Partner Leila H. Rupp
Queer Places:
82 Main St, Belle Vernon, PA 15012
1910s
638 College St, Pittsburgh, PA 15232
1930s
North Dithridge Street, Oakland 1980s
Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA
Diantha W. Riddle (July 3, 1895 - April 26, 1983) was an English teacher. When she died, on April 26, 1983, one of her funeral notices read "dear friend of Leila H. Rupp". They are now buried together.
Diantha W. Riddle was a graduate of from California Normal School and the University of Pittsburgh. She was a member of the Third Presbyterian Church in Shadyside and the College Club and the national and state educational associations. Diantha W. Riddle was an English teacher at Colfax Elementary School and Allderdice High School, Pittsburgh, for many years.
Leila H. Rupp is the aunt of lesbian historian, Leila J. Rupp: When I try to explain to my friends why my aunt Leila was so important to me, I usually say that I'm her namesake, that she taught history, and that she lived with a woman, Diantha, for as long as I can remember. They were just like a married couple in our family. We visited them on summer vacations “down the shore,” as we said in New Jersey, though they always rented their own apartment. They had one bedroom, with twin beds. I wrote poems, and Diantha, who taught English in the same Pittsburgh high school where Leila taught, encouraged me. They always dressed similarly, but with certain regular differences: linen dresses with jackets, for example, but different cuts and colors (Diantha's red or yellow, Leila's blue or green). Diantha cooked and Leila washed the dishes, and they teased each other, both claiming to do most of the work. They had other women friends who lived as couples, and when Aunt Leila first met my partner Verta, after Diantha had died, she took her aside, told her how glad she was that I'd found a friend, and asked whether Verta knew she too had had a friend. She called up her new friend, Mary, who came to meet us, and the two of them stood there arm in arm. But later Aunt Leila confided that no one suited her like Diantha. The last time I talked with Aunt Leila she was eighty-nine, in a nursing home, having become extremely confused from what I'm pretty sure was a series of small strokes. I hoped she would talk about Diantha. My father, her younger brother, said she never mentioned Diantha, and he reported that shortly after Diantha died, several different people told him Diantha hadn't been very nice to Leila. When he repeated this to Leila she got furious and forbade him ever to bring up Diantha's name.
In the 1910 Census, Riddle is living with her family in Belle Vernon, PA. In the 1930 Census she is a lodger in Pittsburgh, PA. At the time of her death, Riddle lived at 101 N. Dithridge St., Oakland. She died at Negley House, Shadyside.
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