Exhibit
The Founders: Elizabeth Gorham Hoag
(1857-June 14, 1875)
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Gorham Hoag was born in 1857 in Waterville, Maine. Her father died the year she was born, so Lizzie was raised by her mother, Susan L. Hoag, and her Quaker grandmother, Peace Morrill Meader. As a child, Lizzie read all of the current children’s books, but particularly enjoyed reading “grownup” books and poetry. When Lizzie would get carried away by her active imagination, her grandmother would quietly muse, “Thee reads too much, Elizabeth.” As an imaginative child and a voracious reader, it’s no wonder Lizzie was known by her family and friends for concocting thrilling tales to entertain her playmates and dramatic plays for them to perform. Not one to neglect other artistic pursuits, Lizzie also excelled musically. Her mother was a piano teacher in Waterville for many years, and Lizzie began to play early - often performing her own compositions.
As a teenager, Lizzie attended Waterville Classical Institute along with fellow Founders Ida Mabel Fuller and Louise Coburn. The three young women were the only members of the “Ladies College Preparatory Course” at the Institute in those years. She excelled in all of her classes, although, according to fellow Founder Mary Low Carver, mathematics was a chore for Lizzie and she resorted to memorizing the entire textbook!
After passing the college examinations, Lizzie and her classmates entered Colby College together in September 1873 where they were joined by a fourth female classmate - Frances Elliott Mann - in a first-year class of 25 students.
A naturally joyful young woman with a great sense of humor, Lizzie was the light of her mother’s life and was the center of attention among her peers. With an artistic bent, it is no wonder that it would be Lizzie who designed the first emblem for Sigma Kappa. Fellow Founder Mary Low Carver wrote that “Many of the beautiful ideals of Sigma Kappa were originated in [Elizabeth Hoag’s] fertile brain, for she was inventive and original in all that she did.”
Tragically, Lizzie’s young life was cut short when she contracted Tuberculosis (then known as consumption) during her sophomore year. She had always been a delicate, slender girl and in the winter of her sophomore year she began to grow paler and more frail every day. Her mother took Lizzie south to Portland, Maine in the hopes the doctors there could cure her, but she died on June 14, 1875 at the age of 18. She was brought back to Waterville for burial and is interned in the Pine Grove Cemetery. It is a testament to her character and personality that when she was laid to rest the entire sophomore class of Colby College followed their beloved classmate to her final resting place and voted to wear crepe (a sign of mourning at the time) for the remainder of the college term in her honor.
