The Valley of Heart's Delight
PROFESSOR ELMER E. BROWNELL
page 767
California has bee particularly fortunate in her exceptional
staff of educators who have done yeoman service in helping to lay broad
and deep the foundations of the great commonwealth, and prominent among
those contributing to theses great aims and results is Prof. Elmer E.
Brownerll, the popular supervising principal of the Gilroy public schools
and a leader in the educational work of Santa Clara County. A native of
Vermonter, Elmer E. Brownell was born at Essex Junction, n the Green
Mountain State, on June 1, 1865, the son of Lyman A. Brownell, also a
vermonter, a stonemason who migrated west to California in 1871, and
settled at San Jose, where he died in 1902. Mrs. Brownell, who
was Eliza A. Cook, before her marriage and a native of New York, died
January 23, 1921, highly esteemed as was her husband, and the center
of a circle of steadfast friends. The Brownell's came to America
before the Revolutionary War, three brothers hailing from England, and
settled in Vermont, while the Cook family migrated from Scotland to New
York in early Colonial days.
Elmer Brownell passed through the elementary schools of San Jose and
was graduated from the State Normal in this city in 1884, after which
he spent on year at Stanford University, and in 1887 he was in charge
of the Lone Tree district school in Contra Costa County The
following year he removed to Monterey County, and then taught at Warm
Springs and next at Decoto, in Alameda County, becoming there the
acting principal of schools. He was principal of the Mountain
View
schools from 1890 to 1899, and was assistant teacher of the San Jose
high school from 1899 to 1904. Since 1904 he has had charge of
the Gilroy schools From 1896 to 1906 he was president of the board of
education of Santa Clara County. In national political affairs a
Republican, Professor Brownell has always been an enthusiastic,
non-artisan worker of local movements and men properly endorse.
At Irvington, in Alameda County, on July 25, 1890, Mr. Brownell was
married to Miss Lizzie Calpey Craycroft, the daughter of J. W.
Craycroft of Modesto. She passed away in 1903, lamented by all
who had come to appreciate her personality and gifts, and survived by
four sons; R. E. Brownell is a graduate of the University of
California, class of '11, from which he received the D. D. S. degree;
he is married and the father o two children, and resides at
Fresno. John R. is in the employ of the Southern Pacific
Railroad, is married and has one child, and served for twelve moths in
France, during the World War. Dr. H. L. Brownell is also a
graduate of the Physicians and Surgeons College of San Francisco,
having been a member of the class of '14; he is married and lives at
Fresno, and was a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy during the war.
Herbert W. Brownell, another ex-service man, is attending the Dental
College of the University of Southern California. Professor
Brownell was married for the second time on Christmas Day, 1909 to Miss
Sarah Annette Whitehurst, the daughter of L. A.[transcribers note- this
is probably A. L.] Whitehurst, the well-known pioneer, now
deceased. The family now reside at the old Whitehurst home on
South Church Street, Gilroy. Professor Brownell is a Republican,
a Scottish Rite Mason and Knight Templar and a member of Islam Temple,
A. A. O. N. M. S., of San Francisco, and belongs to the
Watsonville lodge of Elks, and to the Mountain View lodge of Odd
Fellows, the Gilroy I. O. F., and is secretary and treasurer of Gilroy
Golf and Country Club .
Sawyer, Eugene T.
History of Santa Clara County, California :
with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county
who have been identified with its growth and development from the early
days to the present
Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic Record Co., 1922
page 767
join with A L Whitehurst bio------
Trancsribed by Cdf
July 17, 2005
SANTA CLARA COUNTY- The Valley of Heart's Delight