By Bill Pumford, Image from the Russ Keller Collection
TITLE: MARY PUTNAM HENCK: March is the month in which Women’s History is celebrated. Amongst other well-known women on the mountain like Audrey MacKay, Julia Dexter, and Sara Switzer we have Mary Putnam Henck. Mary was born Mary Perkins Putnam in 1882 in River Falls, Wisconsin. Several years later her father moved the family to California where Mary attended Los Angeles High School. Later she attended Berkeley and received a teaching degree in 1903. After college she began teaching high school in the Los Angeles area and during this time she met her future husband, Joseph Ellery Henck. This week’s image shows a young Mary. They were married in 1917 and a few years later they moved to a fruit ranch in Hemet. Mary got involved in the local community and, with other local residents, helped put in place the very popular Ramona Pageant which had its first performance in 1923. Also, in 1923 the Henck family, now including four children, moved to Skyforest (then known as Forest in the Sky). In 1924 Mary Henck got permission to use one of the rooms in a building in the Lake Arrowhead Village to hold classes since there was no actual school in the area. In 1926 a new building was erected as a school which is now the site of the fire station just outside the village. Mary was also very active in conservation and initiated an effort to plant 800 trees at Heaps Ranch. Mary continued her interest in women’s rights and traveled to Washington D.C. to support the suffrage movement. In 1926 she participated in the creation of the Women’s Club of Lake Arrowhead and became president of the organization. During World War II Mary became the postmaster of the Skyforest Post Office – a position she held from 1940 until 1955. Mary Putnam Henck died in 1963 after a productive and selfless life. She was an influencer before it became popular in social media.