MRS.
MARY AGE KENNEY, M.D., of Oakland, is a native of Maine, and a daughter of
James M. and Olive (Locke) Robinson.
This branch of Robinsons descended from Robinson of Leyden, of the early
pilgrims. The grandfather, Nathaniel
Robinson, a native of New Hampshire, had five sons and three daughters, was a
farmer by occupation and a captain of militia, and lived to the age of about 70
years. His wife, need Polly Marston,
was a native of New Hampshire and lived to be about 68 years old. James M. Robinson was brought up to the
trades of wheelwright, blacksmith and carriage-maker, settled in Mt. Vernon,
where he was school director for a time, and died in 1847, at the age of about
forty years. The grandfather Locke died
in middle life, of an accident, leaving six children; and his wife, nee Olive Robinson, afterward married
Obadiah French, a soldier of the war of 1812.
The eldest of Mr. Locke's children lived to be over eighty years of age,
and several others reached seventy or more.
Mrs.
Dr. Kinney came to California in 1855, and was married, in San Francisco to
Isaac Adams Kenney, a merchant of Stockton, who was a native of New Hampshire
and a descendant of an old established family of New England. He died in 1880, leaving one son, Walter
Adams Kenney, now manager for Whittier, Fuller & Co., of San
Francisco. Dr. Kenney graduated at the
San Francisco high school, studied medicine, homeopathic, and practiced it
several years, and finally graduated, after a three-years course, at the Eclectic
Medical College, started by Drs. Weber and the McRea. For twenty years she has made a specialty of chronic diseases;
has used electricity some years, and combination with water and massage since
September, 1890, which she finds very ineffectual. She has been practicing in Oakland since 1878, with only a brief
absence. She has recently at leased a
beautiful building at the corner of Tenth and Clay streets, for office and
residence. The basement floor is
converted into a sanitarium, with special departments for vapor baths, massage
treatment and electricity. The
vapor-bath department is equipped with a large L-shaped, zinc-lined steam tub. The patient or bather is placed in this tub,
and, with a gradually increasing temperature, is allowed to remain until the
pores of the skin are well opened; then he is treated with a brisk brushing or
sponging; next he is placed in a metallic tub, where he is well sprayed, and thence
he is taken to the massage table. The
gentleman's and the ladies' departments are presided over by experts in their
respective roles.
Source:
"The Bay of San Francisco" (and Its Cities And Their Suburbs) Vol 1.
Lewis Publishing Company 1892. Page 470-471.
Submitted
by: Nancy Pratt Melton.
© 2003 Nancy Pratt Melton