These are the original founders of the Alpha Xi chapter in 1932. Members include (in no particular order):

Helen Brandon Kinzcr	Evelyn Pederson	Laura Hamilton
Leona Harris Peterson	Ellen Nordwig	Mollie Gwarhout
Marie Kindsvogel	Emma Millard Johnson	Maxine Hull
Fern Everhardt Chapman	Constance Malde Vuchotish	Janet Greenhalgh
Bernice White	Ann Nordwig	Jeanette Anderson
Marion Lohneis	Ruth Maas	Dorothy Plumb
Helen Taboroky Coburn	Vera Lange Tramberg	Claire Hanson
Harriet Wolf	Guinith Sponen	Ruth Wiedenhoft Healy
Marie Benson	Virginia Kensler	Gen Farnham Priewe
Helen Frome	Lucy Browniee	Catherine Carey
Mattie Shepherd

The Eight Founders
Margaret Batten, Louise Davis, Martha Trent Featherston, Isabella Merrick, Sallie Michie, Lelia Scott, Elizabeth Watkins, and Lucy Wright

Tri Sigma's Beginnings
Many things now taken for granted were unheard of for the women of the 1890s. Higher education for women was still a debatable topic, but the need for qualified teachers was high. In Virginia, the State Female Normal School at Farmville was the state's first institution to open its doors for teacher education. Now known as Longwood College, this is where brave, 15-17 year-old women came to prepare for the teaching profession, rather than accept the social custom of being sheltered and tutored in their own homes. These trendsetting women at Farmville made their school the birthplace of four national sororities; one was Sigma Sigma Sigma.
Tri Sigma's eight Founders formed a special friendship at the Normal School. Lucy Wright and Lelia Scott led the first meetings of the S.S.S. Club in 1897. They announced the founding of Sigma Sigma Sigma on April 20, 1898.
The early Sigmas saw the need for both legal recognition as a social body and a written record of organization. Thus the early Alphas filed documents with the Commonwealth of Virginia and Sigma Sigma Sigma received its Charter of Incorporation on February 12, 1903. Tri Sigma's first constitution was adopted by the Alpha Chapter in April, 1903.
One man who figures prominently in Tri Sigma's early history was J. Miller Leake, the only man given the privilege of wearing the indented triangle badge. A member of Kappa Sigma at Randolph-Macon Men's College, he wrote the Sorority's initiation ritual, helped revise the Constitution and assisted in writing the lyrics to Stately and Royal.
Giant steps were taken in Sigma's first decade with the establishment of additional collegiate chapters and the meetings of the entire membership at Conventions. The national nature of Tri Sigma was established with the publication of The Triangle, the standardization of a ceremony for new members and the creation of a program to celebrate Founders Day. The circle of friendship that began in the 1890s, with eight women sharing common experiences, now encompasses more than 90,000 women representing the diversity found on the college campuses of today. The growth and change that occurred in the many decades to follow always stayed true to the ideals of friendship espoused by the Founders.