The following description was provided by project participants.

"Mrs. Carter –a native of Syracuse, New York- was hired by the Syracuse City School District via a Competitive Examination Process shortly before graduating from Cortland State Teacher's College in 1950. Letter confirming Marjorie Dey as teacher in the Syracuse school district, making her the first Negro teacher in Syracuse by David H. Patton, Superintendent of Schools. She was only 23 years old at the time. Her starting salary was $2200 dollars a year – at that time the standard starting salary for a recent college graduate without prior teaching experience. Newspapers at the time quoted Ms. Dey (later to become Mrs. Carter by marriage) as saying that she was "delighted with her new job." (Herald-Journal, April 12th, 1950)

Mrs. Carter remained with the Syracuse City School District for her entire career, eventually retiring in 1990 as an Administrator at Dr. Weeks Elementary school.

According to genealogical research that Mrs. Dey-Carter has done, the Dey family may have been in the Central New York region since the 1700s. Her father: Orlando Williams Day was born in Southern Onondaga County –in the vicinity of the town of Skaneateles. Her mother, Hester Coles had family in the Princeton New Jersey area but later moved to Syracuse. Her grand-father, Alexander Dey was born in the Fulton New York area in 1836.

The Dey family members were farmers in the southern tier of Onondaga County until the early part of the twentieth century, when Mrs. Carter-Dey's father Orlando moved the family to Syracuse to find work. Orlando Williams Day ended up being the caretaker for the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity house on the Syracuse University campus for many years."