#111 THE SORORITY INFLUENCE
LUCILE CRITES
Lucile Crites was born Christmas Day, 1885 in Grandbury Texas. She was the oldest of six children born to James Crites and Virginia Baker.
In 1903, aged 17, Lucile enrolled in Southwestern University,
a liberal arts college affiliated with the united Methodist Church, in Georgetown, Texas, just outside Austin. The college motto was “Not Who But What.”. Four hundred students attended this
co-educational school and women likely made up about 30% of the student body.
Lucile studied elocution; a course called “Gesture and physical culture” (posture, calisthenics and
expressive movement) was often taught alongside elocution. Texas college catalogues
from 1905-6 list “Elocution and Physical Culture” as a paired discipline; town
teachers also taught both.
Apparently, elocution was a very popular study in the early 20th century, especially among educated women; it was promoted as part of their “finishing education”—teaching them grace, poise and confidence in social settings. Typical courses would have included voice training and reading aloud with proper emphasis, rhythm, correct breathing, resonance and modulation (so one could speak clearly and loudly in public without strain); pronunciation and diction (proper articulation, avoiding regional accents, cultivating a “refined” manner of speech); the study of rhetoric (how to structure arguments and speeches); expression and gesture (how to use facial expression, posture and hand movements to accompany speech); performing scenes to convey emotion; recitation (memorizing and performing poetry, dramatic monologues, passages from Shakespeare, the Bible and popular orations).
Public recitals were important social events in towns and schools. Here students could deliver dramatic or poetic works, patriotic speeches or comedic monologues before an audience. Newspapers noted these recitals. Teachers coached students for competition. These public recitals showcased students’ progress and served as advertisement for future classes. Teachers taught small classes in a schoolroom or church hall and offered private lessons. Texas newspapers from 1905 listed elocution alongside music, shorthand and languages—evidence of how common, popular and structured it was.
At college, Lucile joined Alpha Delta Sorority (later it became Tri-Delta). Sororities became popular in the early 20th century as they fulfilled a social, cultural and practical need at a time when higher education was just opening up to women. Sororities gave women a sense of belonging, protection and community in a male-dominated environment; they offered friendships, mentorships and structured activities and helped women navigate college life; they provided vital connections to marriage prospects, careers and social circles. For families who worried about their daughters being away at college, sororities reassured them by giving a controlled, morally-upright environment. Women in sororities often organized lectures, debates, charity work and social events and this gave them early experiences in leadership and public life—skills that would feed into women’s growing involvement in reform movements, teaching, social work, and later politics. Sororities like Alpha Delta provided housing when women dorms were limited; living together reinforced bonds and gave women a stable, supportive environment. In the early 20th century, sororities were major forces in student life—hosting dances, social gatherings and philanthropic events. And they were a ticket into the “in crowd”.
Tri-Delta was comsidered one of America’s “big sororities”—prestigious, socially-influential and well-organized. It attracted ambitious, socially-active women who wanted both a close-knit community and a place in campus leadership and society. While it tried to maintain its founding principle of inclusivity, in practice it was often limited by race, religion and class. But where other sororities emphasized glamour or tradition, Tri Delta did promote a balance of academics, leadership and service, alongside social life. Being a Tri Delta meant a lot to Lucile and she was a particularly active alumnus her whole life. She was often mentioned in newspaper social columns attending weddings, parties and at-homes with her sorority sisters. She was, for many years, a frequent contributor to The Trident, the Tri Delta alumni magazine and she was founder and president of the Spokane Tri Delta Alumni where proceeds from some of her writings went to the sorority’s scholarship fund. Lucile won the national award of the Tri Delta Society and was a member of its Golden Circle for her more than 50 years of membership. Her leadership with the alumni association was evident. Clearly, Lucile’s sorority roots shaped her life and social views.
Lucile lived in her parental home for the rest of her life. During those years, she was active in the Spokane literary society, Tri-Delta sorority fundraising, and Methodist church activities. She was a member of the Creative Writers’ group of the Spokane Branch of the American Association of University Women. She was the founder of the Spokane Writers (Scribes) Workshop where members met to read and brutally criticize each other’s writing. Members “had to be able to take criticism, whether merited or not.”
THE 1920S
The 1920s marked a turning point for women’s rights in the
U.S. Some used their new voting rights to push for moral reform while others embraced
the freedoms of the flapper lifestyle; this created a cultural divide between traditionalists
and modernists, The more society leaned towards liberation and indulgence, the
more some women doubled down on moral discipline and reform. Lucile Crites held
very strong views about changing morality and decency.
Lucile and Temperance
Lucile belonged to Spokane’s W.C.T.U. (Women’s Christian Temperance Union). These women believed alcohol was the root of domestic abuse, poverty and moral decay and they pledged to advocate for a “dry nation, better homes and righteous citizenship”. Despite their efforts, however, prohibition in Spokane was a failure as the city was a major hub for liquor smuggled in from Canada; rumrunners used cars, trains, pack horses and airplanes to transport booze. Enforcement was deeply class-biased; wealthier citizens (Crites’ friends and neighbours???) often drank in private clubs or speakeasies with little consequence while poorer residents, immigrants and labourers were more likely to be arrested (A local historian noted that 80% of arrests in Spokane during prohibition were alcohol-related and most came from lower-income communities.)
The Spokane W.C.T.U. also ran an anti-cigarette campaign, and
especially condemned the use of tobacco by monkeys in the local zoo who had
become addicted to it. This addiction began when the monkeys begged for
the ashes from their keeper’s pipe, then old cigarettes and cigars from
visitors. The monkeys “sort over the strands of tobacco, eating some and storing
some away” and averaged “two or three Chesterfields a day, not to mention
cigars and chewing tobacco.” The monkeys were known to scratch and bite anyone
who tried to take away their weed.
Prohibition ended in the USA in 1933, but Lucile remained outspoken in
her anti-alcohol position. For instance, in 1935, she sent this letter to the Spokane
newspapers. I was much interested in reading of the recent cooking school…there
were many splendid recipes which I clipped. However I did not clip the famous
chef’s menu for the reason that throughout the entire dinner, he doctored his
dishes with sherry, wine and other liquors. I am sure that most of the women in
Spokane do not care to have a chef, French, famous or otherwise, come here and
tell them how to turn their kitchens into saloons. I am a southerner, and my
grandmothers, aunts and my mother have all been excellent cooks. None of them
ever needed …to use drinks to make their cooking appetizing. If I were a
drinking person, I’d want to know when I had one, nor would I care to have
liquor sneak up on me in a favorite dish. ..one of my grandmothers owned and
ran a large hotel. Many a travelling man told her he was glad and safe to stay at
her place knowing there were no liquors served at her famous table. I would not
trade this heritage for all your French chefs. I’m all for the cooking schools…but
let’s keep them distinctly separate from places trying to teach us to drink.
Yours for a safe and sane menu. --Lucile Crites June 13, 1935, The Spokane Review
In another letter to the editor that same year
Lucile and Dancing
The 1920s saw the explosion of jazz music and flapper fashion.
Throughout this decade Lucile led an Anti-Dance crusade. In 1922, she
organized the first Alpha-Delta Club in Spokane, an “anti-dance” organization
dedicated to offering young people wholesome alternatives to dancing. The club began with seven members, but within
a year, requests for information on starting similar chapters were coming in
from other states. Lucile was soon touring the southern U.S. speaking in
churches and Sunday schools and encouraging communities to organize their own
clubs; ministers, bankers, parents wrote to her, eager to know how they could
bring Alpha-Delta to their towns.
At the heart of Alpha-Delta was a pledge: “We pledge not
to dance and to use our influence against that form of amusement and have a
good time without dancing.”
Lucile was very outspoken about why such clubs were necessary. “I consider that the dance craze among our young people is doing more harm than all other amusements put together. The position taken in dancing, whether in public halls or private homes, cannot be anything but harmful to boys and girls of impressionable age. It is not enough to tell them not to dance—we must give them something to take the place of it.” To Lucile, the danger was not only in the dance itself, but in the atmosphere that surrounded it. “The too free and easy familiarity that exists between the sexes which leads to worse things is attributed to the free position of the dance,” she warned. “The dance menace in Spokane, and I know it is the same elsewhere, has resolved itself into a moral risk especially for the young people who are at the impressionable age. And when coupled with the hip-pocket flask and followed by the midnight joy-riding into the wee sma’ hours anything in the world can happen. Things just don’t stay where they are. They continue to grow from bad to worse—and that’s where our club comes in. Something must be done to change the tide.”
Lucile argued that young people danced because they were not offered better alternatives. “I believe if the parents and friends would provide enough wholesome, sane amusement for the boys and girls, the great majority of them would not dance. I have a great number of young people in my club who used to dance because they said nothing else was planned for them. They say they have a much better time now at our parties.” Far from being wallflowers, Crites said Alpha-Delta members were engaged and active. The Alpha-Delta programme was “lively and varied”. Members staged plays, organized musicals and parties, went hiking, played tennis, went to picnics and luncheons, swan together and enjoyed music from their own eight-piece orchestra and male quartet. As Crites put it, “Anything that is right and clean will live and grow, that’s why our club has thrived despite the doubting Thomases.”
Lucile’s opposition to dancing was rooted in morality and personal upbringing, Born to Methodist parents, she and her siblings had never danced, yet never felt deprived of wholesome fun. She carried that conviction into her work. “Pastors told me they never had a dancing member who was of any spiritual value to the church. I have many good friends who dance but I do not think their influence is for the good and I tell them so. Dancing is an easy, lazy way to entertain. Will the parents never wake to the fact that dancing has absolutely nothing of helpfulness in it and much harm?”
She also warned young women of the false hopes attached to
the public dance halls. “The girl who goes to a public dance hall with
visions of getting a husband who will provide her with a home, well-furnished,
is doomed to disappointment. The men who haunt these places are not, as a rule,
marrying men. If they do marry, they are not the well-furnished kind. They do not want to settle down, and if they did, they would not go to the public dance
hall to choose a settling-down wife.” Lucile’s views were unambiguous. “I
know of women who allow men to put their arms around them in a dance who would not
allow these same men to call at their homes…the position of partners in the modern
dance is wrong. Whether in a public or private place, the proximity results in
a weakening of the moral fiber.”
Visualize The Jazz Age. The crowd roars as the first strains of the Charleston erupt—skirts fly up with every high kick, beads swaying. Young women, now with bobbed hair and daring dresses, dance in wild sync, their arms swinging, knees crossing, not waiting for a partner’s lead. The energy is electric, improvisational, a declaration of freedom. No curtsies here—only laughter, sweat and the thrill of breaking every rule. Spokane's Alpha-Delta club lasted for only a few short years as there was no resisting the energy and popularity of the fox-trot, Charleston, shimmy and black-bottom.
Lucile did not approve
Lucile remained
nostalgic for the sedate old ways. In 1935, she wrote; “I am opposed to dancing
in schools…There are plenty of opportunities for young folks to dance, Why not have a place where boys and girls whose parents and churches oppose the dance can
go for a good time? We are not original or versatile if we can think of but one
form of amusement for our students. And yet, this seems to be the case. I
certainly believe in wholesome entertainment for boys and girls but I do not
consider the modern dance with its attending evils wholesome. Most dances do
not begin until an hour when boys and girls of high school age should be going
to bed. Supervised? Maybe so, but if so, some of the dance steps should not be
allowed at all. Also the modern “undress” of most of the dancing frocks needs
supervision. Not always, of course, but often smoking and drinking go hand in
hand with dancing. It is not our young people who are to blame for this state
of affairs. Older folks have too many times shut their eyes to things they
haven’t the backbone to try to correct. I certainly believe in entertainment
for our youth. I proved this several years ago when I organized in Spokane a
club for boys and girls of high school age. It was purely a social club organized
to give good times to young folks without dancing. I had 120 enrolled and for four
and half years, I planned and carried out a big party once a month. Work? Of course,
but satisfying work.” ----Lucile Crites The Spokesman Review Apr 5
1935
LITERARY
When she found it difficult to find material for her drama students, Lucile began writing her own. Over her lifetime, she authored more than 3,000 plays, verses, songs and manuscripts, the words and music for a children’s operetta, a book of skits for a bridal party. She won numerous awards for her writing. Her humour column, Weakly Wanderings, appeared in The Spokane Woman, a weekly magazine for Spokane women to engage with such topics as literature, fashion, social commentary, local stories and philanthropic events. The magazine, (which ran from 1921 to 1935), featured poetry, short stories, and essays often penned by local writers, providing a platform for the city’s literary community. Lucile’s columns showcased her wit and insight, and reflected the social dynamics of Spokane during that era.
“Crites, Lucile, author” is the brief notation in Volume II (1937-38) edition of “Who’s Who of American Women”. (Other inductees that year were Emily Post, Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Edna St. Vincent Millay; Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart and Gertrude Stein were in volume I) Inclusion went to “notables” based on accomplishments, press mentions, or leadership roles; it wasn’t strictly about fame—it was about recognition in a profession, community leadership or contribution to society. The list included educators, community activists, business leaders, politicians, artists; generally being publicly active, published or recognized in your field was key. The Tri Delta alumni noticed Lucile’s achievement and claimed it as a point of pride for the sorority.
Some of Lucile's verses and thoughts..
Lucile’s last publication in 1967 was a slim booklet of light verse called Catnips.
Skirts If skirts climb any higher They will reach to Outer Space; I’d rather be old-fashioned Than in style and disgrace.
TreesLucile was 58 years old, when on November 12, 1944, she married
John Maynard Sligh, widower, aged 65. They were married in her family home. This union, to me, seems a little baffling. Lucile always presented as confidently
opinionated and somewhat moralistic, self-assured, accomplished, well-educated, and socially-connected. Her study of elocution and her lifelong sorority involvement surely gave her an elitist or entitled viewpoint. John had only recently arrived in Spokane in 1943 and worked at a local lumber
yard, perhaps as bookkeeper. They quite likely met at the Central Methodist Church. I wonder how much
she knew of his earlier arrests for assault, pickpocketing, attempted robbery,
jailbreaking and of his prison time. Did she know? Did she care?
John died October 29, 1949, aged 69. Lucile died September 5, 1967, aged 81. They are buried side by side in Riverside Memorial Cemetery, Spokane.
Lucile Crites
b. Dec 25, 1885 in Grandbury, Texas m. John Maynard Sligh (1879-1949) on Dec 12, 1944 in Spokane, Wash d. Sept 5, 1967 in Spokane, Washington wife of my 1st cousin, 3x removed (Netterfield-Pierson line)
Lucile's sister, Vivian, was deaf from birth; Lucile also suffered from deafness in one ear. This article gives some interesting insight into Lucile's personality.
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