Mary Comfort Leonard

Mary Eleanor Comfort Leonard (January 22, 1856 – August 4, 1940) was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi. She was one of the three founders of the Delta Gamma Fraternity, along with Anna Boyd Ellington and Eva Webb Dodd, in 1873 at the Lewis School in Oxford, Mississippi.[1]

Mary Comfort Leonard
Standing: Mary Comfort Leonard; Sitting: Eva Webb Dodd and Anna Boyd Ellington, circa 1875.
Born
Mary Comfort

(1856-01-22)January 22, 1856
Kosciusko, Mississippi, U.S.
DiedAugust 4, 1940(1940-08-04) (aged 84)
Kosciusko, Mississippi, U.S.
Known forCo-founding the Delta Gamma Fraternity

Biography

Leonard was born as one of 13 children of Daniel Benjamin Comfort II and Eliza Love Durham. After her initial education, she attended the Lewis School in Oxford, Mississippi for three years. While at the Lewis School she met her husband Charles Henry Leonard, a student at the nearby University of Mississippi, and a member of Delta Psi while at Mississippi. The two married in 1880.[2]

The Leonards were both teachers in Tennessee, moving to Florida when Charles' health failed; he died in 1887.

Mary enlisted in the US Marine Corps during WWI, when that service branch opened to women in August 1918, becoming the oldest woman to serve in the Corps.

After returning from WWI service, Mary continued to teach and was known as an activist until her death almost five decades later on August 4, 1940.[2]

Delta Gamma supports a project that traces descendants of the founders, and through this has noted six women in Leonard's family tree that would eventually join the sorority.[2]

References
  1. Delta Gamma (2012-09-25). "History". Delta Gamma Fraternity. Archived from the original on 2013-01-13. Retrieved 2012-10-09.
  2. "Founders Lineage 2016" (Magazine PDF). AmazonAWS.com. Delta Gamma Fraternity. Retrieved 29 June 2022.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.