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Rachel McMasters Miller married Roy on June 11, 1913.
The daughter of Mortimer Craig Miller and Rachel Hughey McMasters,
she was born on June 30, 1882 in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania
and was educated at the Thurston School in Pittsburgh and
Miss Mittleberger's School for Girls in Cleveland. She and
Roy had four sons: Alfred Mortimer Hunt (1919-1984), Torrence
Miller Hunt (1921-2004), Roy Arthur Hunt, Jr. (1924-1981), and
Richard McMasters Hunt (1926-).
Throughout her life, Rachel maintained an active interest
in botany, horticulture, and bookbinding. An accomplished
bookbinder, she exhibited
thirty-four of her books at the New York School of Applied
Design for Women in 1911, an exhibit that later moved to the
Wunderly Galleries in Pittsburgh. Her first gift to Roy was
a copy of The Book of Common Prayer, which she had
bound and appropriately tooled in aluminum.
Rachel was a member of more than thirty horticultural and
botanical organizations, some of which she helped to establish.
In 1956, she was named Honorary Vice President of the American
Horticultural Society. She authored books and papers, and
lectured widely in the fields of horticulture and literature.
Carnegie Institute of Technology awarded her an honorary degree
of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1960.
Due to her love of books and flowers, Rachel acquired a remarkable
collection of historically significant botanical books and
art. In 1961, she and Roy established the Hunt Botanical Library
at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now the Hunt
Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon
University). The Institute continues its curatorial work and
research in systematic botany and serves as a resource for
botanists from around the world.
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