Leonard, Mary Comfort

Mary Comfort was born on January 22, 1856, in Kosciusko, Mississippi, one of 13 children. After completing her education at home, she went to the Lewis School, where she was a student for three years. Mary and her friends Eva Webb and Anna Boyd founded Delta Gamma during Christmas break in 1973.

While in Oxford, Mary met Charles H. Leonard, a university student, whom she married in 1880. They taught together in both Mississippi and Florida. When Charles died in 1889, Mary returned to Kosciusko with her three small sons. She continued to teach as well as lead a Bible class at the Presbyterian Church, while also working at the Twentieth Century Club and other civic organizations.

A regular attendee at Delta Gamma conventions, she lived long enough to see her granddaughter initiated as a charter member of the reinstalled Alpha Psi Chapter at the University of Mississippi. She died on August 4, 1940.