Emily Helen Butterfield

Emily was born near Detroit, Michigan. Emily enrolled in the architecture program at Syracuse University in 1903. Before entering college, Emily had studied with her father the application of heraldic principles to design and in her freshman year sold some exquisite work of this kind. In the spring of 1906 she completed the Alpha Gamma Delta Coat of Arms. Emily was the architect of the Alpha Gamma Delta Summer Camp Lodges and the Alpha and Chi Chapter houses. Emily also served seven years as the Editor of the Quarterly.

In 1989, Emily was posthumously inducted in the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her work as the first woman architect in Michigan.

Emily was a wearer of the Circle of Epsilon Pi.

“The growth and strength that our fraternity has attained is so immeasurably above the founder’s expectation that I hesitate to express any wishes for the future lest they be too paltry. Perhaps the best I could wish for Alpha Gamma Delta is that each member may have a vigorous body, a keen brain and a clear appreciation of all things pure and right, with the will power and genius to make her ideals become real.”

Emily Helen Butterfield entered Chapter Grand March 22, 1958.