San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MRS. JOHN HENNING
San Joaquin County has always
honored its teaching profession, of late years so well represented by Mrs. John
Henning, who was in maidenhood Myrtle Harnly, and who was born in this county
near Acampo, the daughter of Jacob Harnly, a native of Mansfield, Ohio, who
married Miss Emma Ray, born in Woodbridge, California. Grandfather John Harnly had a large flour
mill on the Ohio River in early pioneer days.
Jacob Harnly came to California in 1876, and operated a grain ranch of
160 acres at the northern end of the county.
Mr. and Mrs. Harnly were married in Woodbridge, and Mrs. Henning’s
grandparents, Samuel and Melvina (Guard) Ray, were
married while members of an ox-team train, en route across the plains from
Illinois to Oregon in 1849. Both the Ray and the Guard families were in the
same train, and the young married couple reached California in 1851. The maternal grandmother’s people were
natives of Virginia, and before the Civil War the entire family moved to
Illinois, on account of their sympathy with the views of the
Abolitionists. In 1851 Grandfather Ray
settled at New Hope, San Joaquin County, where he bought 640 acres of land, a
part of which lay in Section No. 13, Union Township, and a part in Section No.
18, Elkhorn Township, and here he raised cattle for years. Samuel Ray’s house was on a high knoll, and
the cowboys used his place as a refuge from the flood waters. He died at the age of sixty years, but his
wife lived to be seventy. Jacob Harnly
died in 1918, but Mrs. Harnly is still living in Lodi. Our subject has only one sister, Mrs. Effie
Valentine, who resides at Lodi. Mr.
Harnly at one time leased a part of the B. F. Langford estate, now known as the
Cory ranch, when the ranch was completely covered with large oak trees and
brush. He employed Chinese to clear it
and raised wheat for years.
Myrtle Harnly attended Miss Beebe’s
private school at Stockton, as well as the Oakland high school, and then took
courses at the Stockton Business College and the San Jose State Normal
School. She then began teaching at Mackville, two miles north of Clements, where she taught
for two years, and afterwards at Elliott, Acampo, and Waterloo, seven years in
all, until her marriage. Just after the
World War, she again engaged in teaching as principal of the Washington school,
two miles east of Clements, where she is now teaching her fourth year.
At Lodi, on April 14, 1907, Miss
Harnly was married to John A. Henning, the son of A. P. and Sarah E. Henning,
members of a worthy pioneer family whose life-story is elsewhere outlined in
this work. Her husband attended school
at San Jose and also in Shasta County, and at present is superintendent of public
utilities for the city of Lodi. He has
held this position ever since the city took over its utilities, and spent the
five preceding years in the same position with a private company. He is a member of the Healdsburg Lodge of
Masons. Three children have blessed
their union: Clinton, Elma and Ellen
Irene. Mrs. Henning is an active member
of the Lodi Woman’s Club, a member of the board of directors, and chairman of
civics, and with the other members is having her name transmitted to posterity
in the cornerstone box of the club-house just completed. She has been very active in the movement for
procuring a permanent playground and recreation center for children and
grown-ups in Lodi.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1475-1476. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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