Hurley Family Tree

MRS. MARY E. HURLEY, During the years in which she has engaged in educational work Mrs. Hurley has established an enviable reputation for imparting knowledge to those under her charge. Primary work has been her specialty, and for years the littlenes in Susanville have gained their first ideas of school under her beneficent rule and sheltered by her protecting love. Those who were her first pupils are now out in the active world of society, business and manifold responsibilties, but they hve not ceased to remember with pleasure her kindly oversight during their initiation into the work of the schoolroom. Indeed, her association with the schools of Susanville has been of the highest value to the educational progress of the city. Mrs. Hurley is of eastern birth and ancestry and was born in Worcester County, Mass., being the daughter of David A. and Fannie (Stickney) Edwards, natives respectivly of Massachusetts and Vermont. The maternal grandfather, Martin Stickney, was a naive of Vermont and a farmer by occupation. Very early in the colonization of America three brothers bearing the name of Edwards crossed the ocean from England. One of these, a bachelor, bought from the Indians almost all of Manhattan Island and thre made his home for some time, but eventually he leased the property for one hundred years. later generations of the family were unable to regain the property at the expiration of the lease. For a considerable period David A. Edwards engaged in te manufacture of scythe snaths at Athens, Windham Co., Vt. and later engaged in farming in New Jersey, where his wife died at at forty six years of age. Both he and his wife were faithful members of the Baptist Church. In the Edwards family thereere four daughters and three sons, and of these the following survive: Mrs. Cetara C. Leavitt, living near Susanville ; Mrs. Mary E. Hurley ; Mrs. Etta Ward, of Oakland ; Herbert, of Susanville ; and Mrs. Florence DeForest, whose home is near this city. Primarily educated in the public schools of Vermont, Miss Mary E. Edwards later attended school No.16 in Brooklyn and then prepard for teaching in the Brooklyn Normal School. In 1864 she took passage on the Costa Rica to the Isthmus of Panma and from there sailed up the Pacific on the Golden Age to San Francisco. After landing she at once proceeded to Nevada and joined a sister Mrs. Leavitt, near Verdi. There she was married, March 6 1865, to George N. Bennett, who was born in Main, came west in an early day and for years was a partner of Mr. Leavitt. In the fall of 1866 Mr. and Mrs. Bennett moved to Honey Lake valley and bought land seven miles below Susanville, where they built a house and made various improvements. In 185, hoping a change in climate would benefit Mr. Bennett, they removed to San Francisco, but he was not helped by removal from the mountains and died in 1876. Shortly afterward his widow returned to Susanville, where March 16, 1880 she became the wfe of Dr. George Hurley, who born in Ohio was graduated from the Keokuk Medical College at Keokuk, Iowa, with the degree of M.D. and came to California in 1876, following professional work at Elmira and Vacaville. From the latter town in 1877 he cme to Susanville, where he engage in practice until his death, August 6 1880. Thus bereaved and widowed, Mrs Hurley found a field of activity in educational work, and during the fall of 1880 became connected with the Susanville schools as an assisant in the grammar department and a substitute teacher. The following term she was chosen to teach the primary department, where she remained three years. An important and remunerative position with the schools of Junction City, Kans., was offered Mrs. Hurley and promptly accepted, but after she had spent ten days in that place she found it would be necessary for her to return to the west on account of her sons health, and she therefore resigned. After a year as teacher in Reno, Nev., she spent a year in Los Angeles, and the carried on a milllinery store at Susanville for a year. In 1887 she resumed her connection with the Susanville schools, where she has since been in charge of the primary department. When at leisure from school duties, she enjoys the comfort of her neat home on Roop and Cottage streets and also mingles in the social and religious life of the community. Her children now are in other parts, the son, Herbert W. Bennett, being in Sacramento, while the daugter, formerly Matie A. Bennett, is the wife of A. L. Smith and resides in Carson City, Nev. However, her life is not a lonly existance, for she has the affection of the pupils under supervision, the companionship of relatives living in this localiy, and the interests of the Order of the Eastern Star, with which she has been associated for years, as well as her work in the Susanville Methodist Episcopal Church, where she has officiated with intelligence and success as president of the Ladie' Foreign Missionary Society and the Ladies Aid Society.