise, he says, through the attempt primitive [women and] men make to explain natural phenomena by ingenious stories of their own. After a little while the poets remold these legends, fix their outlines and develop their situations. In the next step the myth passes into the ethical stage. Despite the steady march of science with its brilliant explanations of physical processes, there has ever been developing a philosophy of instinct rather than understanding. This may be illustrated by the feeling which comes to one in the first warm days of spring when nature is at work, when the blood seems to be coursing through the trees as surely as it leaps in our own veins. A feeling of strong relationship is thus established between [hu]man[s] and nature. "The sky in its unity and variety, the sea in its unity and variety, mirrored themselves respectively in these simple, but profoundly impressive Greeks, as Zeus, as Glaucus, or Poseidon. And a large part of their experience — all that related itself to the earth in its changes, the growth and decay of all things born of it — was covered by the story of Demeter, the myth of the earth as a mother."
The story of Demeter, then, was a gradual growth, the work of [women and] men thinking independently, in places far distant from each other, yet all dealing with the same aspects of nature. It is not strange, when this is considered, how numerous and varied her attributes are. No nation with less esthetic sense than the Greeks could have developed such clear and idyllic images from mere wondering and surmises. In the extant works of art, though we see her represented in each case a little differently, in the main a certain harmony characterizes all. Her form is copied from Juno's. She has the same majestic stature, flowing draperies, and matronly air, but is of a milder character. She wears a garland of poppies, or holds a bunch in her hand. Sometimes she has a crown of wheat, often she carries a basket of fruit. The torch is one of her favorite emblems, and the homely implements of the farm, the sickle, and the plow, are often represented with her. As "Mother Earth" and protectress of agriculture, she takes part in the mowing and binding up of the corn, presiding over all the pleasing duties of farm life. She stands beside the woman baking at the oven, or prepares the mysterious juices of the poppy to alleviate pain. Other conceptions place her in a chariot drawn by dragons. Art, however, has not left as many monuments of her as poetry. It is generally thought that she appears in the group of deities on the eastern fringe of the Parthenon. But the most striking of the statues is that found by Mr. Newton at Cnidos in 1857. This is now in the British Museum, where we may all see it some day. There are two other statues of Ceres [Demeter] in the Vatican at Rome, and one in the Glypothek at Munich. Many of the ancient vases are decorated with scenes illustrating the story of Homeric hymns, but more frequently these were put upon the tombs of the young girls who died. Probably more familiar are Bernini's Pluto and Proserpine [Persephone] (sculpture) ; P. Schobet's "Rape (sic) of Proserpine" (picture), and the Eleusinian relief Demeter, Proserpina, and Triptolemus (at Athens). On one of the Messene coins is a head thought to be Demeter's. Pater dwells with pleasure on the "crisp, chaste opening of the lips, the minutely wrought earrings, and the delicately touched ears of corn, "and the fact that the old workman who made it," impressed in the face all the purity and proportion, the purged and dainty intelligence of the human countenance."
The country folk, dreaming over sowing and reaping in spring and autumn, were awed by the mystery and solemnity of the season's change and the growth and decay in nature. Says Pater: "The habitual solemnity of thought and expression which Wordsworth found in the peasants of Cumberland, and Millet in the peasants of Brittany may well have had its prototype in early Greece. To the people the incidents of the yearly labor become acts of worship ; they seek her blessing through many expressive names, and almost catch sight of her at dawn or evening in the nooks of the fragrant fields." The whole ancient world paid tribute to her. The New International Encyclopedia says that the worship of Demeter and Proserpine [Persephone] as a dual impersonation of the "corn spirit" may be found in the customs of the European peasants of today. This is no doubt a survival of a festival the Romans had in honor of Ceres [Demeter], called the "Cerealic." This was celebrated on April 19. Virgil has described the scene. The translation is by C. Pitt.
To Ceres chief her annual rites be paid,
On the green turf, beneath a fragrant shade.
When Winter ends, and Spring serenely shines,
Then fat the lambs, then mellow are the wines,
Then sweet are slumbers on the flowery ground,
Then with thick shades are lofty mountains crown'd.
Let all the winds bend low at Ceres' shrine;
Mix honey sweet for her, with milk and mellow wine;
Thrice lead the victim the new fruits around,
And Ceres call, and choral hymns resound ;
Presume not, swains, the ripen'd grain to reap.
Till crown'd with oak in antic dance ye leap, I
nvoking Ceres, and in solemn lays.
Exalt your rural queen's immortal praise.
The Greeks had two kinds of festivals. First the Eleusinia, which was celebrated in the spring and in the autumn, in February and September, respectively. There was a difference between the Festivals and the Mysteries of Eleusis. The former were for all classes. The latter were very serious and solemn, only the initiated witnessed the ceremonies. These secrets have never been revealed, but probably they had to do with instructions "in the nature of life and death, and the consolation of immortality." (Preller.) The second festival was the Thesmophoria, particularly for married women, Demeter being the deity of the discretion of wives.
Thus guarding ever the homes of [women and] men, watching over their industries, Ceres [Demeter] becomes the founder of civilized order. From her wanderings she becomes the patron of travelers and the abstract type of the wanderer. Every detail in her life, judging from the Homeric hymn, is signficant. Even the robe of dark blue which we are told she had on when she went to Celeus' palace, was not only the raiment of her mourning, but also the blue robe of the earth in shadow, as we see it in Titian's landscapes ; her great age is the age of the immemorial earth. The sweet breath with which she nourishes the child Demophoon is the warm west wind, her bosom where he lies is the bosom of the earth. The yellow hair which falls suddenly over her shoulders at her transformation in the house of Celeus is the golden corn. It is beautiful to trace out these meanings, and one feels well repaid for so doing.
Few Goddesses have inspired, I dare say, so many poets as Demeter. Among the ancients, Callimachus, in the third century before Christ, wrote a hymn in celebration of the procession of the Sacred Basket. In the same age there was an idyll of Theocritus in the "Shepherd's Journey." Euripides varies the story and adapts it to poetry. Claudian wrote the last extant poems on Demeter. With the more modern poets she is even more popular. Milton, Thomas Warton, Pope, Gray, Thomson and Addison have all mentioned her with appreciation. Important poems and articles have been devoted to her by Schiller, Aubrey deVere, Tennyson, Swinburne, Walter Pater, Sydney Colvin, R. H. Stoddard, B. W. Proctor, Thomas Hood, George Meredith, Barry Cornwall, Lewis Morris, and among women writers of note, Jean Ingelow, Helen H. Jackson and Dora Greenwell. This forms a rich storehouse for all Chi Omegas who want to know Demeter better. The most interesting and scholarly of all these, perhaps, and the one to which I am most gratefully indebted, is Mr. Walter H. Pater's article "The Myth of Demeter and Persephone," in the Fortnightly Review (volume xix, new series, pages 82-95, and 260-276). Many of his ideas and remarks I have put in my own words, much I have adapted, and I have quoted from it freely, because it is exceptionally good, and is printed in a form which makes it somewhat inaccessible to the ordinary reader. This paper has been prepared amid the stress of heavy college work, and does not pretend to be finished in its form. It is, after all, simply an echo of a hurried but wide reading on the subject, and especially of Mr. Pater's article, and it is with his words — the last in his essay — that I wish to close, because they express so exactly my own feeling in regard to Demeter and Persephone.
"There is an attractiveness in these Goddesses of the earth, akin to the influences of cool places, quiet houses, subdued light, tranquilising voices; for me, at least, I know it has been good to be with Demeter and Persephone all the time I have been reading and thinking of them; and throughout this essay, I have been asking myself, what is there in this phase of ancient religion for us at the present day? The myth of Demeter and Persephone, then, illustrates the power of the Greek religion as a religion of pure ideas, of conceptions which having no link on the historical fact, yet because they arose naturally out of the spirit of [hu]man[ity], and embodied in adequate symbols, his (sic) physical and spiritual life, maintained their hold, through many changes, and are still not without a solemnizing power even for the modern mind, which has once admitted them as recognized and habitual inhabitants, and abiding thus for the elevation and purifying of our sentiments. Long after the earlier and simpler races of their worshippers have passed away, they may be a pledge to us of the place in our culture, at once legitimate and possible, of Greek religious poetry in general, of the poetry of all religions."
by Elizabeth Lee Buckingham, Mu.
ANCIENT ELEUSIS
Next to Athens, Eleusis was the most important city of ancient Attica. It was situated on the bay of Eleusis, opposite Salamis, and was connected with Athens by the Sacred Road. It was famous as the seat of worship of Demeter, or Ceres, whose mystic rites — the Eleusinian Mysteries — were here performed with great pomp and solemnity from the earliest times till Alaric the leader of the Goths, destroyed the famous temple of the Goddess.
Annually those who had already been initiated into the lesser mysteries assembled at Athens. On the sacred day of the festival, they walked to the sea to be purified. The third day was one of fasting. Then came the procession of the sacred basket filled with pomegranates and poppy seed, and drawn on a cart of oxen, followed by women; this took place on the fourth day. The fifth was the torch procession to the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. On the sixth day the initiates were taken into the inner sanctuary and initiated into the final mysteries. What the teachings were that were revealed unto them is unknown, though they are supposed to have been in regard to a future life. On the seventh day they returned to Athens with laughter and music, and the remaining two days were given to merrymaking and feasting and musical ceremonies.
The site of the old city Eleusis is now occupied by the little town of Levsina.
A DAY AT ELEUSIS
It is said that the climate of Greece has undergone a decided change since the great days of Pericles, and I well believe it, for we all know the light airiness of the early Greeks in the matter of dress, while the modern Atalanta wears furs.
So on a certain April Fifth I have in mind, when all Athens was a-twitter with spring, when the birds in the Palace Gardens vied with each other in paeans of praise, we dressed ourselves warmly and took steamer rugs to put over our knees, even while we rejoiced for the ancients that they did not need such things. For who would like to think of Helen in a shapeless knitted sweater?
At the early hour of eight we packed ourselves neatly into a wide, roomy, comfortable carriage, drawn by two strong bays, and with great eagerness made ready for the long drive to Eleusis. Athens was gleaming, white and peaceful, in the early sun light which filtered through the great, crooked acacia trees along the avenues and dappled the broad white streets with shadows, varying with the gentle breezes which, wafted in from the Pirates, swayed the closely leafed branches over our heads. In the business district all was astir with commercial activity, and the petty shopkeepers were displaying bright wares before their doors on the very streets where the chariot of Miltiades once rattled over the stones. With a sharp turn to the northwest we left this suddenly behind us, and in a few minutes were on the Sacred Way. The road leads through green barley fields where the fresh green blades are so interspersed with scarlet poppies and daisies that one is reminded of Botticelli's Spring. For a while the way follows a narrow winding stream with pebbly banks, but soon this meanders off, murmuring to itself, and we are left again with the barley fields and the distant mountains. Finally we come out on a broad, high eminence — and we are at Eleusis, the trysting-place. With exclamations of delighted surprise and wonder we rush to the edge of a rocky plateau for a better view of the glorious panorama which spreads itself around us. Imagine a sky and sea bathed in the most celestial blue — a blue before which even the far-famed Bay of Naples pales in comparison — on three sides of us the Bay of Salamis stretching out to eternity, while before us lies the long island of Salamis, barren, peaceful, impressive, a gray-brown spot in the surrounding blue. The waves gently lap its rocky coast as if in untiring caresses, and far, far beyond it may be seen tall, snow capped mountains, their peaks among, or above, the clouds. Behind us are abrupt, high, rocky hills, almost as impossible to scale as Parnassus, and here, right around us, are the ruined pillars of the Temple to Demeter, once one of the architectural glories of Greece. It has been a year since I saw Eleusis yet I remember that first momentary view as if it had been yesterday, as vividly as did the little boy whose mother slapped him to make him remember the Coliseum. The surprise, the delight of it all, left on me an indelible impression.
We are standing on a platform cut out of the solid rock, and from it we pass through two propylaea into the inner inclosure of the temple itself. Little is left of the sacred edifice; the vandal followers of Alaric worked well its devastation, and now grass grows unconfined where once was an inlaid floor of Pentelic marble, and we strive hard, as we gaze at strewn and hacked bases and capitals of pillars, to conjure up in our minds the picture of the glory as it once stood. On a setting that would seem fit as a favorite resort of the immortals, now stands, or squats, the miserable village of Lefsino ( Xevalva) , sprawling even amidst the ruins of the temple, looking as out of place and yet as snugly unconscious of it as might a toad on an altar of Venus.
The name, Lefsino, is probably a corruption of Eleusis, which the Greeks pronounce Elefsis. Many of the scattered blocks and tablets , about the ruins bear inscriptions carefully cut in Greek capitals, and it was with a thrill of delighted understanding that I spelled out the word Hierophant.
A typical Greek peasant offered himself as our guide and we engaged him, not because we needed a guide but because he evidently needed a dragma. He explained to us the plan of the temple, and, as we had an illustrated guide-book, we understood him. He showed us two holes in the ground, perhaps a dozen yards apart. These are connected underground by a rough, dark, narrow passage, and through this passage (we gleaned it from his expressive gesture), the blindfolded neophyte was dragged by the feet and bumped about. Thus did he make his perilous journey through the underworld, after which he was led into the blinding light of the inner shrine where he saw — who knows what?
When we had pryed into every inclosure, kicked over every stone, and kodaked each other on every marble base, we remembered that it was late and we were hungry, so our lunch was produced from under the driver's seat in the carriage, and we sat down on the rocky ledge, and, watching the tiny, distant white sails of fishing-boats blinking lazily in the sun, we devoured a feast of honey from Hymettus, dried figs from Smyrna, and delicious Greek nougat filled with crispest almonds. For the others it was lunch — for me it was a Chi Omega banquet! We imagined we were sitting on the exact spot where Demeter sat, mourning for the lost Persephone, and where she was addressed by the daughters of the Eleusinian king, Oleus; and that our sandwiches were the pomegranate and the poppy seed so intimately connected with the legend. We could close our eyes and fancy we saw the glad meeting of mother and daughter, then the quickly rewarding harvest, as the glad young shoots put forth, taking their first peep into a glorious new world — a world of spring.
Can you imagine a more fitting, a more inspiring spot on which to spend Chi Omega's birthday than the birthplace of Chi Omega's traditions? Except that I had to thrill alone, I felt that my celebration was best of all.
by Emily Van Dorn Miller, Rho.
SUPREME GOVERNING COUNCIL
OF THE
CHI OMEGA FRATERNITY
Ida Pace Purdue, S. H. (President)
(Mrs. A. H. Purdue)
Fayetteville, Ark.
Susan Thornton Bitting, S. T. B. (Vice-president)
Carlsbad, N. Mex.
Jessie Anna Parker, S. K. A. (Secretary)
Olathe, Kans.
May Gullette Miller, S. N. V. (Treasurer)
403 N. Seventh Street
Fort Smith, Ark.
Wendla Justitia McCaskey, S. M., (Secret Work)
(Acting for Mary Wright Bain)
6357 Normal Avenue, Chicago, Ill.
Mattie Craighill Nicholas, Eleusis Editor
608 Court Street
Lynchburg, Va.
Standing Committees, etc.
CHAPTER HOUSE COMMITTEES
INFORMATION COMMITTEE
Myrtle Morrissy Maclver (Mrs. M. N.), Nu, Oskosh, Wis.
Wendla McCaskey, Omicron, 6357 Normal Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Mary Stewart, Eta, De Land, Fla.
LOAN FUND COMMITTEE
Lelia Harwood, Xi, 2907 Kenmore Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Florence Mitchell, Lambda, Iola, Kans.
Laura Olsen, Nu, Eau Claire, Wis.
EXAMINATION COMMITTEE
Martha Land, Chi, R. R. 10, Lexington, Ky.
Arta Kocken, Kappa, North Platte, Nebr.
Georgia Shattuck, Nu, Medford, Wis.
Mary C. Love Collins (Mrs. H. M.), Delta, Tyrone, Pa.
Anna Vineyard, Tau, Miller School, Albemarle Co., Va.
SONG BOOK COMMITTEE
Mrs. Inga Sandberg, Nu, 620 Langdon St., Madison, Wis.
Corinne Brackett, Phi Alpha, 1464 Girard St., N. W., Wash ington, D. C.
Secretary of National Pan-Hellen1c Conference. Miss L. P. Green (K A 6), 15 East Ave., Ithaca, N. Y.
Chapter Correspondents
PSI — University of Arkansas,
Forrest Ellis, Fayetteville, Ark.
CHI — Transylvania University,
Edna Earl Hinton, 603 North Broadway, Lexington, Ky.
UPSILON— Union University,
Leila Sue Young, Lovelace Hall, Jackson, Tenn.
TAU — University of Mississippi,
Anne H. Augustus, University, Miss.
SIGMA — Randolph-Macon Woman's College,
Letty Mae McRoberts, College Park, Va.
RHO — Tulane University, Newcomb College,
Leslie Keller, 6330 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, La.
PI — University of Tennessee,
Helen Gordon, 1616 W. Clinch Ave., Knoxville, Tenn.
OMICRON— University of Illinois,
Bess Matthews, 307 John St., Champaign, Ill.
XI — Northwestern University,
Harriet Wilson, 730 Milburn St., Evanston, III.
NU — University of Wisconsin,
Ava Cochrane, 620 Langdon St., Madison, Wis.
MU — University of California,
Marguerite Diaz-Pena, 1700 Euclid Ave., Berkeley, Cal.
LAMBDA — University of Kansas,
Gail Sutton, 1005 Kentucky St., Lawrence, Kans.
KAPPA— University of Nebraska,
Alice Burge, 1035 J St., Lincoln, Nebr.
IOTA — University of Texas.
Lilian Walker, 402 W. 24th St., Austin, Tex.
THETA — West Virginia University,
Emma Beall, Morgantown, W. Va.
ETA — University of Michigan.
Ellen Crawford, 1027 University Ave., Ann Arbor, Mich.
ZETA — University of Colorado,
Florence Scott, 1155 Thirteenth St., Boulder, Colo.
EPSILON — Columbia University, Barnard College,
Eleanor Martin, Perth Amboy, N. J.
DELTA — Dickinson College,
Margaret Gruber, Carlisle, Pa.
GAMMA — Florida Woman's College,
Irita Bradford, 591 E. Virginia St., Tallahassee, Fla.
BETA— Colby College,
Hazel L. B reckon ridge, Foss Hall, Waterville, Me.
PHI ALPHA— George Washington University,
Agnes Ballock, 1013 Fifteenth St., Washington,
D. C. FAYETTEVILLE ALUMNA—
Ruth Crozier, Fayetteville, Ark.
WASHINGTON CITY ALUMNiE—
Vera Vaughan, 1718 I St., Washington, D. C.
ATLANTA ALUMNiE—
Bessie Ray, 133 Lee St., Atlanta, Ga.
LEXINGTON ALUMNA—
Katherine Campbell, Nicholasville, Ky.
OXFORD ALUMNAE—
Elma Meek, Oxford, Miss.
KNOXVILLE ALUMNA—
Laura Thornburgh, Knoxville, Tenn.
CHICAGO ALUMNjE—
Frances Pitkin, 1291 Perry St., Chicago, Ill.
KANSAS CITY ALUMNAE—
Louise Knight, 1418 Linwood Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo.
NEW YORK CITY ALUMNA—
Mable Boote, 00 Highland Ave., Yonkers, N. Y.
TEXARKANA ALUMNiE—
Louise Holman, Texarkana, Ark.
NEW ORLEANS ALUMNjE—
Elma Follett, 1232 St. Mary St., New Orleans, La.
LYNCHBURG ALUMN-E—
Evelyn L. Moore, Lynchburg, Va.
DENVER ALUMNA—
Maude Young, 131 Logan Ave., Denver, Colo.
MILWAUKEE ALUMNAE—
Maude Watrous, Milwaukee, Wis.
Find the original online here: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=3vESAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA134
The first article recounts the poetry surrounding Demeter and includes a handy listing of authors on the subject.
The second recounts an actual visit the women took to the ancient site of the Eleusinian Mysteries!
Think about that. 1909. Here was a multi-University organization of College women with a governing body and various committees and a newsletter at a time when many women were legally prohibited from attending many Universities. At a time when U.S. women had not yet won the right to vote!
It wasn’t until 1920 that the United States Congress passed the 19th Amendment!
It makes you wonder how many of the women on this letterhead were suffragists?
Their writing is wonderfully poetic.
Their words evoke a time when women were on the cusp of forging new identities.
Their names are a nostalgic listing of names that might belong to our grandmothers, names like:
Martha
Arta
Georgia
Mary
Anna
Inga
Corinne
Edna
Leila Sue
Letty Mae
Leslie
Helen
Bess
Harriet
Ava
Marguerite
Alice
Lilian
Emma
Ellen
Florence
Eleanor
Margaret
Irita
Hazel
Agnes
Ruth
Vera
Bessie
Katherine
Elma
Laura
Frances
Louise
Mable
Maude
Below, I have taken the liberty in re-printing the articles to re-spell “Goddess” and “God” with an uppercase “G,” something that even modern writers generally don’t yet dare to do, but it’s got to start somewhere, right? (A recognition that deities are deities regardless of the writer's editorial prohibitions.)
THE ELEUSIS of CHI OMEGA
VOL. ELEVEN MAY, 1909 NUMBER TWO
DEMETER
THE PATRON GODDESS OF CHI OMEGA
The budding life of happy spring,
The yellow autumn's faded leaf,
Alike to gentle hearts shall bring
The symbols of my joy and grief.
— Schiller, The Complaint of Ceres [Demeter]
It is "Founders' Day" — of all days surely the most fitting in which to write of Demeter (Ceres), the gracious "alma mater" of Chi Omega. The fields all about me are warm with thousands of the golden-hearted poppies our Goddess loves, and with her, every loyal Californian. My heart is something akin to Wordsworth's, though it was a host of daffodils he saw. Everywhere the sturdy old live oaks have put on a new and soft green; the little wild flowers are hiding because the sun is getting too hot for them. There is joy in mere living. Demeter has smiled on the world, and blessed it. I feel very strongly today that love and gratitude, which we cannot express too often, to the "Five" who conceived and brought to perfection so beautiful an ideal as the Chi Omega Fraternity. That such an organization is increasing in strength each day is argument enough that "ideals" have come to stay, and help in the business of real living. Into Chi Omega has crept something of the divinity of April when
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers.
The promise of awakened earth is ours, and as long as spring returns and Demeter rejoices in her daughter again, so long, I hope, shall we forget to grow "old and crafty and wise" — too wise to be enthusiastic.
But you are waiting to hear about the patron Goddess of Chi Omega, and her daughter Persephone (Proserpine, Kore, Cora). The poets have all been before me, and you have their versions, and so I am going back to the oldest and purest source, the "Homeric Hymn."
The long-lost text of this hymn was discovered among the manuscripts of the library at Moscow in 1780; it is the central expression of the story, and Grote places it as early as 600 years before Christ.
It is probably one of the songs of the Eleusinian festival. The interpreter of the holy places sings of "Demeter and her daughter Persephone, whom Aidoneus (Pluto) carried away, by the consent of Zeus, as she played apart from her mother, with the daughters of the ocean, gathering flowers in a meadow of soft grass, roses and crocus and fair violets, flags and hyacinths, and above all the strange flower, the Narcissus, brought forth for the first time, to snare the footsteps of the flower-like girl. A hundred heads of blossoms grew up from the roots of it, and the sky and the earth, and the salt waves of the sea were glad at the scent thereof. She stretched forth her hands to take the flower, then the earth opened, and the king of the great nation of the dead sprang out with his immortal horses. He seized the unwilling girl, and bore her away weeping on his golden chariot. She uttered a shrill cry, but neither man nor God heard her voice, nor even the nymphs of the meadow where she was playing except Hecate only — sitting as ever in her cave, half veiled with a shining veil, thinking delicate thoughts, she, and the sun also heard her. The peaks of the hills and the depths of the sea echoed her cry. Then her mother heard it. A sharp pain seized at her heart. Nine days she wandered up and down the earth, having blazing torches in her hands; in her great sorrow she refused to taste of ambrosia, or of the cup of the sweet nectar, nor washed her face. But when the tenth morning came Hecate met her, but could not tell her who had borne the girl away. And Demeter said not a word, but fled away swiftly with her, till they came to the Sun, who told her the whole story."
So grief-stricken was Demeter when she heard the tale, she forsook the Gods and went to dwell among men, hiding her beauty under a sad and worn countenance. And thus she came to the house of King Celeus, of Eleusis. She sat down by the wayside well, and the king's daughters with crocus-colored hair flying about their shoulders, came there to fill their brazen pitchers, but they did not know Demeter.
"The Gods are hard for men to recognize," says the hymn simply. But they were kind to her, and at their bidding she went to their father's house. And as she passed through the sunny porch where the mother was sitting against one of the pillars of the roof, she saw that there was a young child in her arms. Demeter crossed the threshold and as she passed through her head rose and touched the roof, and her presence filled the doorway with a divine brightness, but even so they did not know her. Here it was she refused wine, and drank the cup of barley water flavored with mint. She became the nurse of the child, Demophoon (Triptolemus), and would have made him immortal by putting him in the ashes each night, but the mother spied on the Goddess, and in her anger Demeter would proceed no further; yet because he had been so near to her, she made him her priest, and taught him the uses of the plough, thus he became the great helper of mankind. "
Then Demeter manifested herself; a fragrant odor fell from her raiment, and her flesh shone from afar; the long, yellow hair descended waving over her shoulders and the great house was filled with the brightness of lightning. Then she passed out through the halls.
"So all night long, trembling with fear, they sought to propitiate the glorious Goddess, and Celeus, at her command, built a fair temple. Then Demeter returned and sat there regretting the loss of her daughter. In her anger she sent a grievous famine on the earth. The dry seed remained hidden in the soil." George Meredith paints the time vividly:
Sole sound the snap of sapless trees,
More sharp than sling-stones on hard breastplates hurled.
Back to first chaos tumbled the stopped world,
Careless to lure or please.
A nature of gaunt ribs, an earth of crags!
Zeus began to feel disturbed, and finally he sent Hermes to the kingdom of the dead to persuade Pluto to suffer his bride to return to the light of day. That king did not object, but before his sad queen left, he gave her a morsel of sweet pomegranate to eat, designing secretly thereby that she should not remain always upon earth, but might some time return to him.
"So Ceres [Demeter] and Persephone spent the day in communion and Zeus sent to them Rhea, his venerable mother, the oldest of divine persons, to bring them back reconciled to the company of the Gods, and he ordained that Persephone should spend two parts of the year with her mother and one-third part only with her husband. So Demeter suffered the earth to yield its fruits once more and the land was suddenly laden with leaves, and flowers, and waving corn."
How mother and daughter spent that first beautiful day Tennyson tells us, and Jean Ingelow in her dainty lyric verse. I have given the story at length, because it is told so simply and sympathetically that whoever reads it will find it lingers in his memory persistently.
Always we shall think of Demeter as the perfect mother, who understands the depth of sorrow and the height of joy because she has experienced both. In her wanderings she becomes almost humanized, and in return she and Proserpine [Persephone], alone of all the Greek [Goddesses and] Gods, seem to have been the objects of a personal love and loyalty. "She abode among men" and humbled herself to serve them, she touched mortals with her immortal fingers, and they loved her as a woman while they worshiped her as a divinity. Of the host of Goddesses, she alone stretched out the hand of loving kindness to her children. She is warmer, more loving, more real than the others, and she makes us love her more because she touches the emotions of love and pity.
How did Demeter become so dear to the people? we ask ourselves. Pater has answered the question by indicating how myths grow. They arise, he says, through the attempt primitive [women and] men make to explain natural phenomena by ingenious stories of their own. After a little while the poets remold these legends, fix their outlines and develop their situations. In the next step the myth passes into the ethical stage. Despite the steady march of science with its brilliant explanations of physical processes, there has ever been developing a philosophy of instinct rather than understanding. This may be illustrated by the feeling which comes to one in the first warm days of spring when nature is at work, when the blood seems to be coursing through the trees as surely as it leaps in our own veins. A feeling of strong relationship is thus established between [hu]man[s] and nature. "The sky in its unity and variety, the sea in its unity and variety, mirrored themselves respectively in these simple, but profoundly impressive Greeks, as Zeus, as Glaucus, or Poseidon. And a large part of their experience — all that related itself to the earth in its changes, the growth and decay of all things born of it — was covered by the story of Demeter, the myth of the earth as a mother."
The story of Demeter, then, was a gradual growth, the work of [women and] men thinking independently, in places far distant from each other, yet all dealing with the same aspects of nature. It is not strange, when this is considered, how numerous and varied her attributes are. No nation with less esthetic sense than the Greeks could have developed such clear and idyllic images from mere wondering and surmises. In the extant works of art, though we see her represented in each case a little differently, in the main a certain harmony characterizes all. Her form is copied from Juno's. She has the same majestic stature, flowing draperies, and matronly air, but is of a milder character. She wears a garland of poppies, or holds a bunch in her hand. Sometimes she has a crown of wheat, often she carries a basket of fruit. The torch is one of her favorite emblems, and the homely implements of the farm, the sickle, and the plow, are often represented with her. As "Mother Earth" and protectress of agriculture, she takes part in the mowing and binding up of the corn, presiding over all the pleasing duties of farm life. She stands beside the woman baking at the oven, or prepares the mysterious juices of the poppy to alleviate pain. Other conceptions place her in a chariot drawn by dragons. Art, however, has not left as many monuments of her as poetry. It is generally thought that she appears in the group of deities on the eastern fringe of the Parthenon. But the most striking of the statues is that found by Mr. Newton at Cnidos in 1857. This is now in the British Museum, where we may all see it some day. There are two other statues of Ceres [Demeter] in the Vatican at Rome, and one in the Glypothek at Munich. Many of the ancient vases are decorated with scenes illustrating the story of Homeric hymns, but more frequently these were put upon the tombs of the young girls who died. Probably more familiar are Bernini's Pluto and Proserpine [Persephone] (sculpture) ; P. Schobet's "Rape (sic) of Proserpine" (picture), and the Eleusinian relief Demeter, Proserpina, and Triptolemus (at Athens). On one of the Messene coins is a head thought to be Demeter's. Pater dwells with pleasure on the "crisp, chaste opening of the lips, the minutely wrought earrings, and the delicately touched ears of corn, "and the fact that the old workman who made it," impressed in the face all the purity and proportion, the purged and dainty intelligence of the human countenance."
The country folk, dreaming over sowing and reaping in spring and autumn, were awed by the mystery and solemnity of the season's change and the growth and decay in nature. Says Pater: "The habitual solemnity of thought and expression which Wordsworth found in the peasants of Cumberland, and Millet in the peasants of Brittany may well have had its prototype in early Greece. To the people the incidents of the yearly labor become acts of worship ; they seek her blessing through many expressive names, and almost catch sight of her at dawn or evening in the nooks of the fragrant fields." The whole ancient world paid tribute to her. The New International Encyclopedia says that the worship of Demeter and Proserpine [Persephone] as a dual impersonation of the "corn spirit" may be found in the customs of the European peasants of today. This is no doubt a survival of a festival the Romans had in honor of Ceres [Demeter], called the "Cerealic." This was celebrated on April 19. Virgil has described the scene. The translation is by C. Pitt.
To Ceres chief her annual rites be paid,
On the green turf, beneath a fragrant shade.
When Winter ends, and Spring serenely shines,
Then fat the lambs, then mellow are the wines,
Then sweet are slumbers on the flowery ground,
Then with thick shades are lofty mountains crown'd.
Let all the winds bend low at Ceres' shrine;
Mix honey sweet for her, with milk and mellow wine;
Thrice lead the victim the new fruits around,
And Ceres call, and choral hymns resound ;
Presume not, swains, the ripen'd grain to reap.
Till crown'd with oak in antic dance ye leap, I
nvoking Ceres, and in solemn lays.
Exalt your rural queen's immortal praise.
The Greeks had two kinds of festivals. First the Eleusinia, which was celebrated in the spring and in the autumn, in February and September, respectively. There was a difference between the Festivals and the Mysteries of Eleusis. The former were for all classes. The latter were very serious and solemn, only the initiated witnessed the ceremonies. These secrets have never been revealed, but probably they had to do with instructions "in the nature of life and death, and the consolation of immortality." (Preller.) The second festival was the Thesmophoria, particularly for married women, Demeter being the deity of the discretion of wives.
Thus guarding ever the homes of [women and] men, watching over their industries, Ceres [Demeter] becomes the founder of civilized order. From her wanderings she becomes the patron of travelers and the abstract type of the wanderer. Every detail in her life, judging from the Homeric hymn, is signficant. Even the robe of dark blue which we are told she had on when she went to Celeus' palace, was not only the raiment of her mourning, but also the blue robe of the earth in shadow, as we see it in Titian's landscapes ; her great age is the age of the immemorial earth. The sweet breath with which she nourishes the child Demophoon is the warm west wind, her bosom where he lies is the bosom of the earth. The yellow hair which falls suddenly over her shoulders at her transformation in the house of Celeus is the golden corn. It is beautiful to trace out these meanings, and one feels well repaid for so doing.
Few Goddesses have inspired, I dare say, so many poets as Demeter. Among the ancients, Callimachus, in the third century before Christ, wrote a hymn in celebration of the procession of the Sacred Basket. In the same age there was an idyll of Theocritus in the "Shepherd's Journey." Euripides varies the story and adapts it to poetry. Claudian wrote the last extant poems on Demeter. With the more modern poets she is even more popular. Milton, Thomas Warton, Pope, Gray, Thomson and Addison have all mentioned her with appreciation. Important poems and articles have been devoted to her by Schiller, Aubrey deVere, Tennyson, Swinburne, Walter Pater, Sydney Colvin, R. H. Stoddard, B. W. Proctor, Thomas Hood, George Meredith, Barry Cornwall, Lewis Morris, and among women writers of note, Jean Ingelow, Helen H. Jackson and Dora Greenwell. This forms a rich storehouse for all Chi Omegas who want to know Demeter better. The most interesting and scholarly of all these, perhaps, and the one to which I am most gratefully indebted, is Mr. Walter H. Pater's article "The Myth of Demeter and Persephone," in the Fortnightly Review (volume xix, new series, pages 82-95, and 260-276). Many of his ideas and remarks I have put in my own words, much I have adapted, and I have quoted from it freely, because it is exceptionally good, and is printed in a form which makes it somewhat inaccessible to the ordinary reader. This paper has been prepared amid the stress of heavy college work, and does not pretend to be finished in its form. It is, after all, simply an echo of a hurried but wide reading on the subject, and especially of Mr. Pater's article, and it is with his words — the last in his essay — that I wish to close, because they express so exactly my own feeling in regard to Demeter and Persephone.
"There is an attractiveness in these Goddesses of the earth, akin to the influences of cool places, quiet houses, subdued light, tranquilising voices; for me, at least, I know it has been good to be with Demeter and Persephone all the time I have been reading and thinking of them; and throughout this essay, I have been asking myself, what is there in this phase of ancient religion for us at the present day? The myth of Demeter and Persephone, then, illustrates the power of the Greek religion as a religion of pure ideas, of conceptions which having no link on the historical fact, yet because they arose naturally out of the spirit of [hu]man[ity], and embodied in adequate symbols, his (sic) physical and spiritual life, maintained their hold, through many changes, and are still not without a solemnizing power even for the modern mind, which has once admitted them as recognized and habitual inhabitants, and abiding thus for the elevation and purifying of our sentiments. Long after the earlier and simpler races of their worshippers have passed away, they may be a pledge to us of the place in our culture, at once legitimate and possible, of Greek religious poetry in general, of the poetry of all religions."
by Elizabeth Lee Buckingham, Mu.
ANCIENT ELEUSIS
Next to Athens, Eleusis was the most important city of ancient Attica. It was situated on the bay of Eleusis, opposite Salamis, and was connected with Athens by the Sacred Road. It was famous as the seat of worship of Demeter, or Ceres, whose mystic rites — the Eleusinian Mysteries — were here performed with great pomp and solemnity from the earliest times till Alaric the leader of the Goths, destroyed the famous temple of the Goddess.
Annually those who had already been initiated into the lesser mysteries assembled at Athens. On the sacred day of the festival, they walked to the sea to be purified. The third day was one of fasting. Then came the procession of the sacred basket filled with pomegranates and poppy seed, and drawn on a cart of oxen, followed by women; this took place on the fourth day. The fifth was the torch procession to the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. On the sixth day the initiates were taken into the inner sanctuary and initiated into the final mysteries. What the teachings were that were revealed unto them is unknown, though they are supposed to have been in regard to a future life. On the seventh day they returned to Athens with laughter and music, and the remaining two days were given to merrymaking and feasting and musical ceremonies.
The site of the old city Eleusis is now occupied by the little town of Levsina.
A DAY AT ELEUSIS
It is said that the climate of Greece has undergone a decided change since the great days of Pericles, and I well believe it, for we all know the light airiness of the early Greeks in the matter of dress, while the modern Atalanta wears furs.
So on a certain April Fifth I have in mind, when all Athens was a-twitter with spring, when the birds in the Palace Gardens vied with each other in paeans of praise, we dressed ourselves warmly and took steamer rugs to put over our knees, even while we rejoiced for the ancients that they did not need such things. For who would like to think of Helen in a shapeless knitted sweater?
At the early hour of eight we packed ourselves neatly into a wide, roomy, comfortable carriage, drawn by two strong bays, and with great eagerness made ready for the long drive to Eleusis. Athens was gleaming, white and peaceful, in the early sun light which filtered through the great, crooked acacia trees along the avenues and dappled the broad white streets with shadows, varying with the gentle breezes which, wafted in from the Pirates, swayed the closely leafed branches over our heads. In the business district all was astir with commercial activity, and the petty shopkeepers were displaying bright wares before their doors on the very streets where the chariot of Miltiades once rattled over the stones. With a sharp turn to the northwest we left this suddenly behind us, and in a few minutes were on the Sacred Way. The road leads through green barley fields where the fresh green blades are so interspersed with scarlet poppies and daisies that one is reminded of Botticelli's Spring. For a while the way follows a narrow winding stream with pebbly banks, but soon this meanders off, murmuring to itself, and we are left again with the barley fields and the distant mountains. Finally we come out on a broad, high eminence — and we are at Eleusis, the trysting-place. With exclamations of delighted surprise and wonder we rush to the edge of a rocky plateau for a better view of the glorious panorama which spreads itself around us. Imagine a sky and sea bathed in the most celestial blue — a blue before which even the far-famed Bay of Naples pales in comparison — on three sides of us the Bay of Salamis stretching out to eternity, while before us lies the long island of Salamis, barren, peaceful, impressive, a gray-brown spot in the surrounding blue. The waves gently lap its rocky coast as if in untiring caresses, and far, far beyond it may be seen tall, snow capped mountains, their peaks among, or above, the clouds. Behind us are abrupt, high, rocky hills, almost as impossible to scale as Parnassus, and here, right around us, are the ruined pillars of the Temple to Demeter, once one of the architectural glories of Greece. It has been a year since I saw Eleusis yet I remember that first momentary view as if it had been yesterday, as vividly as did the little boy whose mother slapped him to make him remember the Coliseum. The surprise, the delight of it all, left on me an indelible impression.
We are standing on a platform cut out of the solid rock, and from it we pass through two propylaea into the inner inclosure of the temple itself. Little is left of the sacred edifice; the vandal followers of Alaric worked well its devastation, and now grass grows unconfined where once was an inlaid floor of Pentelic marble, and we strive hard, as we gaze at strewn and hacked bases and capitals of pillars, to conjure up in our minds the picture of the glory as it once stood. On a setting that would seem fit as a favorite resort of the immortals, now stands, or squats, the miserable village of Lefsino ( Xevalva) , sprawling even amidst the ruins of the temple, looking as out of place and yet as snugly unconscious of it as might a toad on an altar of Venus.
The name, Lefsino, is probably a corruption of Eleusis, which the Greeks pronounce Elefsis. Many of the scattered blocks and tablets , about the ruins bear inscriptions carefully cut in Greek capitals, and it was with a thrill of delighted understanding that I spelled out the word Hierophant.
A typical Greek peasant offered himself as our guide and we engaged him, not because we needed a guide but because he evidently needed a dragma. He explained to us the plan of the temple, and, as we had an illustrated guide-book, we understood him. He showed us two holes in the ground, perhaps a dozen yards apart. These are connected underground by a rough, dark, narrow passage, and through this passage (we gleaned it from his expressive gesture), the blindfolded neophyte was dragged by the feet and bumped about. Thus did he make his perilous journey through the underworld, after which he was led into the blinding light of the inner shrine where he saw — who knows what?
When we had pryed into every inclosure, kicked over every stone, and kodaked each other on every marble base, we remembered that it was late and we were hungry, so our lunch was produced from under the driver's seat in the carriage, and we sat down on the rocky ledge, and, watching the tiny, distant white sails of fishing-boats blinking lazily in the sun, we devoured a feast of honey from Hymettus, dried figs from Smyrna, and delicious Greek nougat filled with crispest almonds. For the others it was lunch — for me it was a Chi Omega banquet! We imagined we were sitting on the exact spot where Demeter sat, mourning for the lost Persephone, and where she was addressed by the daughters of the Eleusinian king, Oleus; and that our sandwiches were the pomegranate and the poppy seed so intimately connected with the legend. We could close our eyes and fancy we saw the glad meeting of mother and daughter, then the quickly rewarding harvest, as the glad young shoots put forth, taking their first peep into a glorious new world — a world of spring.
Can you imagine a more fitting, a more inspiring spot on which to spend Chi Omega's birthday than the birthplace of Chi Omega's traditions? Except that I had to thrill alone, I felt that my celebration was best of all.
by Emily Van Dorn Miller, Rho.
SUPREME GOVERNING COUNCIL
OF THE
CHI OMEGA FRATERNITY
Ida Pace Purdue, S. H. (President)
(Mrs. A. H. Purdue)
Fayetteville, Ark.
Susan Thornton Bitting, S. T. B. (Vice-president)
Carlsbad, N. Mex.
Jessie Anna Parker, S. K. A. (Secretary)
Olathe, Kans.
May Gullette Miller, S. N. V. (Treasurer)
403 N. Seventh Street
Fort Smith, Ark.
Wendla Justitia McCaskey, S. M., (Secret Work)
(Acting for Mary Wright Bain)
6357 Normal Avenue, Chicago, Ill.
Mattie Craighill Nicholas, Eleusis Editor
608 Court Street
Lynchburg, Va.
Standing Committees, etc.
CHAPTER HOUSE COMMITTEES
INFORMATION COMMITTEE
Myrtle Morrissy Maclver (Mrs. M. N.), Nu, Oskosh, Wis.
Wendla McCaskey, Omicron, 6357 Normal Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Mary Stewart, Eta, De Land, Fla.
LOAN FUND COMMITTEE
Lelia Harwood, Xi, 2907 Kenmore Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Florence Mitchell, Lambda, Iola, Kans.
Laura Olsen, Nu, Eau Claire, Wis.
EXAMINATION COMMITTEE
Martha Land, Chi, R. R. 10, Lexington, Ky.
Arta Kocken, Kappa, North Platte, Nebr.
Georgia Shattuck, Nu, Medford, Wis.
Mary C. Love Collins (Mrs. H. M.), Delta, Tyrone, Pa.
Anna Vineyard, Tau, Miller School, Albemarle Co., Va.
SONG BOOK COMMITTEE
Mrs. Inga Sandberg, Nu, 620 Langdon St., Madison, Wis.
Corinne Brackett, Phi Alpha, 1464 Girard St., N. W., Wash ington, D. C.
Secretary of National Pan-Hellen1c Conference. Miss L. P. Green (K A 6), 15 East Ave., Ithaca, N. Y.
Chapter Correspondents
PSI — University of Arkansas,
Forrest Ellis, Fayetteville, Ark.
CHI — Transylvania University,
Edna Earl Hinton, 603 North Broadway, Lexington, Ky.
UPSILON— Union University,
Leila Sue Young, Lovelace Hall, Jackson, Tenn.
TAU — University of Mississippi,
Anne H. Augustus, University, Miss.
SIGMA — Randolph-Macon Woman's College,
Letty Mae McRoberts, College Park, Va.
RHO — Tulane University, Newcomb College,
Leslie Keller, 6330 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, La.
PI — University of Tennessee,
Helen Gordon, 1616 W. Clinch Ave., Knoxville, Tenn.
OMICRON— University of Illinois,
Bess Matthews, 307 John St., Champaign, Ill.
XI — Northwestern University,
Harriet Wilson, 730 Milburn St., Evanston, III.
NU — University of Wisconsin,
Ava Cochrane, 620 Langdon St., Madison, Wis.
MU — University of California,
Marguerite Diaz-Pena, 1700 Euclid Ave., Berkeley, Cal.
LAMBDA — University of Kansas,
Gail Sutton, 1005 Kentucky St., Lawrence, Kans.
KAPPA— University of Nebraska,
Alice Burge, 1035 J St., Lincoln, Nebr.
IOTA — University of Texas.
Lilian Walker, 402 W. 24th St., Austin, Tex.
THETA — West Virginia University,
Emma Beall, Morgantown, W. Va.
ETA — University of Michigan.
Ellen Crawford, 1027 University Ave., Ann Arbor, Mich.
ZETA — University of Colorado,
Florence Scott, 1155 Thirteenth St., Boulder, Colo.
EPSILON — Columbia University, Barnard College,
Eleanor Martin, Perth Amboy, N. J.
DELTA — Dickinson College,
Margaret Gruber, Carlisle, Pa.
GAMMA — Florida Woman's College,
Irita Bradford, 591 E. Virginia St., Tallahassee, Fla.
BETA— Colby College,
Hazel L. B reckon ridge, Foss Hall, Waterville, Me.
PHI ALPHA— George Washington University,
Agnes Ballock, 1013 Fifteenth St., Washington,
D. C. FAYETTEVILLE ALUMNA—
Ruth Crozier, Fayetteville, Ark.
WASHINGTON CITY ALUMNiE—
Vera Vaughan, 1718 I St., Washington, D. C.
ATLANTA ALUMNiE—
Bessie Ray, 133 Lee St., Atlanta, Ga.
LEXINGTON ALUMNA—
Katherine Campbell, Nicholasville, Ky.
OXFORD ALUMNAE—
Elma Meek, Oxford, Miss.
KNOXVILLE ALUMNA—
Laura Thornburgh, Knoxville, Tenn.
CHICAGO ALUMNjE—
Frances Pitkin, 1291 Perry St., Chicago, Ill.
KANSAS CITY ALUMNAE—
Louise Knight, 1418 Linwood Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo.
NEW YORK CITY ALUMNA—
Mable Boote, 00 Highland Ave., Yonkers, N. Y.
TEXARKANA ALUMNiE—
Louise Holman, Texarkana, Ark.
NEW ORLEANS ALUMNjE—
Elma Follett, 1232 St. Mary St., New Orleans, La.
LYNCHBURG ALUMN-E—
Evelyn L. Moore, Lynchburg, Va.
DENVER ALUMNA—
Maude Young, 131 Logan Ave., Denver, Colo.
MILWAUKEE ALUMNAE—
Maude Watrous, Milwaukee, Wis.
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