Mary Little; Sorority Founder

Mary Lou Allison Gardner Little, who began teaching in the Midwest in 1918 and four years later formed Sigma Gamma Rho sorority to encourage her fellow black educators to go beyond what was then traditional training and pursue a college degree, is dead.

Corine J. Green, a spokeswoman for the African-American sorority, said its principal founder was 95 when she died at her Los Angeles home Sunday.

Mrs. Little came to Los Angeles after her marriage in 1928 and taught in the Los Angeles city schools until her retirement in 1967. She was born in Indianapolis and educated there, and her sorority began with a handful of members at Butler University in that city.

Today, Green said, Sigma Gamma Rho has more than 70,000 members in 400 chapters throughout the United States and the Caribbean.

Mrs. Little, who was divorced, had no known survivors. A funeral service is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday at Angelus Funeral Home in South-Central Los Angeles.