Change Comes to Delta House

When Amie Moberg Hammond ’95 was president of Delta Omicron Tau sorority, she had to race back to the Delta House after cross country practice because they were hosting a recruitment event. “Everyone was dressed up, while I showed up in my running clothes and a sweaty ponytail,” she recalls. “I felt out of place but I went ahead as I was.”

Afterward, a sister told Hammond that some rushees admired the fact that she came straight from practice unadorned. “I wasn’t just ‘the president’ or ‘a Delta’—I was simply being myself,” she says. “That moment has always stayed with me because it captured what Delta truly stood for: a space where everyone could be their authentic selves and be cared for just as they were.”

One year shy of its 125th anniversary, Delta Omicron Tau closed—a decision that reflects an ongoing decline in membership and comes after a year in which only four students lived in the nine-bedroom Delta House.

On October 19, alumnae of Occidental’s second-oldest sorority gathered one last time at the house for a farewell toast—a bittersweet moment marking the end of an era defined by sisterhood and campus tradition.

But it doesn’t spell the end of the Delta legacy. Through the efforts of Delta alumnae, Delta House has been purchased by the College, which will use the property for student housing for seniors. Proceeds from the sale have been returned to Occidental to support the Delta Sorority Endowed Scholarship.

“It only made sense to donate the money back to Oxy and keep the Delta legacy,” says Julie Scheiter Pearson ’87. “We are gratified that Occidental students will continue to share in the spirit of Delta for years to come.”

The sorority was struggling two decades ago when a group of Deltas that included Stacey Stefflre ’00, Caroline Van Oosterom Reyes ’00, Susan Leher ’00, Lynn Brotemarkle Dann ’84, and Pearson became involved as alumnae board members. “We went through a lot to get back to being financially stable, and making Delta House a nicer place to live,” Dann says.

Under their guidance, Delta House’s roof was replaced, new windows were installed, bathrooms were updated, and kitchen appliances were upgraded. The property resumed housing 11 Deltas nearly year-round. The sorority membership grew, reaching over 100 members during the 2010s.

Fundamental to the strong community of sisterhood, Delta House “was just a place where I felt like I belonged,” Dann says. “Even before we lived in the house, we could go down and sit in the living room and watch TV. It always had that sense of community where people could share life experiences. I got engaged in the living room of the Delta House. My maid of honor was a Delta as well. Even though Oxy is such a small campus, we still needed that kind of closer-knit group.”

Other memories are stitched from the texture of daily life: “Sitting on a hardwood floor, singing silly songs, eating green food, and making magic out of nothing,” recalls Amanda Berger Rosen ’98. Judy Sternberg Finley ’98 remembers “I-nights, random fun, and finding triangles in your books and clothes for years and decades after graduation.”

For many, nostalgia gravitates toward the house itself—its nooks, architectural quirks, and well-loved furnishings. Carole Johnson Melis ’73 M’74 fondly remembers the sleeping porch with its “precariously balanced bunk beds.” Dorothy Talbert Richardson ’86 still laughs about being known as “Dot the DOT at the DOT House!”

“I remember our Stewie contingent camping outside Dean Brig Knauer’s office. freshman year to get our applications in,” says Janet Kruse Alcorn ’81. “I remember learning the house songs—especially “The Doorbell Song”; polishing the silver for rush events; the yearly surprise Green Nights; passing the candle; and the words we recited to welcome new members after Hell Night was over.” (“‘The Doorbell Song’ was started by our pledge class,” Nancy Anderson Kuechle ’75 notes. “So glad it was part of the Delta tradition!”)

For generations of alumnae, the friendships forged in Delta’s rooms transcend their time in the house. “When the pandemic hit, all of us wanted to check in with each other to make sure we were all OK,” Esther Shin Teodoro ’95 recalls. “From that was born the Pandemic Happy Hour, a monthly Zoom call where we connected and caught up on our lives. We chatted about our jobs, our kids, how we were surviving through the isolation. We sent each other fun gifts that we could all wear during our calls and traded recipes. It was a lifeline during a truly tough time—and since then, that group chat continues.”

In 1914, the members of Delta Omicron Tau pulled together the resources to purchase a newly built house on Armadale Avenue that would serve as its permanent home. In the decades to follow as the membership grew, the space remained largely unchanged. “Do I need to remind you of the small kitchen, the wardrobe situation, and the bathroom facilities?” a May 1952 letter to the Delta membership noted. “We are housing 10 girls in four bedrooms, and this same tiny kitchen is used to serve 40 people once a week at least.”

Plans called for a larger living room, a new kitchen and service porch, entrance hall, and 10-foot terrace. Upstairs, the project added three bedrooms, a sleeping porch, more wardrobe space, and a new bath.

With financial support from Occidental, the $21,000 modernization expanded the home to roughly 4,000 square feet while preserving its badminton court and garage. (Oxy comptroller Fred McLain committed to a $15,000 loan to support the construction—a debt repaid over the next decade with the rent paid by active members.)

When Edith Powell, Alice Bond, and Frances Poor founded Delta in 1901, they established seven values: Wisdom, Tolerance, Integrity, Compassion, Peace, Joy, and Love. “Those values guided the organization and its members for over a century,” Hammond says. “I saw them embodied by my sisters in the 1990s. When I attended the closing ceremony and met the final members from the Class of 2026, I saw these values were still embodied by them decades later.”

Anna Lisu Beatty ’26 looked at sorority life as an opportunity to meet people outside her spheres of interest. “I was a member of the Occidental Dance Team and one of my teammates, Allison Wilson ’23, belonged to Delta,” she says.

Likewise, Madison Valiente ’26 took an interest in sororities during I-Fair and met her best friend, Bella Flad ’25, through the rush experience. “Bella was an active Delta and we just started chatting,” she recalls.

Valiente and Beatty both lived in Delta House their sophomore year along with the third remaining Delta, Maya Christianson ’26, and two older sisters. It was a “great” experience, Valiente says: “We’d do homework sessions, have game nights, and binge-watch shows—we watched a lot of Doctor Who.”

At the end of Rush Week, members shared their most memorable Delta moments, Christianson says, and the memory she always shared was a Bingo challenge her sophomore year that turned campus traditions into a playful competition. “We had this Bingo board that we made of things that we wanted to do by the end of the semester,” she says. “Everybody had the same things on their board, but we shuffled them so that everybody had different ways to win.”

She and her big sister, Isabella Fernandes ’23, tackled many of the tasks together, but not in a way that would complete the other’s Bingo card. “That was really special and a fun way to experience Oxy. Some of it was Delta House stuff too—like going into the attic, which we weren’t allowed to do. But we did, and there were some cockroaches up there. It was very scary,” Christianson notes with a laugh. “But we did it because we needed to get our Bingo boards.”

Hannah Baillie Stowe ’14 and her fellow actives threw a 100th-anniversary party for Delta House her senior year. “We got new couches, new rugs, a new table, a new end table, and new lamps,” she recalls. “I made some salesman’s day at Ashley Furniture.”

For Baillie—who serves as an alumnae board member—Delta House “was a safe space that embodied what I wanted in a community. Even looking back now, I think, ‘Oh yeah, that was my home.’ Delta had that real warmth to it. Or maybe it was the orange couches that got me.”

Evie Wasson ’21 concurs: “Two things that can’t be beat about Delta are the people and those couches—I could sleep the rest of my life on those things.”

Reflecting the sentiment of many Deltas, Beatty says, “The beautiful part for me is the fact that there’s not one memory in particular that stands out. It’s the culmination of every little moment we spent together that built our sisterhood.”

Top photo: Members of Delta Omicron Tau spanning five decades raise a glass at the Delta House one last time on October 19.