Edith Rickey

Edith (Edie) MacNaughton Leighton was born on August 6, 1924, in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bradford Woods. She was the daughter of Wilma, an Army Red Cross nurse during World War I, and James Leighton, a civil engineer. She had a reputation for confidence and good cooking at a young age, having earned the nickname of “Flash” in high school. She attended the Carnegie Mellon Institute of Technology, majoring in home economics, but dropped out before graduation. During the war she worked as a welder in a shipyard in Pittsburgh. At age 21, she left home for New York City where she met George Rickey, who was studying at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York. At the time Edie was working as an editorial... more.