She was Director of Music at Shenandoah Valley Academy from 1948-1951. From 1951-1956 she taught piano and some classes at Emmanuel Missionary College. After her marriage in 1956 she was a contract theory teacher at Southern Missionary College for three semesters, leaving for Rochester to complete the doctorate begun before her marriage.

Merriman joined Atlantic Union College in 1959, where for some four decades she taught theory, composition and other classes in music and the humanities. For six years she served as music department chair, and later she was Honor Core Program Coordinator for another six years. Since officially retiring, she continues to assist the college and the Thayer Performing Arts Center in various capacities. She also currently serves as organist at a Lutheran church.

While working on graduate degrees at Eastman, Merriman took most of the composition courses offered. Her teachers included Louis Mennini, Herbert Elwell, Wayne Barlow, Bernard Rogers, and Alan Hovhaness. For her doctoral dissertation she composed a symphony which was read under the baton of Howard Hanson and has since been performed by the Thayer Symphony Orchestra and the Redlands Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jon Robertson. Other major works include a second symphony, an oratorio, The Millennium, and a piano concerto.

She and her husband, Houston Merriman, have two children and three grandchildren. Their son, Harold Merriman, is affiliated with the Andrews University Physical Therapy School in Dayton, Ohio. Their daughter, Merri Lynn Braman, is a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant working in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

2003