With the outbreak of
World War I, Kappas
volunteered with organizations such as the
American Red Cross and
Canadian Red Cross, and filled positions in the workforce vacated by enlisted men. Canadian Kappas, such as the women of
Beta Psi Chapter shown at left, were especially active in the war effort because Canada entered the war three years earlier than the United States.
Letters sent by chapters to The Key and printed in the
October 1917 issue highlight Kappas' war-related activities.
“Rolling bandages and folding dressings,” read Beta Sigma’s submission. “One professor allows knitting in class, if the wool is gray, black, or olive drab.”
“Registration postponed to give more time to those ‘doing their bit’ on farms,” wrote the Kappa chapter.
In the same issue of The Key, writer
Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Beta Nu, described in a long letter the conditions in France, where she had moved with her husband and children in 1916. While there, she cooked in a training camp in the war zone for American volunteers and organized an effort to print books in Braille for blinded combat veterans. She also solicited contributions to a fund she set up to provide clothing for children in Bellevue- Meudon, a suburb of Paris.
“Think of yourselves as their far-away aunts, why don't you . . . ” she wrote. “Let's call ourselves the ‘Kappa Aunts of Bellevue’!”
Here Beta Psi Chapter members hitch a ride to the fields in a wagon while doing war work on a farm. See more items relating to Beta Psi’s war work
here.