Oct 28, 2019

Nellie Louise McClenathan died Wednesday, October 2, 2019.

She was born April 17, 1931, in Washington, a daughter of the late James Paul and Emma Hoey McClenathan. After graduation from Washington High School, Miss McClenathan earned a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She later received a master’s degree in education from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. and was awarded a full fellowship for postgraduate study at the University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y. She taught in public and private schools in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia and served as a curriculum specialist, writing programs in history and the social sciences for both elementary and secondary schools.

Miss McClenathan also wrote for national newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post and The Washington Star-News. Regionally, she wrote for Virginia newspapers as well as for The Pittsburgh Press, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Washington Observer-Reporter and The Almanac. She had also published in Pittsburgh Magazine and The Ladies’ Home Journal. Her poetry appeared in several anthologies and she was the lead poet in Living Inland, a 1990 anthology of Pittsburgh poets and photographers.

Though she wrote for both adults and children, her four published children’s books all reflect themes of wisdom and enterprise. Her first book, Good Wife, Good Wife, was also printed abroad and was told by a local story teller at the 1998 International Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution held at Duquesne University. McClenathan used a pen name of Louise Dickerson on this book, to memorialize her great-grandmother, Margaret Dickerson Hazlett, who died in childbirth. McClenathan’s second book, My Mother Sends Her Wisdom, was selected by the American Institute of Graphic Arts in its annual competition as one of the 100 best-designed books of the year. An original folk tale set in old Russia, it became a children’s book club selection and was reprinted in several elementary school readers. Her third book, The Easter Pig, was nominated for the Georgia Picture Book of the Year award. I Can Do It Day, her fourth book, was commissioned by Houghton-Mifflin, Inc. for its reading series.

Returning to Washington, Pa. in 1978, Ms. McClenathan became Director of Research and Associate Director of Development at Waynesburg College, Waynesburg. Under a three-year federally funded program she secured grants and private donations for the college. She later served as an investment broker for the firms of Kidder-Peabody and A.G. Edwards and as an Investment Advisor for Hunter Associates in Pittburgh. In 1997 she retired to pursue research and writing, focusing on local history.

After her return to Washington in 1978, she served on the boards of the Washington County History & Landmarks Foundation, The Neighborhood Assistance Council, the Southwest Pennsylvania Health System Agency and the Y.W.C.A. She was a member of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club of Pittsburgh.

Miss McClenathan was a member of the Chartiers Hill Presbyterian Church. She is survived by five nephews and two nieces. She was preceded in death by her brother, Dr. James Edward McClenathan; and her sisters, Ruth McClenathan McCracken and Jane McClenathan Schenck.