Mary F. Tenney Papers, 1860-ca. 1960s
| Oberlin College Archives
Administrative/Biographical History
Mary Frances Tenney (1896-1989)
Mary Frances Tenney was born in 1896 in Oberlin, Ohio. Her parents, Sadie Arletta Snedeker and Bernard Frederick Tenney, both attended Oberlin College in the 1880s, although Bernard graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts. Sadie also attended the Oberlin Conservatory between 1895 and 1896. While Mary was a child her family moved to Minnesota, but she returned to Oberlin as a student, earning an A.B. degree from the College in 1917. Her brothers, Luman Harris, Edward Andrews, and William Harvey Tenney also attended Oberlin.
Mary Tenney left Oberlin to earn an M.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1923, and a Ph.D. in classics from Cornell University in 1932. She taught at several high schools and colleges before joining the faculty of the Sophie Newcomb College at Tulane University. While at Tulane, Tenney taught Latin and Greek, and served as Head of the Department of Classical Languages. After retiring in 1961, Tenney returned to Oberlin to care for her father, and accepted a position in the Oberlin College Classics Department for the 1962-1963 academic year. She remained in Oberlin until her death in 1989 at the age of 93.
Luman Harris Tenney (1841-1880)
Mary’s paternal grandfather, Luman Harris Tenney, was born in 1841 in North Amherst, Ohio. His parents were Dr. Luman Tenney and Emeline Harris. Dr. Tenney passed away in 1844, and several years later the family moved to Oberlin.
As a teenager, Luman Tenney and four other friends, Delos Reuben Haynes, William Norton Hudson, Frederick De Forest Allen, and Charles Grandison Fairchild, started an informal literary society named the “Big Fry,” or “B.F.” This club turned into a lasting friendship that the five members maintained throughout their lives. All attended Oberlin, but Tenney and Haynes left before graduation to fight with the 2nd Ohio Voluntary Cavalry in the Civil War, during which Tenney rose to the rank of Major. Fairchild also served in the Union Army, but returned to Oberlin to finish his studies, earning an A.B. in 1866, and a degree from the Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1869. Fairchild served as a finance administrator of Oberlin College from 1882 to 1893, and as President of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida from 1893 to 1896. He died in 1933 in Long Island, New York.
In 1867, Luman Tenney married Frances Delia Andrews, and in 1870 they moved to Duluth, Minnesota. They had three children, Bernard Frederick, Theodore Edward, and Mary Emeline. Luman Tenney worked selling bonds until his death in 1880 in Glyndon, Minnesota from heart complications.
Cartie Centennial Snedeker (1876-?)
Cartie C. Snedeker, Mary’s maternal uncle, was born in Aurora, Ohio in 1876. He attended primary school in Aurora, and grammar and high school in Oberlin. In 1891 he began his career in the U.S. Navy. Snedeker served in the Spanish-American War in 1898, and then worked in Cuba from 1899 to 1902 as Master of Tugs and Launches. He was later employed in the Panama Canal Zone in several capacities, including as Foreman in the Engineering Department of the Isthmian Canal Commission, and as Superintendent of Construction in the Building Division of the Panama Canal and the Panama Railroad. Snedeker married Caridad Rodriguez, who was born in Cuba. They had five children, Angela, Amelia, Mary, Gertrude, and Luis. Snedeker retired in 1933 as a pilot in the Marine Division in the Canal Zone.
SOURCES CONSULTED
Ohio, Portage County. 1880 U.S. Census, population schedule. http://www.ancestry.com. Accessed October 5, 2015.
RG 28, Alumni Records, Student Files for: Allen, Frederick De Forest; Fairchild, Charles Grandison; Haynes, Delos Reuben; Hudson, William Norton; Tenney, Bernard Frederick; Tenney, Luman Harris; Tenney, Mary Frances Tenney, Sadie Snedeker.
Tenney, Luman Harris. The War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: 1861-1865, Printed for Private Circulation by Frances Andrews Tenney. Cleveland: Evangelical Publishing House, 1914.
Author: Antell, Haley Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationOberlin College Archives. RG 32/3/2, Photographs: Presidents, Faculty, Staff, Trustees, and Others.
Tenney, Luman Harris. The War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: 1861-1865, Printed for Private Circulation by Frances Andrews Tenney. Cleveland: Evangelical Publishing House, 1914. https://obis.oberlin.edu/record=b1359637~S4
This small collection includes materials from the Tenney and the Snedeker families. Both families were early settlers in the Lorain County region of Ohio, and are connected by the marriage of Mary’s parents, Bernard Tenney and Sadie Snedeker, in 1895. The Tenney family has a long history with Oberlin College spanning multiple generations.
Series I pertains to Mary Francis Tenney and her family. Her photo album, dating from the mid- to late 19th century, contains tintypes, cabinet cards, and cartes-de-visite. It begins as a family album, and concludes with photographs of students and faculty from Tenney’s time at Oberlin College. The Nettleton, Andrews, and Thurber families are prominently represented, all of which are related to the Tenney family by marriage. The album also contains several photographs of Mary’s grandfather, Luman Harris Tenney, with his friends Delos Reuben Haynes, Frederick De Forest Allen, William Norton Hudson, and Charles Grandison Fairchild. As teenagers in the 1850s, these five friends created an informal literary society in Oberlin called the “Big Fry.” In 1877, the men reunited in St. Louis, Missouri and decided that each should write a brief account of his life thus far, beginning in the year 1860. This ledger, titled the “B.F. Chronology,” is also included in the collection.
Additional materials include poems written by Mary Tenney, and a manuscript on the Oberlin Women’s Club by an unknown author. The photographs in this series depict Willmette (Metta) E. Snedeker and Mary J. Snedeker, Sadie Snedeker Tenney’s sister and mother respectively, and Sadie and Bernard Tenney. Also included are two printed ephemera items: An invitation to an anniversary celebration in 1955, and a program for an event at Baldwin Cottage in 1892.
Series II comprises the papers of Cartie C. Snedeker, Mary Tenney’s uncle. The materials relate almost entirely to his employment in the United States Navy in Cuba following the Spanish-American War, and in the Panama Canal Zone during its construction in the early 1900s. The correspondence, memos, reports, and forms provide information about the various positions he held as well as biographical information about his immediate family during his employment. There are no materials that date after his retirement in 1933, so little is known about his life following his honorable discharge from service.
Also included are military and canal zone government issued booklets of rules and regulations, photographs, newspaper clippings from unidentified sources, and a Knights of Pythias medal engraved with “C.C. Snedeker,” and the date “January 21, 1911.” One letter in the correspondence folder is written in Spanish.
Series III consists of photographs relating to the Tenney and Andrews families donated to the Archives by Professor of Mathematics George Andrews in 1996. These are primarily portraits of individuals and groups, many of which appear to originate from Oberlin. Most of the photographs are not identified.