The Mysterious Pins

When my grandmother died, she left in her jewelry box a number of interesting pins. Many of these were service pins from organizations with which she had been involved - the Red Cross, the Presbyterian Church, a 1918 class pin from the Maryland State Normal School (teacher's college). Among these items were three pins I have never been able to satisfactorily identify, nor for that matter, has anyone else. It is not even clear that these belonged to my grandmother. They may have been my grandfather's or from a relation on either side of the family. If you actually know what any of these pins are, please send information to scr@chronography.com

Fraternal Pin #2

Two triangles set atop one another, 3/8" inch to a side. The bottom triangle is brass with black enamel, and each point is engraved with a letter - M T S. The top triangle is brass, and contains the numbers 05. Since my grandmother would have been seven in 1905, it seems likely that this belonged to one of her parents or an older sister.

One frequently suggested possibility is that M T S stands for Maryland Temperance Society. The family was Methodist, so this is certainly a possibility. What's needed is something that would confirm that such an organization existed and that this symbol was used by them.

Order of the Garter

The French legend, "Honi soit qui mal y pence", makes this pin identifiable as the device of The Order of The Garter, an English order of knighthood founded by King Edward III in the 12th century. I have no illusions that this means the Blades were members of English nobility. It's likely that this is just a souvenier picked up on a trip somewhere. But, it's also possible that this device was adopted by some Eastern Shore organization as its own. If that's the case, I'd love to know what the organization was.

Mystery Solved: Eta Upsilon Gamma Sorority Pin

1/2" high x 1/4" wide, brass with black enamel center. Design is of three Greek letters, Eta Upsilon Gamma, clasped hands and a skull & crossbones.

Drew has solved this one. He writes "The organization, as you correctly assumed, is Eta Upsilon Gamma. It was a sorority in junior colleges. Founded in 1901 at Christian College, Columbia, MO, it had chapters in many institutions, predominately but not exclusively southern and border states." This sorority was still active in 1930, but ceased to exist sometime in the 1940s or 50s. A small amount of information on this sorority is available in "Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, 12th Edition", published in 1930. Later editions of Baird's do not include this sorority.