Mabel Claire Henderson Hutchinson scrapbooks

Collection

Identifier: 00158

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection contains Mabel Henderson Hutchinson's scrapbooks which include an autobiographical sketch from birth to 1943 with many mementos from school, friends, activities and news clippings. Mabel kept extensive journals of each Florida trip she and her husband took, as well as other trips across the west. Also included in the collection are photographs of relatives of the John Henderson family, friends and their families and a sewing book done by Mabel.

Dates

Creation: 1889 - 1943

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from this collection must be obtained from University Archives & Historical Collections, Michigan State University.

Biography

Mabel Claire Henderson Hutchinson was born in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, on January 1889. Her father, John Henderson, moved from West Liberty, Ohio in February of 1874 to Eaton Rapids where he owned his own harness shop.

Mabel attended grade school and high school in Eaton Rapids and studied voice at Albion College. After graduation, she took bookkeeping by correspondence from Cleary Business College of Ypsilanti. In the fall of 1909, Mary entered Ypsilanti State Normal college, specializing in Latin and German. She quit school after one year to care for her father after her mother died on November 12, 1910. Mabel then returned to college in 1911, finished her coursework and graduated in 1912 from what had become Michigan State Normal College (presently Eastern Michigan University).

Mabel, again, returned home to care for her father and substitute taught for several years, until she took a full-time teaching position for two years in the same Eaton Rapids high school that she had attended. She married Fred Hutchinson in February 1924 and her only child was born dead in December 1924. After her father died (he was the last civil war veteran of Eaton Rapids) in 1936, Mabel and Fred traveled around the country and made several trips to Florida. Fred Hutchinson died in 1943 and Mabel involved herself in social clubs and traveling.