MILDRED P. HANSON
Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: PATRICK, WITTEN, KIMBALL, PATRICK
A Prominent among the best-trained, most successful teachers, whose
popularity, extending through Santa Clara County, has been clearly due
to hard, efficient work coupled with the influence of an attracting
personality, is Miss Mildred P. Hanson, who resides at 774 South Eighth
Street, San Jose. A native daughter proud of her heritage, she was born
at Sonora, in Tuolumne County, Cal., and her father was Jesse Kimball
Hanson, a member of an honored New England family of farmer folk. He
came out to San Francisco in '49, sailing around Cape Horn to get
there, and from San Francisco he hurried into the southern mines of
Tuolumne. He was not particularly successful, however, and instead of
pinning his faith to the digging for gold, he opened a book store,
where he also sold Chinese curios. He also managed the telegraph
station at Sonora, for he was an expert operator. He was a well-read
man, and found a worthy, inspiring companion in his wife, who was Miss
Annie E. Patrick before her marriage, the member of a family that had
migrated in 1760 to South Carolina from French Lorraine, and which
eventually became represented in North Carolina, Tennessee and Northern
Alabama.
Miss Patrick's father made his way to California for the first
time via the Isthmus of Panama, after which he returned to the East by
the same route; then he brought his family across the great plains, and
once here he became a member of the State Legislature, and for many
years he was sheriff of Tuolumne County. Mr. and Mrs. Hanson removed to
Fresno County, where the mother died in 1870; the father continued in
the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad, whose service he had
entered, being stationed at Tehachepi and Tulare. When the private line
was built from Goshen to Visalia he became station agent at Visalia. In
1878 he, too, passed away, honored by all who knew him as a
progressive,' dependable pioneer citizen.
Miss Mildred Hanson was graduated from the San Jose high school in
1883, and eighteen months later received from the State Normal School
at San Jose her certificate for teaching. The first school to which she
was assigned was in the Elbow Creek district, where she was in charge
of some thirty-five pupils for a year; and then she spent a year and a
half in the public schools of San Luis Obispo County. After that, she
moved north to Washington, and for a season taught at Waitsburg,
getting a good idea of the conditions of life in that locality, and so
enlarging her knowledge of Pacific Coast geography.
In the fall of 1889, she came to San Jose and entered the Willow Glen
School as a primary teacher, becoming the fourth teacher on the staff
for that season; and at the beginning of the school term in 1908 she
was appointed principal, and then there were six teachers. Ever alert
and untiring in constructive work and desirable legislation, and the
building up a fine elementary school. Miss Hanson has kept abreast of
the times, and now a new and handsome school edifice is being erected
to accommodate the increasing number of pupils there. The coming year
Miss Hanson is to continue as the vice-principal of the school,
although for some time she has contemplated retiring from active
professional duties. For years she has been a member of the executive
committee of the Santa Clara County Teachers' Association, in which her
influence has always been wide and helpful to every important interest,
and in support of the worthiest movements. With her sister, Miss
Margaret Hanson. who is vice-principal of the Visalia-Jefferson Grammar
School, Miss Hanson owns the residence at 74 South Eighth Street. San
Jose, which has been their home for some years; another sister is Mrs.
C. L. Witten. the wife of Judge Witten of San Jose. History and
ancestry, both recalling the fine old days of early California and New
England, as well as Southern. are subjects of attraction to these
ladies, for their forefathers were among the Kimballs and Hansons who
settled in New Hampshire as early as 1640. became prominent
professionally, and figured in Colonial history and the building of the
nation. These forebears also included Maj. John L. Patrick and his
brother, Capt. George W. Patrick, whose reputation for prowess in
another part of the United States was equally enviable. They have good
reason, therefore, to be proud of their ancestors, as they are of the
great Pacific commonwealth in which they themselves have had their part
in social and educational formations, and Santa Clara and Tulare
counties may well he congratulated upon securing such pedagogical
talent as that of the Misses Hanson.
Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 1051