Leona Bowman Carpenter

Carpenter, an alumna of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing and benefactor of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, was born in Timberville, Virginia. She graduated in 1935 with a B.A. in English from Duke University. Upon graduation from the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing in 1939, she worked as a public health nurse in Virginia.

From 1942 to 1944, she was an instructor in the dispensary visiting nurse program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. She served with the Army Nurse Corps from 1944 to 1945, and as director of nursing service at King’s Daughter Hospital in Staunton, Virginia from 1946 to 1947. She married Paul Day in 1947, and took a position as education director of the Kanawah/Charleston City Health Department.

After Day’s death, Carpenter remained active in nursing into the 1960s, teaching student nurses at Stuart Circle Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. She married E. Rhodes Carpenter of Carpenter Co. in 1971. Carpenter founded The E. Rhodes Carpenter Foundation in 1975. Upon the death of E. Rhodes in 1980 and Leona in 1981, the foundation’s name was changed to The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. The foundation has provided generous funding to the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing for student scholarships and building campaigns.