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
A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, "wiktionary:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal ...
, along with
Anna Boyd Ellington and
Eva Webb Dodd, in 1873 at the Lewis School in
Oxford, Mississippi.
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
The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment.
...
, and a member of
Delta Psi
St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on , the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. The fraternity is a non–religious, nonsectaria ...
while at Mississippi. The two married in .
The Leonards were both teachers in Tennessee, moving to Florida when Charles' health failed; he died in .
Mary enlisted in the US Marine Corps during WWI, when that service branch opened to women in , 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 .
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.
References
1856 births
1940 deaths
Schoolteachers from Mississippi
American women educators
People from Kosciusko, Mississippi
Delta Gamma founders
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