Miriam Leedom Carter (1903-1965)

Miriam Leedom Carter

born 5 September 1903 in Beaver County, Pa.  

Father: Thomas Lynn Carter (1870-1913)

Mother: Agnes Loretta Warren (1877-1951)

Siblings:  Lynn McKee Carter (1901-1938)

Never married; no children

Occupation : English teacher at New Brighton High School

died: 1965

Miriam Leedom Carter is my great aunt. She was much beloved by my mother, whom she helped raise after my mother’s father died when my mother was about two years old. 

Miriam Leedom Carter (left) with her brother Lynn McKee Carter, probably about 1908.
Photograph and digital image in possession of Susan Brubaker Knapp.

According to my parents, she was an avid reader, an excellent teacher, and a lover of poetry and Shakespeare. Miriam never married, and my mother told me that she was expected to care for her mother, Agnes Loretta Warren Carter.

Miriam Leedom Carter, probably about 1920.
Photograph and digital image in possession of Susan Brubaker Knapp.

Miriam Leedom Carter, probably about 1920.
Photograph and digital image in possession of Susan Brubaker Knapp.

Miriam graduated from New Brighton High School, and then attended Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. She traveled with her mother to visit her brother Lynn and sister-in-law Dorothy when they lived in Los Angeles.

 

Miriam (left) with her mother, Agnes.

Agnes, Miriam and Dorothy.

Agnes, Miriam and Dorothy.

Agnes, Miriam and Dorothy.

These are school portraits of her during her time as an English teacher at New Brighton High School:

 

A family friend sent me the photo below of Miriam and wrote, “She was a high school English teacher at New Brighton High School. This was a class dedication to her from the Class of 1957 in the Alaurum Year Book. She had a B.S. in Education from Geneva College, University of Pittsburgh.  She was our Senior High English Teacher. Taught English IV, Business  Writing and Spelling. She had a serious case of diabetes I found out after working with your Grandma Dorothy.”

The dedication reads: “To Miss Carter: In sincere gratitude for your thirty-four years of service, high standards, your quiet humor, and your great patience in teaching us the principles of good English, we dedicate the thirty-fourth edition of the Alaurum.”

Miriam is buried in the Carter family plot in Grove Cemetery.

Photo by Mark R. Brubaker, taken August 2013

Photo by Mark R. Brubaker, taken August 2013

Note: I believe Miriam’s middle name, Leedom, was given to her to honor the Leedom family, with whom Thomas (Miriam’s grandfather) lived and worked on the Leedom farm in Bucks County, PA, in the 1860s. There are many Leedoms buried in the same graveyard (the North and Southampton Reformed Church in Churchville, Bucks County, PA) as Andrew and Mary Carter, who are Miriam’s great-grandparents.