Jeanne C. Smith Carr

Jeanne C. Smith Carr
Born
Jeanne Caroline Smith

1825
DiedDecember 14, 1903
Burial placeOakland, California, U.S.
Occupations
  • educator
  • letter writer
  • newspaper correspondent
Known for"Carmelita"
Notable workKindred & Related Spirits, the Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr
Spouse
(m. 1844; died 1894)

Jeanne Caroline Smith Carr (1825–1903) was a prolific American newspaper correspondent and an educator who served as Deputy California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. An expert in botany and horticulture, Carr is chiefly remembered as a mentor of John Muir, with whom she had a public and platonic, yet warm and intimate relationship, their correspondence spanning 30 years.

At her home, "Carmelita", in Pasadena, California, Helen Hunt Jackson is said to have written many pages of her masterpiece, Ramona. Carr was a good friend of Helena Modjeska; and among well-known people who partook of Carr's hospitality were Charles Dudley Warner, Bret Harte, Ole Bull, and Paul Du Chaillu.