Chapter History

Gamma Beta was founded in 1930 as a local sorority, Gamma Sigma, with the goal of “[promoting] good character, citizenship, and scholarship”. After eight years, they felt the desire to join a larger organization, and petitioned to become members of Zeta Tau Alpha. Louis Kettler Helper, the Grand President of ZTA, visited them in October of 1937 after receiving word of their petition. The following spring, their petition to join ZTA was accepted, and on April 2nd, 1938, the 22 members of Gamma Sigma were formally pledged into the Zeta Tau Alpha fraternity in their chapter room. The ritual was conducted by Dorothy Logmire Warlick (Zeta Chapter) and assisted by Dorothy Rock (Beta Alpha Chapter) and several initiated Zetas from Washington DC. After the newly pledged sisters received their carpenter squares, they wrote: "the feeling of becoming something bigger and finer swelled in the hearts of all the pledges". 

March 1995 induction ceremony

On April 30th, 1938, Gamma Beta became the first Zeta Tau Alpha chapter in the state of Maryland, and the 75th overall chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha in the chain of chapters. Mrs. Helper returned to install the chapter and initiate all of its members on this date including Elsie Wharton (Kehler), Anne Cameron, Dorothy McKenzie (Lang), Margaret Heinmueller, Elizabeth Baldwin (Booth), Elizabeth Whitworth, Bernice Smith (Dobson), Charlotte Shaull (Blevins), Dorothy Leonard, Charlotte Russell (McCalley), Jean Wheatley. The alumnae initiates included Catherine Kirwan, Estelle Wesley, Emily Jewell, Carolyn Jewell, Margaret Crawford, and Margaret Saulsbury. The well wishes to the new chapter and sisters from other Zetas across the country “gave them a sense of belonging to something bigger than they ever dreamed of”.