Merribel Carpenter Merribel Frances Carpenter

Fulltime: 1942-1943

B.A. 1936, Mathematics, KCU (first graduating class)

  • Picture From: UKC Yearbook 1936, graduating senior

  • Merribel graduated from Southwest High School in Kansas City, MO in 1931 or 1932. After earning her B.A. from UKC as part of its first graduating class in 1936, that summer she enrolled in graduate mathematics classes at the University of Michigan. Soon after, she became a mathematics school teacher sometime in the same year. By the 1940 US census, she was 25 years old.

  • In 1941, she was teaching at Independence Junior High School, in Independence, MO. The school's Cub Yearbook of 1941 says about her:

    "To have had an ambition to become something romantic, and by all means not to be a school teacher must make it easy for Miss Merribel Carpenter to be an algebra teacher. Her A.B. degree in math and her personality may help her some but special expressions as 'You can't add box cars and soap boxes' and threats like 'I'll shake the socks off you' bear some weight with her pupils. - Collecting crystal rosebowls is her interesting hobby. Miss Carpenter can't decide which irks her more, pupils who come without lessons and then don't pay attention, or William Penn Club members who forget their ECHO assignments."

  • In 1942, the Cub Yearbook says about her:

    "Miss Merribel Carpenter, mathematics teacher and sponsor of the William Penn Club, resigned last week to accept a position in the mathematics department of the University of Kansas City. Previously Miss Carpenter had taught in the summer school and the high school there. She had been in Junior High for six and one-half years."