Mary Rhodes Eliot

Mary was the eldest of fourteen children of William Greenleaf Eliot. She died after a brief illness at the age of sixteen. Mary Institute in St. Louis, Missouri is named in her honor. It was begun with a gift of $4,000 from four members of the board of directors of Washington University who also were members of the Unitarian church and close friends of Dr. Eliot. Their gift was made with two conditions: that the school be named the Mary Institute to memorialize Eliot's daughter and that it be chartered on May 11, 1859, which would have been Mary's twenty-first birthday. Mary Institute opened its doors in 1859 as a day school whose primary clientele was St. Louisans who wished to have a quality education for their daughters without having to send them away from home.