The vacant, three-story brick house at 2844 St. Louis Avenue in north St. Louis was not supposed to be standing.
But somehow the family home of Ethel Hedgemon Lyle, the founder of the country’s first African American sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, escaped the wrecking ball that had wiped an adjacent house off the map 10 years ago.
Now the Jeff-Vander-Lou home, which sits northwest of the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s campus, will serve as a museum honoring African American women — the first phase of a broader plan from the Gamma Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha to revitalize a neighborhood impacted by years of disinvestment.
“For over a hundred years, we have been providing service to mankind,” said Tracey Clark Jefferies, referencing the sorority’s mission. “Now the community will know where to find us.”