Have you ever Wondered...?

Thanks to the persistence of Sandy Martin of the Santa Rosa Chapter in Las Cruces and previous Diocesan President, we have some answers to questions you may have wondered about Daughters, but didn’t know who to ask.

 The National Offices says that there are 1,811 U.S. chapters, 220 international chapters, for a total of approximately 30,000 Daughters!

 Grace Sears, former National President and now Archive Chair fills in some other details:

 “Attached (at right) is a scan of an article Margaret Franklin wrote in 1894, just 9 years after the Order was founded. I don't know why I only scanned the first page--I still need to get a copy of the facing half page. 

 In her article, Margaret Franklin says that a committee of the original 8 members came up with a design for a "badge" and a motto. It sounds as if those decisions were made the same year, 1885, as the Easter Eve service that we regard as the beginning of the Order.

 The committee borrowed the motto from a popular motivational speaker and writer of the time, a Unitarian minister who became chaplain of the Senate. His name was Edward Everett Hale, and several versions of the words, "What I can do, I ought to do" are attributed to him. I have never seen a written source of exactly those words.

 What the Daughters did was add a line that changed the "oughts" into a prayer: Lord, what would you have me do?

 I also have a copy of a booklet published by the Order in 1892, apparently to introduce themselves to potential chapters. It includes the first constitution, adopted in 1891, but later amended at the first convention in 1893. It also includes the prayer of the Order, a somewhat longer version than the prayer we use today, but definitely the same prayer.  Who wrote it?  It was probably a collaboration, but that information has not come down to us. But we do know that the first Council in 1891, including the original members, adopted the Order's prayer as well as a constitution that names the Order's colors and describes its cross.”