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Sisterhood is powerful By Martha Loeffler It was 1937, and we were freshmen. Somehow we found each other, a dozen girls at Cal, where the campus seemed so enormous and unfriendly. Strangers at first, we banded together for mutual support and companionship and ended up forming enduring friendships. We each lived at home with our parents, commuting by ferry or streetcar or on foot, and we reached out to each other. Some of us had part-time jobs, earning “Fair Bear” wages of 40 cents an hour to help pay our tuition of $26 per semester. We gave ourselves a Greek name, Delta Kappa, in the manner of the sororities we pretended to disparage (and could not afford to join even if we had been asked). We found a sympathetic jeweler who, at very little cost, designed and made a traditional “sorority” pin with our DK insignia on it.
We celebrated when one of us got an “A” and commiserated when a course proved harder than expected. We were devastated when one of our members died in a tragic accident. For most of us, that was our first experience with death and it was a trauma we would never forget. Many of us met our future husbands while we were at Cal. Our senior and postgraduate years were filled with engagement showers and weddings. We served as each other’s bridesmaids and, in due course, became godmothers for each other’s children. We kept in touch for a while after we left the campus, but time and distance have a way of separating even the best of friends. In 1966, I realized it had been 25 years since graduation and wondered what had happened to those “sisters” who, for a few years, were a big part of my life. I sent a note to the Delta Kappa friend who had been my special chum, the only one whose address I knew. After a little investigating, we had addresses for all but one member. The round-robin letter that evolved was a joy to read. Everyone had married and all were mothers; children’s progress was glowingly recorded. There had been one divorce, but a happy new marriage had followed. Pages were filled with details of jobs and other successes. We had not foreseen, when we graduated in June 1941, that six months later our world would be shattered, as we looked at a map to find a place called Pearl Harbor. Our boyfriends went off to war and our happy days became quiet and strained. Nor could we have predicted that a quarter of a century later our peaceful campus would be the genesis for something called the Free Speech Movement and the scene of riots and demonstrations against yet another war. We would not have believed the changes in attitude and attire along a nearby street whose name was to become legend– Telegraph Avenue. June 1996 marked 55 years since our graduation ceremony. Time for another round-robin letter. That reunion-by-mail revealed that we all were grandmothers, with children in succeeding generations following our footsteps to Berkeley. Also revealed was the fact that our later years had not been kind to many of us. Some had serious health problems, six were widowed, one lost her home in the 1991 Oakland fire, one spouse had Alzheimer’s Disease, and one grandchild had committed suicide. My own special Delta Kappa friend lost her long struggle with leukemia. At one point I considered using the millennium as an occasion to suggest another round-robin letter, but I think not. It is better just to recall the good times we had together when we were young and eager and the future was out there waiting for us, Delta Kappas, Class of ’41. We invite alumni to write about their Cal experiences for “Recalling Cal,” California Monthly, Alumni House, Berkeley 94720. Contributors will be paid $100 upon publication. Back to Top |
 Martha Loeffler '41, of Modesto, is retired from a career in social work. Her work of historical non-fiction, Boats in the Night, is in its second printing.
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