The “Delta Club”
In spring 1910 a group of junior faculty (mostly instructors, with a few assistant professors and Experiment Station research assistants) formed the “Delta Club.” Beal only tells us that it was organized in 1910 and in 1913 “occupies the Hewit house.” He gives no description of the group and lumps it in with the literary societies and other student organizations, which it was not. Rather, it was organized to provide its members, who were all college staffers, with cost-effective access to room and board.[Beal, p. 207, typo in original]
It is perhaps no coincidence that the Delta Club was formed in the same year that Station Terrace became the Post Office, thereby disbanding its Experiment Station residency and reducing the number of rooms available to rent there.
The Delta Club began with thirty-three members, and in September 1910 it leased “the fine, large home of Mr. Hewitt, on Michigan avenue” to house sixteen roomers and furnish meals for twenty-four. The house, built by Frank and Frances Hewitt in 1908 before East Lansing had street addresses, was variously numbered as 210 or 214 prior to 1920. It is still standing today at 334 Michigan Avenue.[MAC Record 15(30), 14 Jun 1910, p. 4; 16(2), 27 Sep 1910, p. 2; 19(36), 23 Jun 1914, p. 10]
Hewitt’s rooming house, first home of the Delta Club, 210 Michigan Avenue (renumbered as 334 Michigan). Photo from 1915, when it housed Aurorean. See the Society Houses. Photo Credit: Wolverine (1915), p. 203.
The club quickly became more than just a place to sleep and eat. It was a hub of social activity for unmarried members of the faculty, hosting weekly open houses with music and entertainment along with occasional gatherings for dinner and card games. Club members also sponsored several dance parties in the assembly room of the new Agriculture Hall. Its diversions were delightfully wholesome:
The Delta Club were entertained one evening the past week by a chalk talk, given by [Instructor in Drawing Isabel Pearl] Snellgrove and other members of the drawing department. Cartoons were made of the various members of the faculty, and a good time enjoyed by all.[MAC Record 16(26), 21 Mar 1911, p. 3]
At the start of the 1914–15 school year the Delta Club moved to 258 Michigan Avenue, one house away from the tip of the Delta, which had been built in 1898 as the home of Bacteriology Professor Charles E. Marshall and his family. In this somewhat smaller residence, the number of Delta Club roomers was reduced to six. Mrs. Mahala Rhead ran the house and boarding accommodations, possibly with the help of her daughter Lucille (w/’20).
Delta Club residents, current and former, on the porch at 258 Michigan Avenue circa February 1917. Image has rollover markers to identify each man and his occupation. The child in the photo was not identified. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Archives.
Several faculty who were members of the Delta Club had long careers with Michigan State:
- Bruce Edwin Hartsuch (1888–1961) started as Instructor in Chemistry in 1911 and retired as Associate Professor in 1954 (43 years of service). He wrote a few books including an intro to textile chemistry, and at least two children were M.S.C. grads.
- Guy Greene Speeker (1880–1973) started as Instructor in Mathematics in 1912 and retired as Associate Professor in 1947 (35 years). He was in Delta Club from 1912 to 1917, the longest residency of any member found by this author. He is the namesake (albeit with alternate spelling) of the Guy G. Speaker Alumni Distinguished Scholarship, a full ride awarded annually to a high-achieving student.
- Harry Hayes Musselman (1880–1966, M.A.C. ’08), hired as Instructor in Farm Mechanics in 1909, retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Agricultural Engineering in 1942 (32 years).
- Louis Brawley Mayne (1881–1960), Instructor in English, later Assistant Professor, 1910–1936 (25 years).
The organization appears to have only lasted until 1917. That fall term still saw six M.A.C. staffers in residence, but the “Delta Club” name vanished from the faculty directory in favor of the 258 Michigan address. Mrs. Rhead continued to operate the boarding house until 1919 when Lucille married Herman B. Hale (w/’18) and they all moved to the Hale family farm near Caledonia.[FSD (1917), pp. 6–24. LCD (1919), p. 732. MAC Record, 25(13), 19 Dec 1919, p. 9]
Former residence of Professor C. E. Marshall, later home to the Delta Club, and pictured here as Hermian House in 1925. Image Credit: Wolverine (1925), p. 282.
In 1920, with the house renumbered as 224 Michigan, the Hermian Literary Society moved in. By 1930 they owned the house. Hermian joined Kappa Sigma in 1937 and remained here until about 1961. The house was later demolished and its site is now a parking lot for the adjacent professional building at 234 Michigan Avenue.
