Mary Comfort Leonard

Mary Eleanor Comfort Leonard (January 22, 1856 – August 4, 1940) was an American educator and one of the three founders of the Delta Gamma women's fraternity.

Early life Mary Eleanor Comfort was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1856 She attended the Lewis School for Girls in Oxford, Mississippi for three years. The fraternity's purpose was to "do good". Comfort later remembers, "We went to a local jeweler and had our pin made–the dear little letter H, which stood for Hope, for we hoped great results and have not been disappointed..." Delta Gamma installed a memorial tablet on Leonard's grave. It was first awarded in 1930 and came with $500.

Comfort was a member of the Twentieth Century Club and taught a children's Bible class at the First Presbyterian Church in Kosciusko. She attended several Delta Gamma conventions and was present when her granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth "Betty" Leonard, was initiated into the Alpha Psi chapter at the University of Mississippi in February 1938. Three of her great-granddaughters also became members of Delta Gamma.

Comfort died in 1940 in Kosciusko, Mississippi at the age of 84 years. She was buried in the city cemetery in Kosciusko.