Founders

Sigma Kappa was founded by five women attending Colby College in the 1870's: Mary Low Carver, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Fuller Pierce, Louise Helen Coburn, and Frances Mann Hall.

	Mary Caffrey Low was the first woman to attend Colby College, the first name on the roll of Sigma Kappa, and the first to preside at an Initiation. She graduated in 1875 at the top of her class. At that time, it was not customary for a female to give the valedictory or salutatory address; instead, she gave the Class Prophecy. After graduation, she married Leonard D. Carver and taught school. Her daughter, Ruby, was initiated into the Alpha Chapter of Sigma Kappa Sorority. Throughout her life, she gave her talents and wit to the women of Sigma Kappa by extending the Sorority beyond Colby College and assisting with Delta/Omicron Chapter initiation banquets until her death in 1926 at the age of 76.
	Elizabeth Gorham Hoag entered Colby College when she was only 17 years old. She was a very conscientious student who loved languages and literature. She designed the first Sigma Kappa emblem, but grew ill with tuberculosis during the winter of her sophomore year. She lingered through the spring and died in 1875 at the age of 18. She was mourned by her sisters.
	Ida May Fuller decided to go to Colby College at the age of 20, despite her brother's wishes. She was a dynamic, inquiring, social-minded woman who refused to, in her own words, "accept her sex as irrefutable condemnation to a subordinate position in life." Ida was the practical voice of the sorority, always bringing the dreamers back down to earth. She left college in her junior year and traveled to Kansas where she married Dr. Pierce, became a successful businesswoman, founded a hotel for girls in Kansas City, and was vice president of a bank. Her interests always included Sigma Kappa and helped her niece, Abby Fuller, found the Xi Chapter at the University of Kansas. She served as Xi's housemother and attended several Sigma Kappa conventions before her death in 1933.
	Louise Helen Coburn was a scholar, writer, poet, and the second woman to graduate from Colby College. Louise wrote the constitution and bylaws, and much of our initiation ceremony. She had many relatives as fellow sisters in the Mystic Bond, including her sister, two nieces, and her nephew's wife. She became bedridden as she aged, and ended one of her final letters, "May the loving spirit of Sigma Kappa continue to guide you," before she died at the age of 93 in 1949.
	Frances Mann entered Colby College in her early 20's after already pursuing a teaching career. She met her husband, George Washington Hall, at college and was proud to be the first married Sigma Kappa. Frances proposed the name Sigma Kappa, the secret ideal on which our sorority is founded, and much of the symbolism of our ritual. She left college in her junior year due to headaches, but continued to teach with her husband. She attended Sigma Kappa conventions in 1928 and 1933, before passing away in 1935. Her last message was, "Take my love to all the chapters. God bless them."