The Women in White
Tracing the history and evolution of paging, a DAR tradition of service, friendship, and leadership
By Emily McMackin Dye
DAR Pages at Congress circa 1917. Photograph courtesy NSDAR.
For generations, the processional that opens Continental Congress has unfolded much the same way. A bugle sounds, and patriotic music played by a military band fills Constitution Hall. Led by the American and DAR flags, Pages in white dresses and gloves carry the flags of states, territories, and units overseas down the center aisle, followed by rows of Pages lining the aisle to form an honor guard for the national officers. As the President General enters, a huge American Flag unfurls from the ceiling to thunderous applause.
Newspaper clipping of DAR Pages in 1919 . Photograph courtesy NSDAR.
Pages at the White House during DAR's 35th Continental Congress in 1926. Photograph courtesy of NSDAR.
“It’s a moment when you look around at all these women who’ve come together for the shared purpose of advancing the mission of historic preservation, education, and patriotism—and there’s a sisterhood in that,” says Rebecca Hough, National Chair of the Page Committee.
Paging, one of the National Society’s most enduring traditions, encompasses more than pageantry. Pages volunteer to serve as hostesses, messengers, errand runners, flag bearers, and helping hands to committees and DAR staff during Continental Congress. They also assist national and state leaders with events year-round, from wreath-layings, ceremonies, and receptions to forums, conferences, and overseas visits.
Pages of the Past
Paging dates back to DAR’s earliest days. The first Continental Congress, held in 1892, listed female ushers in its program. At the seventh Congress in 1898, ushers were chosen to represent each of the 13 colonies. By the 10th Congress in 1901, the program called these ushers “Pages,” distinguished by their white sashes with gold lettering.
In 1926, Connecticut Page Katharine Matthies wrote about paging at the 35th Continental Congress for the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine. She recalls arriving in Washington, D.C., without “knowing a soul,” but quickly striking up a friendship with fellow Page “Mrs. W of Virginia.” Assigned as a box Page, Matthies seated people, served tea, and delivered messages.
She describes exciting moments: hearing President Calvin Coolidge speak while seated on the “hard, cold stone steps behind the boxes” and meeting the president and first lady. She also details the demanding, often delicate job of paging: gulping down hurried lunches, tactfully handling presumptuous requests from members, and diffusing disputes, including one in which a woman claimed a box seat on an expired ticket. By the week’s end, Matthies was “weary” but left Congress with “pleasant memories” and “an intense desire to return next year.”
In a 1933 DAR magazine article recounting her paging experience, Indiana Page Helen Lucus describes it as “being a cross between a messenger boy, a book of knowledge, a born diplomat, and a long-distance runner.” One assignment sent her searching for “that woman in the Iowa delegation in a red hat” to deliver a note—only to discover “a good half of the women from Iowa wore red head gear.”
Her most memorable moment was spotting Amelia Earhart in a reception room before the famed aviator’s address. Afterward, Earhart returned to autograph ribbons for the Pages, but Lucus missed her chance. She saw Earhart again that afternoon at a White House reception and watched her disappear up a staircase. Lucus headed after her, only to be stopped by military aides. She never got her autograph but wrote that she would “always cherish the memory of the day I hunted Amelia Earhart in the White House.”
Fifty years after DAR’s founding, paging had become a structured operation, with state and territory quotas, specialized assignments, and “key Pages” serving as chiefs and assistant chiefs. A 1940 DAR magazine article noted that Pages were expected to know where every delegation sat and be ready to answer “any sort of question.”
By the 1960s, paging had its own established social traditions, including an annual Pages Ball featuring a stag line of Washington’s eligible bachelors. A 1971 DAR magazine article acknowledged that while “the hours are long—the pay is poor—and aching feet are the order of the day,” the rewards of paging were “the friendliness and humor with which everyone copes with last-minute emergencies”—and “the feeling of making a real contribution” to Congress.
Connecticut Page Katharine Matthies' most memorable moment was spotting Amelia Earhart in a reception room before the famed aviator’s address.
Afterward, Earhart returned to autograph ribbons for the Pages, but Lucus missed her chance. She saw Earhart again that afternoon at a White House reception and watched her disappear up a staircase. Lucus headed after her, only to be stopped by military aides. She never got her autograph but wrote that she would “always cherish the memory of the day I hunted Amelia Earhart in the White House.”
A Page sash signed by Amelia Earhart. Photo courtesy NSDAR.
“You see things, and you learn how the organization and parliamentary procedures work. It helps you be a better leader when you’re put in a position to be a chapter or state officer because you’ve watched how these women lead a group and think through things.”
— Cecile Wimberley, NSDAR Corresponding Secretary General
DAR Pages circa 1900. Photograph courtesy NSDAR.
Continental Congress 1925 Page sash. Photograph courtesy of NSDAR.
DAR Pages at Continental Congress 1929. Photograph courtesy NSDAR.
DAR Pages gather for a photo ca. 1946. Photograph courtesy of NSDAR.
President General Allene Wilson Groves and Pages during her 1956-1959 term. Photograph courtesy NSDAR.
DAR 1968 Pages Ball. Photograph courtesy of NSDAR.
DAR Pages applauding while attending Continental Congress ca. 1970. Photograph courtesy of NSDAR.
Rebecca Hough, National Chair, Pages Committee, pages during a wreath-laying ceremony in Rome with Allie Dunklin, 2022 National Outstanding Junior. This ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the first known time (other than a "color night") when Pages did not wear white out of respect for the occasion and the host country. Photo courtesy Rebecca Hough.
Inside the Room
When Mindy Kammeyer arrived to page at her first Continental Congress in 1980, she knew no one but quickly hit it off with Lynn Forney Young, who became her lifelong friend and later President General.
“We had the best time, but we didn’t have a clue what we were doing,” says Kammeyer, who brought her wedding dress to Congress to make sure she had enough “whites.” “We went to the meetings, but we couldn’t afford to go to any of the dinners, so we ate together at McDonald’s across the street.”
Coming from a military family and having served as a flight attendant transporting soldiers to and from Vietnam, she was awestruck when she first stepped into Constitution Hall. “I remember walking down the aisle and seeing the Flag drop,” she says. “I had a lump in my throat—it was so moving.”
As the Hawaii delegation’s Page, Kammeyer soon found herself in the middle of the action. During an honorary vice president general election that stretched until 2:30 a.m., her state regent decided to withdraw and gave her a note to take to the platform. Kammeyer raced down the aisle to hand it to the President General, who announced the withdrawal.
“Everyone applauded, and I was like, ‘Whoa, look what I just did,’” she says.
Four years of paging taught Kammeyer how DAR and Continental Congress worked from the inside out, including how to navigate the building.
“We had secret tunnels that ran through the bowels of Constitution Hall to the platform, and we would volunteer to run messages back and forth,” she recalls.
Weeks after joining DAR at 18, Cecile Wimberley, DAR’s Corresponding Secretary General, paged at the 1995 Tennessee State Conference. Sitting in the back of the room in a white satin crepe dress her mother made, she watched the Pages serving the state regent. “They knew everybody in the room and everything that was going on. I thought, ‘One day, I want to be one of those women.’”
A few years later, her parents drove her to Washington, D.C., so she could page at the Constitution Hall doors for several sessions, then drove all night back to Tennessee so she could make it to class. After that, she was hooked.
“Paging is so much more than carrying somebody’s handbag,” Wimberley says. “It’s like that song from Hamilton, ‘The Room Where It Happens.’ If you page, you’re in the room where it happens.”
Wimberley experienced this firsthand while paging for President General Merry Ann Wright at a Tennessee state conference and watching her interact with Sarah King, a former President General from Tennessee. Being privy to their conversation—and trusted to keep what she heard to herself—showed Wimberley the value of being in the room.
“You see things, and you learn how the organization and parliamentary procedures work,” she says. “It helps you be a better leader when you’re put in a position to be a chapter or state officer because you’ve watched how these women lead a group and think through things.”
Hough knew nothing about paging when she joined DAR in 2006 as a college student, but she saw it as an opportunity to learn and contribute.
“I didn’t have a lot of money to donate, but I could give my time,” Hough says. “It was a way I could give back.”
Paging allowed her to “meet people from all walks of life” while getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the planning behind DAR events. She learned to see the bigger picture, including when to step in or when leaving something alone would cause less disruption.
“It’s not just fixing the problem but doing it without people noticing,” Hough says. “It’s reading the room, knowing what to expect, and preparing for every scenario.”
Much of paging requires handling the unexpected, whether making room for an unannounced guest or adjusting to a schedule change. Pages work together to keep things moving, and those moments form “fun memories,” Hough says.
As a platform Page, one of Kammeyer’s most unusual assignments was keeping an eye on honorary vice president generals who dozed off during sessions.
“They wore these big hats, and as they would start listing off to the side, we would run over to prop them back up,” she recalls.
Carolyn Maddox, Lynn Forney Young, and Mindy Kammeyer among a collage of their photos attending DAR events from 1980 to present. Photos courtesy of Mindy Kammeyer.
From Pages to Leaders
Paging could be exhausting, but the friendships Kammeyer made kept her coming back.
“I met the greatest gals and made friends from all over the United States,” she says. Pages bonded over their long days and their love of country and service, and they shared adventures like watching a fireworks show from the roof of one of the DAR buildings.
She got to know even more women through working on campaigns and found mentors in leaders such as former President General Patricia Shelby, who gave her more responsibilities. Five women she paged alongside eventually served as presidents general, and many others became state regents. Kammeyer went on to chair nine national committees and serve as reporter general in the Young Administration.
Paging “shaped me as a person because I learned so many skills that I took back to my chapter and state,” Kammeyer says. “It helped me grow up in a lot of ways.”
Wimberley believes paging was the reason she became so involved in DAR.
“It gives you an automatic place to belong and an immediate community in the organization,” she says.
Paging gave her the opportunity to build relationships with women who mentored her, including Carol Teeters, her former page chair, and Nancy Hemmrich, who recommended her for a paging position in the President General’s Reception Room. Each assignment showed leaders what she could do, opening doors to committee assignments, chairmanships, and ultimately state and national offices.
Paging also honed her leadership skills. “It gives you confidence because you watch how other women deal with difficult situations, and you’re not afraid of the what-ifs,” she says. The kindness they modeled also shaped how she has tried to lead.
Wimberley has mentored other Pages in return, hoping to instill in them the same love for serving DAR. Hough was one of those women. When the two first paged together in the President General’s Reception Room, Wimberley, then Chief Page, invited her to sit down and chat. That conversation grew into a lasting friendship.
“I didn’t join DAR with family, so paging became a built-in friendship network for me,” Hough says.
Paging also exposed her to people and experiences she might otherwise never have encountered, from meeting four-star generals to accompanying President General Pamela Rouse Wright to Italy, where Hough helped greet dignitaries and carried the wreath for a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Rome.
“It got me volunteering for different opportunities and saying yes to chairmanships along the way that I didn’t know much about but knew I could learn,” Hough says. “It kept me engaged and wanting to continue to serve.”
Paging has changed over the years, but its purpose of serving all members remains the same. It still requires a willingness to help and an understanding of protocol, whether processing flags, seating people on a platform, or escorting officers and special guests.
Pages are integral to the business of Congress, but they also bring a distinctive flair and formality to the role. They still wear white, but dress codes have relaxed to allow pantsuits, nude shoes, and tasteful tattoos. No longer required are gloves during daytime sessions (except for flag bearers) and nylon hose.
Pages still do many of the same jobs, from managing door traffic to running business sessions, but technology has expanded their work. The pandemic brought virtual paging, with Pages hosting Zoom and WebEx meetings and helping prepare presentations and photos for committees.
Paging now extends well beyond Congress, giving members opportunities to serve throughout the year and attracting women from fields ranging from law and medicine to education and the military. These volunteers take time away from work and family and pay their own expenses to serve, Hough notes.
During the Pamela Wright Administration, paging became a national committee, creating a more intentional approach for introducing eligible members to the program. Hough wants to help states grow their paging programs while making paging more accessible and approachable to young women. For her, the biggest reward of paging has been seeing its impact firsthand.
“Now I’m paging with the daughters of women I once paged with, which further builds that connection across generations and keeps the mentoring cycle going,” she says. P
paging gives rise to leadership
Five of the 12 executive officers in the current Storage Administration once served as Pages.
Corresponding Secretary General Cecile Wimberley (fourth from left) served as a Page in the President General's Reception Room. From left: Bridget Ward Perez, now-Vice President General Patrice Donnelly, now-Pennsylvania State Regent Susan Meer, Wimberley, Melissa Wetzel, Elizabeth Chaing, Katie Hyman, and Shannon Green. All of these Pages have served in national leadership positions. Photo courtesy Cecile Wimberley.
Organizing Secretary General Marguerite Fritsch as a Page. Photo courtesy Marguerite Fritsch.
President General Ginnie Storage (far left) and Honorary President General Pamela Wright (second from right) with Pages. Photo courtesy Ginnie Storage.
Curator General Renee Pace as a Page. Photo courtesy Renee Pace.
First Vice President Kathryn West as Assistant Chief Page General. Photo courtesy Kathryn West.
Corresponding Secretary General Cecile Wimberley as a Page at the 2001 Continental Congress with Sen. Bob Dole. Photo courtesy NSDAR.
39th President General Linda Watkins (left) as a Chief Page. Photo courtesy NSDAR.
41st President General Linda Calvin (center) as a Page. Photo courtesy NSDAR.
42nd President General Merry Ann Wright (right) and Ann Arnold Hunter, past Historian General, as Pages. Photo courtesy NSDAR.
Where Skills Meet Service
Pages serving Congress must be 18 to 40 years old and receive an invitation from the President General. Hough encourages Pages to share their skills, expertise, and interests so she can match them with assignments. Someone with a retail background, for example, might work with the DAR Insignia Store, while a Page with writing or photography skills might be assigned to Congress Communications. Hough has seen women put their professional experience to work in all kinds of assignments, from nursing and academia to marketing and event logistics. As Pages gain experience, they may take on more protocol-heavy roles.
Service, Laughter, Friendship, and Memories
DAR Pages ca. 1939. Photograph courtesy NSDAR.
DAR Pages—including current Tennessee State Regent Carol Teeters (center)—ca. 2001. Photograph courtesy of NSDAR.
NOVEMBER/DECEMber 2026
