THE INDOMITABLE BETTIE LOCKE
Pap wrote this speech for his daughter Ann to deliver at a convention of sorority Kappa Alpha Theta.
Bettie Locke Hamilton—the fabulous Bettie Locke of Greek letter sorority lore and literature—was no hand for dalliance, amorously or otherwise, in 1868 or any other time thereafter up to her death in 1939.
Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) located at my hometown, Greencastle, Indiana, decided to admit female students, beginning in the Fall of 1868, after a debate that started on a high level after much prayerful thought and meditation and ended in a knockdown and drag-out verbal fight that divided the dignitaries, bisected the Methodist Church temporarily, split the faculty into two hostile camps and put the town into a dither— from railroad depot to barber shop and livery barn.
Rumor hath it that promptly at 8 o'clock on the morning of opening day, Bettie Locke presented herself for admission—the first female registrant of Asbury. Later, four other young ladies of a more timid disposition presented themselves and begged registration. . . Two years later, Kappa Alpha Theta—co-founded by Bettie Locke Hamilton, Alice Allen Brant, Bettie Tipton Lindsay and Hannah Fitch Shaw—became the first "Greek letter fraternity known among women." And that too was as Bettie Locke would have it.
In her girlhood days, Bettie Locke showed a disposition that was to develop into a Will of Iron . . . Her vocabulary was enormous, her diction virtually perfect, her stage presence commanding. The Theta Convention at Estes Park, Colorado, was in the summer of 1930 or '31. My oldest sister, Joan, was a delegate from Alpha Chapter. Bettie Locke Hamilton went along. It was near the last convention she attended. Mind you that was within eight or nine years of her death, and she must have been well in the 80s at the time of her decease. She spoke extemporaneously, and "brought down the house". . .
Bettie Locke was free in giving both unsolicited advice and criticism, as witness the following true story. My father started practicing law early in this century. Clients were few and far between . . . He was standing in front of the stairs leading to his modest office when along came Bettie Locke. She saw both him and his head piece, a cap he had acquired in college days. She strode straight up and said, "Andrew, a cap is unbecoming a young man starting the practice of law. Take it off and never let me see it again." He did—and she never. . .
Bettie Locke had a positive opinion about almost everything. She loathed lipstick. She abhorred bobbysox, and her opinion of short hair and short dresses was virtually unprintable. But don't get me wrong in the inference of those last words. No one, no where, at no time ever heard Bettie Locke utter one profane, vile or smutty word. She was too cultured and had too good a command of the English language for that. She used sarcasm couched in such classical language that the targets of her shafts only wished she would wax profane and vulgar. . .
Our family home is just off the DePauw campus, and a great many students pass to and fro. Many has been the time Bettie Locke would come and sit and talk with my Mother on our front porch. And sooner or later the conversation would turn to the Thetas, and college girls in general and how they were doing, or drift back to her days—the 1860s and '70s. But just let a female in slacks—or shorts—I must mention shorts a second time—heave in sight and Bettie Locke was off and gone in a blistering monologue. And how she could blister.
Bettie Locke staunchly stood up for her rights. She never lost her voice. . . In her late years her teeth caused considerable trouble. She would not hear to having them all pulled and plates substituted, but allowed them to go one by one whenever the pain became unbearable. Among the last was a big molar, that by the time she had to come to her dentist had become so infected and ulcerated nothing could be done about it except extract it. The good Dr. Overstreet explained all this and then proceeded to extract it without further ado.
On the way home she thought it all over, and the nearer home she came the madder she got. . . Neighbors added fuel, and with it some "chimney-corner law," as Hoosier lawyers call it. Next morning she stormed into the office and went straight to the point, as was her custom. "Doc, I'm going to sue you. Indeed I am. And you needn't try to talk me out of it. You had no right to pull that tooth without my consent. You had it out before I knew what you were doing. I was not consulted." . . . Nothing ever happened, but the time never came when Bettie Locke ceased threatening him with that suit. . .
It was not to be for me to know Bettie Locke in her peaches and cream days. I was to know her in her poi and soft food days. We children were rather afraid of her. She lived alone. The house was dark and rather forbidding. Some . . . who had felt her verbal barbs sometimes referred to her as the "witch of Walnut and Locust Streets." In later life she harbored a kitchen and cellar full of cats. None were aristocrats. They were the alley variety and had a pedigree about as long as my Spanish vocabulary. . .
I can't afford to lose this chance for getting a little matter before you, because after this forensic effort I may never get the chance to talk again in public. It has to do with my Theta pedigree. . . I virtually stem back to one of the Founding Mothers herself. . . Bettie Tipton, the one and only Bettie Tipton so far as we are concerned, and my Grandmother Durham were cousins—their Mothers were Blacks and they all lived on farms near Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. Bettie Tipton was opposite of Bettie Locke. She came from the blue grass and was as feminine as baby breath. . . She too had a hectic experience at Indiana Asbury, compared with the sheltered home in the blue grass from whence she had come. Maybe I'll tell you that story some time.