Fannie Pettie Watts
- perryhistoricalmus
- Feb 26
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 26
Founder of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
Fannie Pettie Watts, a woman who lived to see 94 years on this earth, left a legacy that has brought thousands of people together around the world through the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Fannie, together with Arizona Cleaver Stemons, Pearl Anna Neal, Myrtle Tyler Faithful, and Viola Tyler Goings, founded Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated on January 16, 1920, at Howard University. The sorority was founded on the principles of scholarship, service, sisterhood and Finer Womanhood. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Sorority has a diverse membership of more than 120,000 college-educated women with more than 800 chapters in North America, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East.
Fannie Pettie was born on December 20, 1899, in Perry, Georgia to Foster Blodgett and Fanny C. Rollins Pettie. She was born in a house on Ball Street no more than 1000 feet from the museum where her memorabilia is housed. In the 1900 Houston County Census her family was living next door to her Grandmother Victoria Rollins and the family members included her mother, her sister Ruth, her brother Foster, and her Uncle John Rollins. This was a very influential family of Houston County as her Uncle John Rollins had married into the Toomer family and was, by marriage, now related to Amanda America Dickson Toomer.
By the time Fannie was 10 years old, she attended public schools in Savannah, Georgia and continued her formal training at Georgia State College. Later, she graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Education and taught at the junior and senior high school levels in Savannah, Georgia. Later Fannie Pettie Watts was the Social Investigator for the Department of Social Service in Brooklyn, New York, and Director of the Cradle Roll Division of Brooklyn’s Nazarene Congregational Church. She was a Life Member and held membership with Delta Alpha Zeta Chapter in Brooklyn, New York and is credited with organizing Omicron Beta Chapter in Brooklyn.
Fannie married Algernon Watts and had two children (Lloyd and Algernon Watts) who were living with her in 1940 at New Rochelle, Westchester, New York according to the 1940 Census. Lloyd was 17 and Algernon was 14.
In her remarks honoring Fannie Pettie Watts at a Founders Day Celebration in Perry, Dr. Mary Breaux Wright, International President of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated said: “Zeta Phi Beta is proud to honor Founder Watts in her birthplace of Perry, Georgia. She was a woman of courage, faith, determination and willingness to organize a sorority against all odds in the 1920s. Founder Watts was a true example of what our principle of Finer Womanhood is all about. As we move forward to our Centennial, we will continue to recognize all of our founders. Without them, there would be no Zeta.”
