Mahoney, Leslie Nell Savage, 1890-1986

Nell Savage Mahoney, May 1942

Leslie Nelson ("Nell") Savage was born in 1890 in Nashville, Tennessee, one of three daughters of Leslie Alice Jones and opthamologist Dr. Giles Christopher Savage. She graduated from Ward Seminary, a private girls' school in Nashville, in 1908 and began study at Vanderbilt University. After a year she transferred to Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1912. Her continued interest in architectural history and design led her to take courses at the Art League in New York, the New York School of Applied Design for Women, and Cooper Union. She began study in 1916 at Ward Belmont School, completing a Certificate in Interior Decorating. In July 1918, she received an appointment as clerk in the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, D.C. She resigned in October of the same year. In 1923 she married Charles Hallum Mahoney, the first cousin of her sister Kate's husband. They were divorced in May 1925. She received full custody of their daughter Margaret Ellerbe Mahoney who was born in October 1924.

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