Background
Sleeth was born in Evanston, Illinois.
Sleeth was born in Evanston, Illinois.
Wellesley College.
In 1934, she began to study the piano at the early age of four. In 1952, she received an Academic major in music theory and a Bachelor in music theory at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In her later life she received an honorary doctorate from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1959, and from Nebraska Wesleyan College in 1990.
An organist, she wrote over 180 highly successful selections for church and school.
One of Sleeth"s best-known anthems for choir is entitled "Joy in the Morning" and was written for the West Virginia Wesleyan College concert chorale on the occasion of her husband"s inauguration as the president of West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1977. This was composed as an anthem and dedicated to Ronald, who was diagnosed with cancer very soon after its composition.
lieutenant was written for the Pasadena Community Church, Saint St. Petersburg Florida, conducted by C. Frederick Harrison, and first performed by their choirs in March 1985. lieutenant was also performed at Ronald"s funeral, the only song of hers to be performed for that occasion at his request.
lieutenant also appears as hymn #707 under the title "Hymn of Promise" in the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, Tennessee: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989).
Translated into German by Lothar Pöll in 1999 this hymn is part of the "Gesangbuch der Evangelisch-methodistischen Kirche" (Stuttgart / Zürich / Wien: Medienwerk der EmK, 2002, #661). Sleeth died of cancer in Denver, Colorado, in 1992.