San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MRS. CLARA LAWTON
An honored resident of Thornton, San
Joaquin County, where she was born and reared, is Mrs. Clara B. Lawton, a
daughter of that old and honored pioneer, Arthur Thornton, for whom the town of
Thornton was named, and whose sketch also appears in this history. Clara B. Thornton attended the grammar school
in the New Hope school district of the county, then was a student at the San
Joaquin Valley College at Woodbridge, and later attended Mills College in
Oakland.
The first marriage of Clara B.
Thornton occurred at Fairfield, Solano County, California, in November, 1889
and united her with Alec Thompson, a native of Virginia, who came to California
in an early day and engaged in farming.
He first settled at Santa Cruz, and later removed to Dixon,
California. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were
the parents of two children: Emma
Pauline, Mrs. Al T. Longton, of Los Angeles; and
Henry Arthur.
Henry Arthur Thompson was born on a
ranch west of Lodi, San Joaquin County, March 13, 1892
and received his education in the schools of the county, afterwards graduating
from Boone Academy, Berkeley. After
reaching young manhood he was employed for four years in the contracting
department of the construction of highways at Arbuckle, and later at Santa
Rosa. In 1919 he came to Thornton and
opened a garage, which he still operates.
On February 8, 1916 he married Miss Catherine Quenell,
a daughter of Nelson and Mary Quenell. He is the owner of an eleven-acre orchard in the
vicinity of Thornton and is a popular citizen and a member of the Knights of
Pythias of Stockton.
On June 1, 1896 in San Francisco,
Mrs. Thompson was married to Robert C. Lawton, a son of Capt. M. C. and
Charlotte Lawton. Mr. Lawton is a civil
engineer. Mrs. Lawton is a professional
nurse and was with the Southern Pacific Hospital in San Francisco for seven
years. During the San Francisco Fire she
was in private practice, which covered a period of ten years; and she was also
nursing at the asylum at Stockton for over two years. She has her interest in the fine orchard
property which belonged to her father, called the old Thornton ranch.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1307. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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